African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa, Paperback

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.

Michael A. Gomez is the Silver Professor of History and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University. His books include Black Crescent: African Muslims in the Americas, Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora, and Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South.