African Dominion

A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa

By: Michael Gomez

Narrated by: David Sadzin

A groundbreaking book that puts early and medieval West Africa on the map of global history.

Pick up almost any book on early and medieval world history and empire, and where do you find West Africa? On the periphery. This pioneering book tells a different story. Interweaving political and social history and drawing on a rich array of sources, Michael Gomez unveils a new vision of how categories of ethnicity, race, gender, and caste emerged in Africa and in global history. Focusing on the Savannah and Sahel region, Gomez traces how Islam's growth in West Africa, along with intensifying commerce that included slaves, resulted in a series of political experiments unique to the region, culminating in the rise of empire. A radically new account of the importance of early Africa in global history, African Dominion will be the standard work on the subject for years to come.

©2018 Princeton University Press (P)2020 Tantor

A Great, detailed history with poor narration.

This is the most detailed book I’ve read on any African Empire. It is incredibly informative.

Unfortunately, the narrator is not so good which I believe is due to the dry writing style of the author.

If you’re seeking detailed knowledge on West African history, this book is for you

This book would be 5 stars if not for the weaknesses I stated above.

Fantastic content, but poor performance

Fantastic book and marvelous history but the narrative made it so difficult to listen to. He is monotone and reads as if it’s one run on sentence.

Best Book on African History I've Ever Read

First of all, this is not a book that glorifies the "medieval" period of African history. It simply presents an objective history, both the good, the bad, and th ugly of that period of African history. It has got to be the most comprehensive and detailed book of the Mali Empire and Songhai history there is, sometimes even providing accounts of individual Soldiers or regular people and their deeds. I was impressed by the the depth of research put into this. Most of the time if one look up anything on Mali or Songhai, all one gets is sometjing about Mansa Musa and his riches, and if lucky, perhaps one may hear of Sundiata; and if exceedingly and extraordinarily lucky, one may even hear of Askia Muhammed. But this book goes through them all and them some, from the beginning to the end, covering the various dynasties, the various rulers, their challenges, palace intrigues, political and governmental intricacies etc. I can go on and on, but I'll have to stop here. Get this book! Very highly recommended!

excellent

I am an avid listener of audio books and this is one of the more well written, detailed and unique books I've come across. The topic is not often covered and Mr. Gomez does an excellent job of making a complex topic comprehensible to someone with little context.

Interesting book, weak narrator

Halting delivery and misunderstanding of Arabic pronunciation make it hard to listen to this otherwise interesting book.