Forgotten Sahara: A History of Northern Africa in the Early Middle Ages

Scholars of the premodern world often tacitly accept that the Sahara acted as a barrier to long-distance exchange across the African continent. By centering the Sahara and its ancient inhabitants, this class seeks to challenge that assumption. Saharan people developed complex and sophisticated states that traded, competed, and otherwise interacted with the now better-known Roman and Islamic empires, and fostered the flow of people, goods, and ideas through and across the world’s largest desert. Class meetings will interweave discussion of primary sources in translation, archaeological evidence, and modern scholarly debates. Topics include the Sahara and its inhabitants; the kingdoms of Fazzan, Sudan, and Aksum; Egypt and the Maghrib in the late Roman empire; North African Jewish, Christian, and Islamic communities; urban, village, and pastoral lifeways; and Mediterranean, Indian Ocean, and trans-Saharan trade. P