Medieval Africa, 1250-1800

by Roland Anthony Oliver, Anthony Atmore

This radically revised and updated companion volume to the authors' well-known Africa since 1800 (now in its fourth edition) takes African history from about 1250 AD, when African societies were expanding their political and economic scope, and when Islamic influences were already reaching across the Sahara and down the Indian Ocean coastline. It continues through the period of early European contact from the fifteenth century onward, with much emphasis on expanding Atlantic trade.

Genres: History, Africa, Nonfiction, Medieval

260 pages, Paperback

First published August 16, 2001

About the author

Roland Oliver was one of the founders of the academic study of African history in the West.

Reviews

[Lious Moco · Rating 4 out of 5]

An okay piece on medieval Africa, and I like as the authors respect the fact that the slave trade was marginal to the economies of most medieval African polities, and it had no bearing on the political and social activities and motives of Africans around that epoch. The only downside are the languages sometimes employed, that are used to describe some activities. Also, it doesn't cover the political and social activities of medieval Africans in depth, but summarises it.

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book, synthethising a large amount of information into a readable narrative but It is not really a book for beginners; I would have got more out of it if I knew more about African geography and linguistics. However there are plenty of maps (at least one per chapter) and it is good to find a book that covers the entire continent. I learned a lot from it, especially about the importance of the indigenous slave trade throughout the continent and the role of the Portuguese.

[Jindřich Zapletal · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a textbook all right. I liked its compartmentalization of the continent, which made it easier to think about the huge topic and to determine further directions of study. Given the enormous scope of the topic, one cannot expect more than the roughest outline of the history of each region, and that is what the reader will find.

I am not sure how other people use textbooks of this type. If you just read this textbook and think that you know something about medieval Africa, you are naive. First of all, you are immediately going to forget nearly everything that was in it. Second, it is really impossible to fit something so large and diverse into a single book. For me, I used it to tie together other books about different regions and eras of Africa that I read and place them into broader context; plus, for the bibliography. In these respects, this textbook was really useful, and compared with several others it was by far the best.

[kacey · Rating 3 out of 5]

dense, as is to be expected, and the bibliography is dated. my biggest complaint is that the text often refers to geopolitical or geographical features not marked on the accompanying maps, which are usually cluttered and confusing. no, your audience is not all intimately familiar with African geography! spend some of that sweet Cambridge money and invest in better design.