History: World 1: 500AD-1500AD: African history to 1800

The history of the Songhay Empire involves many fascinating stories--the interaction of Islam with older paganistic folk religions, the mingling of many different peoples and tribes of west Sudan, royal intrigue that pitted father against sons and brother against brother, epic battles fought in the punishing desert heat, and a ruinous civil war that left the once mighty empire vulnerable to foreign invasion and domination. This is full-bodied, red-blooded history, and it is brought to vivid life in this account, replete with a treasury of primary source material and full-color images. This text supports Common Core's mandate regarding analyzing the relationship between primary and secondary sources, citing evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, and determining the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source.

The empire of Ghana was a wealthy trading empire in West Africa located south of the Sahara Desert. Made up of a federation of the Soninke people, its richest historical record spans from about 750 until 1076 CE, due to the writings of Arab travelers and geographers from that period. The author explains what we know about this mysterious and fascinating empire, whose main city Kumbi Saleh was a link on the Saharan trade routes. Readers learn about the traditions, beliefs, and lifestyle of the Soninke and other indigenous peoples, as well as the effects of contact with Islam.