What to Read, and Why
The Trans-Saharan Slave Trade
- Paul Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery (1983; 3rd ed. 2012) — The standard academic account of African slavery systems including the trans-Saharan trade. Essential starting point.
- John Wright, The Trans-Saharan Slave Trade (2007) — The most focused book-length treatment of the trade routes, organisation, and scale.
- Ronald Segal, Islam's Black Slaves: The Other Black Diaspora (2001) — Accessible account of the Arab slave trade and its legacy.
- Tidiane N'Diaye, Le génocide voilé (2008) — Senegalese anthropologist on the Arab slave trade. Available in French.
Islam in West Africa
- Murray Last, The Sokoto Caliphate (1967) — The standard academic history of Usman dan Fodio's jihad. Essential for understanding northern Nigeria.
- Ousmane Kane, Beyond Timbuktu: An Intellectual History of Muslim West Africa (2016) — Recovery of the West African Islamic scholarly tradition.
- Nehemia Levtzion, Ancient Ghana and Mali (1973) — Islam's role in the Saharan empires.
- Ibn Battuta, The Travels of Ibn Battuta (tr. H.A.R. Gibb) — Primary source. Volume 4 covers the Mali Empire and West African Sudan.
Arab-African Relations
- Gamal Abdel Nasser, The Philosophy of the Revolution (1955) — Short primary source on Nasser's three-circle theory of Egyptian identity.
- Hakim Adi, Pan-Africanism: A History (2018) — Includes the Arab dimension of pan-African solidarity and its contradictions.
- Mahmood Mamdani, Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror (2009) — On the Darfur conflict as an Arab-African war.
- Wole Soyinka, You Must Set Forth at Dawn (2006) — Memoir including reflections on Arab-African relations and anti-Blackness.
Contemporary Issues
- IOM, Slavery in Libya (2017) — Available at iom.int. Primary documentation of the Libya slave market situation.
- Human Rights Watch, Kafala reports (various years) — The Gulf kafala sponsorship system and its exploitation of African migrant workers.
Nigeria Specifically
- Karl Maier, This House Has Fallen: Nigeria in Crisis (2000) — The Hausa-Fulani/Igbo/Yoruba political triangle and its consequences.
- Elizabeth Isichei, A History of the Igbo People (1976) — Standard history including the northern Nigerian context and the Biafra War.
Key Texts — Free Downloads
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