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Kingdoms arose during the early centuries of the Common Era across
a wide region of West Africa. A rich source of information about
West Africa is available in the Arabic sources written by
geographers and chroniclers in the Muslim world between the 8th and
the 15th centuries. In this volume are the actual primary sources
upon which much modern knowledge about the kingdoms of Ghana, Mali,
Kanem-Borno and their neighbors depends. Here is the story of the
conversion of the western Sudan to Islam, as well as accounts of
the famous medieval gold trade, testimonies about the pilgrimage of
Mansa Musa, and insightful introductions to many other less
familiar personalities, activities and events.
Kingdoms arose during the early centuries of the Common Era across
a wide region of West Africa. A rich source of information about
West Africa is available in the Arabic sources written by
geographers and chroniclers in the Muslim world between the 8th and
the 15th centuries. In this volume are the actual primary sources
upon which much modern knowledge about the kingdoms of Ghana, Mali,
Kanem-Borno and their neighbors depends. Here is the story of the
conversion of the western Sudan to Islam, as well as accounts of
the famous medieval gold trade, testimonies about the pilgrimage of
Mansa Musa, and insightful introductions to many other less
familiar personalities, activities and events.
With the closure of the overland Silk Road in the fourteenth
century following the collapse of the Mongol empire, the Indian
Ocean provided the remaining vital link for wider cultural,
political, and societal integrations prior to the Western colonial
presence. Collectively, these studies explore the history of
non-metropolitan urban settings c. 1400-1800 in the Indian Ocean
realm, from the Ottoman Empire and the African coastline at the
mouth of the Red Sea in the west to China in the east. This was an
age of heightened international commercial exchange that pre-dated
the European arrival, which in the Indian Ocean paired Islamic
expansionism and political authority, and, alternately, in the case
of mainland Southeast Asia, partnered Buddhism with new
centralizing monarchies. While grounded in multi-disciplinary urban
studies literature, the twelve studies in this collection explore
secondary center networking, as this networking distinguishes
secondary cities from metropolitan centers, which have
traditionally received the most scholarly attention. The book
features the research of international scholars, whose work
addresses the representative history of small cities and urban
networking in various parts of the Indian Ocean world in an era of
change, allowing them the opportunity to compare approaches,
methods, and sources in the hopes of discovering common features as
well as notable differences. This volume is the result of a 2007
conference on "The Small City in Global Context," hosted by the
Center for Middletown Studies at Ball State University, Muncie,
Indiana, intended to expand the field of urban studies by
encouraging scholars of diverse global interests and
specializations to explore the history of non-metropolitan urban
settings.
These interdisciplinary studies address pre-1900 non-Western urban
growth in the African Sudan, Mexico, the Ottoman Middle East, and
South, Southeast, and East Asia. Therein, primary and secondary
cities served as functional societal agents that were viable and
potentially powerful alternatives to the diversity of kinship-based
local or regional networks, the societal delegated spaces in which
local and external agencies met and interacted in a wide variety of
political, economic, spiritual, and military forms. They were
variously transportation centers, sites of a central temples, court
and secular administration centers, fortified military compounds,
intellectual (literary) activity cores, and marketplace and/or
craft production sites. One element of these urban centers'
existence might have been more important than others, as a
political capital, a cultural capital, or an economic capital. In
the post-1500 era of increasing globalization, especially with the
introduction of new technologies of transport, communication, and
warfare, non-Western cities even more became the hubs of knowledge,
societal, and cultural formation and exchange because of the
location of both markets and political centers in urban areas. New
forms of professionalism, militarization, and secular
bureaucratization were foundational to centralizing state
hierarchies that could exert more control over their networked
segments. This book's authors consciously attempt to balance the
histories of functional urban agency between the local and the
exogenous, giving weight to local activities, events, beliefs,
institutions, communities, individuals, and historical narratives.
In several studies, both external and internal societal prejudices
and the inability of key decision makers to understand indigenous
reality led to negative consequences both in the local environment
and in the global arena.
With the closure of the overland Silk Road in the fourteenth
century following the collapse of the Mongol empire, the Indian
Ocean provided the remaining vital link for wider cultural,
political, and societal integrations prior to the Western colonial
presence. Collectively, these studies explore the history of
non-metropolitan urban settings c. 1400-1800 in the Indian Ocean
realm, from the Ottoman Empire and the African coastline at the
mouth of the Red Sea in the west to China in the east. This was an
age of heightened international commercial exchange that pre-dated
the European arrival, which in the Indian Ocean paired Islamic
expansionism and political authority, and, alternately, in the case
of mainland Southeast Asia, partnered Buddhism with new
centralizing monarchies. While grounded in multi-disciplinary urban
studies literature, the twelve studies in this collection explore
secondary center networking, as this networking distinguishes
secondary cities from metropolitan centers, which have
traditionally received the most scholarly attention. The book
features the research of international scholars, whose work
addresses the representative history of small cities and urban
networking in various parts of the Indian Ocean world in an era of
change, allowing them the opportunity to compare approaches,
methods, and sources in the hopes of discovering common features as
well as notable differences. This volume is the result of a 2007
conference on 'The Small City in Global Context, ' hosted by the
Center for Middletown Studies at Ball State University, Muncie,
Indiana, intended to expand the field of urban studies by
encouraging scholars of diverse global interests and
specializations to explore the history of non-metropolitan urban
settings.
Originating from the 2008 27th annual conference of the Sudan
Studies Association (SSA) of the same title, these essays document
and analyze Sudan's chronic history of conflict since independence
in 1956 as well as its own and international efforts to bring an
end to these conflicts. As the country moves toward what some see
as the inevitable separation of South Sudan in 2011 honoring the
principle of self-determination long fought for by southerners, the
lessons of six decades of a history of war and peace agreements is
both telling and compelling. This analysis is offered by the real
experts on Sudan rather than the usual story offered by journalists
and pundits. In addition to an Introduction by the editors, all
founders or current or past presidents of the SSA, the essays by
Sudanese and non-Sudanese explore the often bitter history of
North-South relations and loss of life leading to the consideration
of a range of options from a continuation of national unity under
revised terms, to federation or redivision, to full separation of
the South and the constitution of a new African state. The role of
the Khartoum government's pursuit of policies of Islamization and
Islamism for a quarter of a century across multiple regimes is also
treated. The central question of constructing a sustainable peace,
irrespective of the outcome in 2011, is detailed along with the
essential consideration of women and gender perspectives to sustain
any peace negotiated. This book is must reading in advance of, or
in response to, the crucial events as they unfold in Sudan in 2011
and beyond.
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