SPECIAL COMMENDATION in Africa's 100 Best Books of the Twentieth Century. The series is illustrated throughout with maps and black and white photographs.

SPECIAL COMMENDATION in Africa's 100 Best Books of the Twentieth Century. The series is illustrated throughout with maps and black and white photographs. The twelfth to the sixteenth centuries constitute a crucial phase in the continent's history, and a period in which written records became more common. The period covered by this volume has several major themes: the triumph of Islam; the extension of trading relations; cultural exchanges and human contacts; and the development of kingdoms and empires. The series is co-published in Africa with seven publishers, in the United States and Canada by the University of California Press, and in association with the UNESCO Press.