This compelling text sheds light on the important but under studied trans-Saharan slave trade. The author uncovers and surveys this, theleast-noticed of the slave trades out of Africa, which from the seventh to the twentieth centuries quielty delievered almost as many black Africans into foreign servitude as did the far busier, but much briefer Atlantic and East African trades. Illuminatingfor the first time a significant, but ignoredsubject, the booksupports and widens current scholarly examination of Africans' essential role in the enslavement of fellow-Africans and their delivery to internal, Atlantic or trans-Saharan markets.
