The Golden Rhinoceros: Histories of the African Middle Ages

Great use of limited source material to offer glimpses into an under-studied history

To get the most out of this book, you have to make sure you know what you buy.While the subtitle is the "Histories of the African Middle Ages" this book is definitely not a "History of the African Middle Ages", nor does it contain "Stories of the African Middle Ages".It gives an overview of the historical sources on African Middle Ages, coming mostly from traders - most of them Muslim or Jewish or Athiopia, with Geez being one of the few African languages with a written form - and some selected highly interesting archeological artifacts, most prominent a "Golden Rhinoceros". He takes the scientific view on these sources and gives us an overview over the different interpretations that run around, with an extensive list of further reading for each case.In 34 aspects, starting in the eight century and ending with the arrival of the Portugese, Fauvelle lays out a mosaic of African history, a tapestry that could contain thousands of pieces, but just has these 34, some connected, most not. It is not a comprehensive image of Africa, for a lack of sources, but it is a comprehensive list of the existing written sources - as is unlikely that more of these will show up. Of course the archeological research into African history has just started, and one is rooting for more after this book.Fauvelle also covers the shortfallings of his sources without falling into the political blamegame that harrows some other modern works on history.If you want an beginners overview over the scientific research into African history this work is a gem for you. If you want to learn about African history in general, you need other works.

I bought this book to learn about the forgotten civilizations of Africa, to use it as a map for future learning, depending on whatever would be my prefered subjects. The book was excellent. It is a great tool to meet kings and kingdoms from the Sahara to South Africa. I will recommend it to anyone interested in the subject.

Overall it was a good book. It has a lot of information in 250 pages. You do need to have some background of Africa in the Middle Ages in order to understand some of the stories. Keeps you engaged with short chapters, each containing a different era, geographical location throughout Africa, and empire. It does lack illustrations. I understand it is not meant to be a picture book but some maps showing the areas that it is mentioning would have been nice.

I found myself both disappointed in this book and irritated. While one understands the reluctance to offer a narrative story of the African centuries and lands it covers, these very brief tales seek to confirm the author's claim that it's impossible to provide a narrative history because of the dearth of documentation. So for whom is this collection intended? Many of the brevities are well-known, if others less so. But above all, as the book is presented it only works as a self-fulfilling prophecy: asserting that an African historical narrative of any longue durée is likely impossible. But this is not so, at least for many parts and countries and groups: for some areas there is in fact enormous documentation going back quite far, even if much of it remains untapped. But the combination of written materials (in several languages), of archeological information, of orature and more is full of promise. To offer short, in some cases many-times-told, tales to confirm a western story of historiographical impossibilities seems counterproductive.