Alisa LaGammaCritiques

Sahel: Art and Empires on the Shores of the Sahara is a lavishly illustrated volume produced to accompany an exhibition of the same name at the Met Museum in New York. It explores the visual artistic legacies of the west African empires of Ghana, Mali, Songhay, and Segu, which flourished between roughly the fourth and the nineteenth centuries. The various essays demonstrate how, contrary to many popular assumptions, this region has a long and rich artistic and architectural history, one is diverse, dynamic, and reflects ongoing connections with other parts of the world. Really recommended as an introductory overview of a fascinating topic.

New Haven, CT : Yale University Press; New York, NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art