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by gregschlom 381 days ago
This made me realize that I have absolutely no idea what was going on in Africa during medieval times (and only a sliver of an idea in Europe).
3 comments

Mansa Musa is totally worth reading about, as are philosophers etc. like Ibn Khaldun and others (Ibn Khaldun wrote about Mansa Musa's pilgrimage, wealth, etc.).

There was a lot going on in medieval Africa, I wish I had some good sources, if anyone knows any I'd be interested in expanding my knowledge as well!

There are episodes of In Our Time on The Empire of Mali (incl Mansa Musa) and Ibn Khaldun

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06kgggv

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qckbw

The wikipedia page about the Mali Empire [1] has a few books in the Further Reading section. This one looks promising: African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mali_Empire

[2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34928286-african-dominio...

Lost history. You probably know the reasons. Many cultures within relied heavily on knowledge keepers, or griots, which was a perfectly fine system until it wasn't.
Same here, most of what I learned growing up barely touched on African history beyond Egypt or colonialism. Stuff like this really highlights how much was going on