Anne Haour, an archaeologist who specializes in the central Sahel, has written a thoughtful and intriguing book. She explores the historical interpretations of the ‘medieval’ eras of what might appear to be two different and distant regions – one surrounding the North Sea and parts of the English Channel, and the other in the central Sahel. This pairing of regions, of course, is both unorthodox and highly original. Scholars have examined, for example, the comparative development of societies within Eurasia, and explored the commonalities and differences in the long-term historical trajectories of Western Europe and China. Only rarely has the Sahel come under the comparative lens.
In an introductory chapter, Haour lays out the case for the choice of time period and the comparison between the North Sea and the central Sahel. She notes the enormous differences between the two regions, and then argues convincingly that there are significant commonalities that justify such a bold approach. Her case for comparison is simple and appealing. Both the societies surrounding the North Sea and in the central Sahel in the period 800–1500 were agrarian and pre-industrial, and both converted to monotheistic religions.
The second chapter on ‘Sahelian frameworks’ summarizes the status of archaeological research in the central Sahel. It is somewhat technical in nature and will be of interest principally to archaeologists. Haour explains that she has chosen not to include a matching chapter on the archaeology of the North Sea region because it is better known. This is a reasonable position, but some readers may wonder why the Sahelian chapter was included in the book. It might well have been published separately as an article.
The core chapters deal with the four groups highlighted in the book's title. In her chapter ‘Rulers’, she deconstructs the idea that authority and bureaucracy in the period 800–1500 were recognizably similar to the modern state. Haour suggests that the reality of political power in both the North Sea and the central Sahel was likely far messier, consisting of local loyalties enmeshed in webs of personal relationships. In her chapter on ‘Warriors’, the author explores the meaning of the extensive walls and the role of the horse in political violence in the North Sea region and the central Sahel. Once again, the evidence seems to suggest that the military organizations were far more local and less structured than those of a later date. In ‘Traders’, she argues that the range of economic activities in both regions was larger than is reflected in the archaeological and historical sources; that the trading settlements experienced highly changeable fortunes; and that in both regions the trade in slaves was of commercial importance. Indeed, as she notes, both regions exported slaves to the eastern Mediterranean, and in this sense were part of the same far-flung network. Her chapter on ‘Clerics’ argues that there were similarities in the processes of consolidation of the Christian faith in northwest Europe and the Islamization of the central Sahel.
Rulers, Warriors, Traders, Clerics is provocative. Haour considers the archaeological evidence as a fundamental challenge to the historical interpretations that have developed from the study of sparse texts. Her emphasis is on what is not known and what has been asserted, rather than what is known. The author problematizes our understandings of themes in the history of northwest Europe and the central Sahel in fundamental ways. Her book deeply rewards its readers and should stimulate more work on these centuries before 1500.
