The Century’s Firstborn

Intimate History in the Aftermath of Nineteenth-Century Islamic Revolutions in Central Mali

Bibliographic Data

ID7155111
AuthorsMadina Thiam (0009-0009-4401-5523, Johns Hopkins University, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume52
Pages164-191
Publication date2025-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistory in Africa (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0361-5413 • E-ISSN: 1558-2744
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/hia.2025.10008
OpenAlexW4416300166
LanguageEN
References cited20

In 1864, Umar Taal, one of the most consequential figures of nineteenth-century West Africa, perished in Maasina (Mali), a region he had conquered two years prior. Historians have studied the political and intellectual underpinnings of Taal’s last conquest, but not its ramifications inside families. Exploring colonial-era migrations and marriages in my own family in Mali, I suggest intimate history as mode of historical inquiry and writing to elucidate the afterlives of war. I provide a translocal and gendered microhistory of the aftermath of Taal’s jihad, showing how the ripples of past Islamic revolutions shaped the intimacies of twentieth-century family life

History of Islam · Islam · Microhistory · Political history · Politics · African Studies and Ethnography · African Studies and Geopolitics · Anthropological Studies and Insights

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