Expansions and Contractions: World-Historical Change And The Western Sudan World-System (1200/1000 B.C. – 1200/1250 A.D.)

Abstract

Archaeological evidence from West Africa suggests a process of relatively autochthonous state formation involving unusual forms of urbanization, horse warrior aristocracies, craft status groups and commodified trade networks organized by merchant-scholars. The emergenceof a West African state system played a generative role in the world-historical development of universal rationality in Western Afroeurasia, as well as in the intensification of empire formation and monetary integration in the formative era before the rise of European hegemony.