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The History of Writing in African Languages: From Arabic to Vernacular.
Ancient Africa was a land of multiple literacies.
May 31
•
isaac Samuel
30
7
8
The Camel in African History: Ancient Ships of the Sahara
The Camel has an almost mythical place in the lore of the desert.
May 24
•
isaac Samuel
40
12
9
African and European Explorers in the 19th century: Competing Narratives of “Discovery.”
In 1596, the Ethiopian monk Takla ’Alfā left his home near Lake Tana, at the source of the Blue Nile, and embarked on a pilgrimage that took him through…
May 17
•
isaac Samuel
52
3
15
The Luo Migrations: Reassessing “Stateless” Societies in Pre-Colonial Africa
Africa occupies a foundational place in the development of modern political anthropology.
May 10
•
isaac Samuel
40
4
11
African Revolutions and External Influences during the Long Nineteenth Century
In the opening decades of the 19th century, Africa witnessed the emergence of new economic and political dynamics that intersected with, and were in…
May 3
•
isaac Samuel
58
13
April 2026
Africa Was Not an Anarchist Paradise: Misconceptions about Precolonial State-Building in Africa
Africa was not an anarchist paradise; it underwent broadly similar processes of centralisation and state formation to those found elsewhere, with…
Apr 26
•
isaac Samuel
119
17
23
Wealth-in-People and Wealth-in-Land in Pre-colonial Africa: Reassessing the Evidence.
The ways in which Africans accumulated and expressed wealth have occupied a central place in Africanist scholarship for more than half a century, with…
Apr 19
•
isaac Samuel
55
2
12
The Mossi States: pre-Islamic Kingdoms in Burkina Faso ca. 1300-1897
During the late Middle Ages, a ‘pagan’ power from the interior of West Africa confronted the great empires of Mali and Songhai, and briefly extended its…
Apr 12
•
isaac Samuel
56
2
8
The first Africanists: Intellectual Collaboration and the Origins of African Studies in the late 19th to early 20th century.
The first Africanists (specialists who study African languages, societies, and history) were not colonial researchers, as is often assumed, but African…
Apr 5
•
isaac Samuel
80
6
18
March 2026
The Gold Trade and Currency of Medieval West Africa (1000-1900 CE)
An estimated two-thirds of the world’s gold in the late Middle Ages may have come from West Africa.
Mar 29
•
isaac Samuel
40
13
9
The Invention and Spread of Writing in Global and African History.
Writing systems were independently invented multiple times across several ancient civilizations, with the earliest evidence coming from Mesopotamia…
Mar 22
•
isaac Samuel
92
10
20
The Medieval city of Sijilmasa and the empires of North Western Africa. (757-1818 CE)
Journal of African Cities: chapter 20
Mar 15
•
isaac Samuel
28
6
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