The Peoples of the Middle Niger: The Island of Gold

This book provides the first comprehensive history of the peoples of the Middle Niger written by an English-speaking scholar. ‘The Island of Gold’ was the medieval Muslim and later European name for a fabled source of gold and other tropical riches. Although the floodplain of the Niger river lies far from the goldfields, the mosaic of peoples along the Middle Niger created a wealth of grain, fish, and livestock that supported some of Africa’s oldest cities, i...