This pioneering book, the first on this period of the region's history in a generation, tells a different story. Interweaving political and social history and drawing on a rich array of sources, including Arabic manuscripts, oral histories, and recent archaeological findings, Michael Gomez unveils a new vision of how categories of ethnicity, race, gender, and caste emerged in Africa and in global history more generally.;Preface -- Prologue -- Part I. Early Sahel and Savannah: chapter 1. The middle Niger in pre-antiquity and global context; chapter 2. Early Gao; chapter 3. The kingdoms of Ghana: reform along the Senegal River; chapter 4. Slavery and race imagined in Bilād As-Sūdān -- Part II. Imperial Mali: chapter 5. The meanings of Sunjata and the dawn of imperial Mali; chapter 6. Mansā Mūsā and global Mali; chapter 7. Intrigue, Islam, and Ibn Baṭṭūṭa -- Part III. Imperial Songhay: chapter 8. Sunni 'Alī and the reinvention of Songhay; chapter 9. The Sunni and the scholars: a tale of revenge; chapter 10. Renaissance: the age of Askia Al-Ḥājj Muḥammad; chapter 11. Of clerics and concubines -- Part IV. Le dernier de l'empire: chapter 12. Of fitnas and fratricide: the nadir of imperial Songhay; chapter 13. Surfeit and stability: the era of Askia Dāwūd; chapter 14. The rending asunder: dominion's end -- Epilogue. A thousand years -- Select bibliography.