Africa from the 7th to the 11th Century
Reviews of the Series: * . * ... a real contribution to scholarship. - -- Roland Oliver * the TLS * The General History of Africa was launched in 1970, when an International Scientific Committee of 39 scholars was formed to oversee the writing and publication of a complete survey of the African past, from pre-history to the present. The laudable aim of the project was to break free from the straightjacket of Eurocentrism, and to provide a history that reflected a range of African views without imposing any set historical interpretation. - -- David M. Anderson * INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS *
Description of the project; note on chronology; members of the International Scientific Committee for the Drafting of a General History of Africa; biographies of the authors; Africa in the context of world histories; the coming of Islam and the expansion of the Muslim empire; stages in the development of Islam and its dissemination in Africa; Islam as a social system in Africa since the 7th century; the peoples of the Sudan - population movements; the Bantu-speaking peoples and their expansion; Egypt and the Arab conquest until the end of the Fatamid state (1171); Christian Nubia in the height of its civilization; the conquest of North Africa and Berbe resistance; the independence of Maghrib; the role of the Sahara and Saharians in the relationships between North and South; the emergence of the Fatamids; the Almoravids; trade and trade routes in West Africa; the Chad region as a crossroads; the Guinea zone - general situation; the Guinean belt - the peoples of Upper Guinea (between Cote d'Ivoire and the Casmance); the Horn of Africa; Ethiopia's relations with the Muslim world; the East African coast and the Comoro Islands; the East African interior; Central Africa to the north of the Zambezi; Central Africa to the south of the Zambezi; Madagascar; the African diaspora in Asia; relations between the different regions of Africa; Africa from the 7th to the 11th century - five formative centuries.