Conflicts in North and West Africa have become more violent and widespread than in the past. They have also become more difficult to resolve due to the complex relationships between a growing number of belligerents with diverging agendas. This report maps conflict networks and the evolution of rivalries and alliances in 21 North and West African countries.
Issued in conjunction with the exhibition Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time, held January 26, 2019-July 21, 2019, Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.
A groundbreaking history that puts early and medieval West Africa in a global context Pick up almost any book on early and medieval world history and empire, and where do you find West Africa? On the periphery. 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. Scholars have long held that such distinctions arose during the colonial period, but Gomez shows they developed much earlier. Focusing on the Savannah and Sahel region, Gomez traces the exchange of ideas and influences with North Africa and the Central Islamic Lands by way of merchants, scholars, and pilgrims. Islam’s growth in West Africa, in tandem with intensifying commerce that included slaves, resulted in a series of political experiments unique to the region, culminating in the rise of empire. A major preoccupation was the question of who could be legally enslaved, which together with other factors led to the construction of new ideas about ethnicity, race, gender, and caste—long before colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade. Telling a radically new story about early Africa in global history, African Dominion is set to be the standard work on the subject for many years to come.
Intended for those interested in the African continent and the diversity of human history, this work looks at Africa's past and reflects on the changing ways it has been imagined and represented. It illustrates key themes in modern thinking about Africa's history with a range of historical examples.
" Assessing the potential benefits and risks of a currency union Leaders of the fifteen-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have set a goal of achieving a monetary and currency union by late 2020. Although some progress has been made toward achieving this ambitious goal, major challenges remain if the region is to realize the necessary macroeconomic convergence and establish the required institutional framework in a relatively short period of time. The proposed union offers many potential benefits, especially for countries with historically high inflation rates and weak central banks. But, as implementation of the euro over the past two decades has shown, folding multiple currencies, representing disparate economies, into a common union comes with significant costs, along with operational challenges and transitional risks. All these potential negatives must be considered carefully by ECOWAS leaders seeking tomeet a self-imposed deadline. This book, by two leading experts on economics and Africa, makes a significant analytical contribution to the debates now under way about how ECOWAS could achieve and manage its currency union, andthe ramifications for the African continent. "
This book explains the structure and geographical and organisational mobility of criminal and migratory movements in the Sahara and the Sahel with a view to helping establish better development strategies for the region.
In 1950, there were only 152 urban agglomerations in West Africa. Since then, the number of agglomerations has increased to almost 2 000 town and cities which are home to 41% of the region’s total population.
