Everyday Life in an Early West African Empire

by Robin Oliver Walker, Siaf Miller, Saran Keita

Five centuries ago, a great super-state flourished in West Africa. Known as the Songhai Empire, it was one of the largest imperial systems in the sixteenth century. It was nearly the same size of as all the European states combined and had 50 million people – more than that of Black America today. There were 400 cities, and the Niger Delta region alone boasted 300 Mosques. Thus, a level of urbanism existed hardly seen anywhere else before the nineteenth century.

This book for the first time combines a scholarly approach with an accessible style that brings the old Empire alive. It is comprehensive in scope and is beautifully illustrated using museum quality photographs and rare archival images. No other work of which we are aware has done as much justice to this period of World History.

Genres: History, Africa

308 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2013

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This scholarly book focuses on the history of the Songhai empire of medieval West Africa. Drawing on a variety of sources, including early writers, later colonial investigators and more recent research, we follow the growth and the eventual decline of this super-state of the old World.

This work includes:-

- A background to the sources of information and the evidence for what we know about the history of West Africa

- The Building of the Empire - the history and origins of the Songhai people as well as the states which came before it

- The running of the state - leaders, rulers and the administration of the empire

- Everyday life in medieval Songhai - the family, the workforce, food and drink, music and dance, religion, the organisation of towns and cities

- The end of the empire

- Songhai's 'lost' intellectual heritage

For me it was most interesting to learn of the variety of subjects that were either written by Songhai scholars or were available from the city libraries. Books not just covering the sciences, medicine and religion, but works on the sexual relations between men and women, references to cases of women seeking divorce against a husband. All this very much sheds a different light on a state which we often consider, certainly from the time of the second empire, to be outwardly Islamic in the urban centres.

Due to the growth of the modern Atlantic slave trade, so very closely associated with West Africa it is easy to forget that Songhai arose in one of the most urbanized regions of the world (prior to the nineteenth century) and was a centre of learning, industry and wealth.

With plenty of photographs, sketches, drawings and maps together with an extensive biography, this work will be of interest to anyone wishing to gain an insight into the West African past. Overall an excellent book which gives the reader a picture of not just the empire's rulers but the everyday lives of it's people.

[Lesley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book that provides a lot of information (with links to credible resources to back claims).

Best described as "nourishment for the soul" for Black people.

[Doris Raines · Rating 5 out of 5]

LLIKE THIS BOOK.

[DORIS · Rating 5 out of 5]

WESTERN STYLE. WILD WILD WEST