This pioneering book, the first on this period of the region's history in a generation, tells a different story. Interweaving political and social history and drawing on a rich array of sources, including Arabic manuscripts, oral histories, and recent archaeological findings, Michael Gomez unveils a new vision of how categories of ethnicity, race, gender, and caste emerged in Africa and in global history more generally.

Table of Contents

• Preface
• PROLOGUE.
• PART I. EARLY SAHEL AND SAVANNAH
• CHAPTER 1. The Middle Niger in Pre-Antiquity and Global Context
• CHAPTER 2. Early Gao
• CHAPTER 3. The Kingdoms of Ghana: Reform along the Senegal River
• CHAPTER 4. Slavery and Race Imagined in Bilād As-Sūdān
• PART II. IMPERIAL MALI
• CHAPTER 5. The Meanings of Sunjata and the Dawn of Imperial Mali
• CHAPTER 6. Mansā Mūsā and Global Mali
• CHAPTER 7. Intrigue, Islam, and Ibn Baṭṭūṭa
• PART III. IMPERIAL SONGHAY
• CHAPTER 8. Sunni ‘Alī and the Reinvention of Songhay
• CHAPTER 9. The Sunni and the Scholars: A Tale of Revenge
• CHAPTER 10. Renaissance: The Age of Askia Al-Ḥājj Muḥammad
• CHAPTER 11. Of Clerics and Concubines
• PART IV. LE DERNIER DE L'EMPIRE
• CHAPTER 12. Of Fitnas and Fratricide: The Nadir of Imperial Songhay
• CHAPTER 13. Surfeit and Stability: The Era of Askia Dāwūd
• CHAPTER 14. The Rending Asunder: Dominion's End
• EPILOGUE. A Thousand Years
• Select Bibliography