Prologue -- Part I. Early Sahel and savannah. 1. The Middle Niger in pre-antiquity and global context ; 2. Early Gao ; 3. The kingdoms of Ghana : reform along the Senegal River ; 4. Slavery and race imagined in Bilād as-Sūdān -- Part II. Imperial Mali. 5. The meanings of Sunjata and the dawn of imperial Mali ; 6. Mansā Mūsā and global Mali ; 7. Intrigue, Islam, and Ibn Baṭṭūṭa -- Part III. Imperial Songhay. 8. Sunni ʻAlī and the reinvention of Songhay ; 9. The Sunni and the scholars : a tale of revenge ; 10. Renaissance : the age of Askia al-Ḥājj Muḥammad ; 11. Of clerics and concubines -- Part IV. Le dernier de l'empire. 12. Of fitnas and fratricide : the nadir of imperial Songhay ; 13. Surfeit and stability : the era of Askia Dāwūd ; 14. The rending asunder : dominion's end -- Epilogue. A thousand years.