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

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.

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.

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.

The details

Exhaustive history of the Mali Empire and it successors. Reads like a text book. Heavily ‘Great Man’ history.

The thorough all bases covered information

I liked the two times used to be better understood by most all people worldwide

Pitiful attempt at scholarship

The author tries so hard to sound smart, mostly by using multisyllabic words, that it comes across as the opposite. This is amplified by the fact that many of these are used incorrectly. There is good information in here, but it is so hidden in horribly written text that it’s not worth getting to. Utterly dissatisfactory, as this author would put it.

Not easy to follow

Alot of great information, but very hard on the ears. The author doesn’t flow and his unfamiliarity with Arabic terms makes it difficult to follow.