Burkina Faso History Made Easy: The Essential Illustrated Guide to Faso’s and Culture

Before Burkina Faso had a flag, its people were already reading rain, soil, iron, trade routes, and one another. Ancient furnaces at Douroula introduce regional languages and communities, Mossi kingdoms, Islam and trade, French rule and Upper Volta, independence, Thomas Sankara's revolution, gold, cotton, migration, drought, and armed violence. The modern borders are young; the history reaches deep into West Africa.Did You Know?- Did you know Douroula preserves some of West Africa's oldest known evidence of iron production?- Did you know the country's three main river systems run south toward the Gulf of Guinea despite its lack of a coastline?- Did you know Burkina Faso is home to more than sixty languages and many overlapping identities?- Did you know the Mossi kingdoms grew through political organization, horse power, farming, and regional exchange?- Did you know the country kept the colonial name Upper Volta until Thomas Sankara renamed it in 1984?- Did you know gold and cotton connect village livelihoods to prices and markets far beyond the Sahel?What This Book Includes- Ancient metallurgy, Mossi courts, Upper Volta, and the Sankara era linked across time.- Mossi, Fulɓe, Bobo, Lobi, Dagara, Gourmantché, Sénoufo, and other communities situated within their own regions and histories.- Water, land, labor, migration, religion, and political change woven into the narrative.- Artistic reconstructions of markets, furnaces, farms, courts, and public life.