Show Me The Mali: Timbooktoo
 

Promising stuff.

What are theories surrounding the decline of the Malian civilisation?

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
What are theories surrounding the decline of the Malian civilisation? I'd need to know more about the origins of Malian civilisation.

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I thought it was the discovery of a sea route to Benin that basically destroyed Mali.
Oooh, dems fighting words.


I asserted that in a history forum once, and was pounced on with these two factoids - A. There continued to be considerable cross-Sahara trade after the Portugese arrived on the coast and B. Songhai, the last great Niger river state, was actually destroyed by an army from Morocco.


Unfortunately I dont know the history of the area all that well, esp after the Moroccan victory. The counter to the above, I suppose, is that earlier Niger River states had collapsed, and had always been replaced by a new Niger River state. Absent the Euros on the coast, a new Niger state would have formed.

Again, I dont know enough about the history of the cross-Sahara trade post 1600.

I suspect the decline of the North African states and the Med muslim world post 1700, which resulted at least as much from the general "rise of the West" as from the Portugese advance on the West African coast, made a real revival of cross Sahara trade impossible.

Mali was replaced by the Songhai [who used to belong to the Malinese empire), after falling into disrepair after some bad management by their leadership. From what I can tell, Mali only ever existed as a major power because of excellent leadership; any time their leadership weakened, they went downhill unless someone stepped in to save them.

The French didn't get involved until after the Songhai empire, and Morocco really was responsible for the destruction of that state.

Sure that wasn't a chick?

Mali sucks http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...milies/nod.gif