Includes bibliographical references and index.

Part I. Early Sahel and Savannah -- Prologue -- The Middle Niger in pre-antiquity and global context -- Early Gao -- The kingdoms of Ghana: Reform along the Senegal River -- Slavery and race imagined in Bilad as-Sudan -- Part II. Imperial Mali -- The meanings of Sunjata and the dawn of imperial Mali -- Mansa Musa and global Mali -- Intrigue, Islam, and Ibn Baṭṭuṭa -- Part III. Imperial Songhay -- Sunni 'Ali and the reinvention of Songhay -- The Sunni and the scholars: a tale of revenge -- Renaissance: the age of Askia al-Ḥajj Muḥammad -- Of clerics and concubines -- Part IV. Le dernier de l'empire -- Of fitnas and fratricide: The nadir of imperial Songhay -- Surfeit and stability: The era of Askia Dawud -- The rending asunder: Dominion's end -- Epilogue: A thousand years.