The Mali Empire offers one of the clearest examples of advanced African governance. Emerging in the thirteenth century, Mali developed a political system that integrated military authority, commercial ...

Between roughly 700 and 1500 CE, West Africa controlled one of the world’s most important commercial systems: the trans-Saharan trade. Empires such as the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire, and the ...

This week I moderated a conversation about the three great West African empires of the medieval period between 1100-1500 AD: ...

Colonialism did not begin with Europe, and it did not skip Africa. Long before European empires rose African powers expanded conquered and dominated neighboring peoples across vast regions. From Egypt ...

Football, at its best, is a civil religion: it compresses a nation into ninety minutes, turns gestures into symbols, and makes the crowd believe that fate has a scoreboard. At its worst, it invites a ...

Shea butter is one of Ghana’s most valuable natural resources. Explore its rich history, traditional production, benefits, ...

Discover the vast expanse of the Dutch Colonial Empire, a formidable force in global history. From its origins in the 17th century to its impacts around the world, explore how this empire rose to ...

A new book by author Julian Sancton explores the lengthy quest to find the Spanish galleon—and the political firestorm that ...

Obsessed with a treasure city, conquistador Francisco Pizarro captured the Inca emperor Atahualpa. To spare his life, the emperor offered up the largest cache of gold the Spanish ever acquired in the ...

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. “Thus will we all be, once Death carries us away!” That is how the parvenu tycoon Trimalchio greets the pièce ...

A 13-year archeological excavation has shown that what was once believed a backwater town for the Roman Empire lasted far longer than originally believed. Interamna Lirenas was a thriving town well ...