Medieval Africa, 12501800 by Roland Oliver, Anthony Atmore - 9780521790246

Medieval Africa, 12501800Author(s): Roland Oliver, Anthony Atmore\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Cambridge University Press\nISBN-13: 9780521790246, 978-0521790246\nSynopsis\nThis is a radically revised version of The African Middle Ages [tel], and the companion volume to the authors' well-known Africa since 1800. It follows the overall plan of the original, but now begins 150 years earlier, and considers recent literature in African historical studies. The earlier starting date enables a more distinctly African viewpoint. By about 1250 AD African societies were greatly expanding their political and economic scope. Islam was spreading south across the Sahara from Mediterranean Africa, and down the Indian Ocean coast. Medieval Africa continues into the period of European contacts from the 15th century onwards, with some emphasis on the growth of the trans-Saharan, Atlantic and Indian Ocean slave trade. The book stresses both the stre.