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xi Acknowledgments This book could not have been written without the assistance of a number of individuals and agencies. I carried out the initial stage of research for this project with a Fulbright IIE grant. At the University of Notre Dame, I received generous grants from the Dean of Arts and Letters, the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, and the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. The final stages of the project likewise owe much to the Division of the Social Sciences and the Department of History at the University of Chicago. I thank the people who run these institutions for their vision and support. In Guinea, my debt of gratitude runs wide and deep. The National Archives in Conakry is run by a dedicated staff who work in conditions that are less than optimal. I thank them for their work and commitment, especially Almamy Stell Conté, Madame Bangoura, Aminata Diarra, Théophile Haba, and Sékou Kaba. At the Cultural Center at the U.S. Embassy, Serge Akhani has been both friend and resource for many years, as has Aissatou Diallo. I also benefited from the kindness and largesse of Louise Bedichek during her posting to Conakry. In Kankan, where I conducted the bulk of the research for this book, an array of people helped me learn about the region’s rich history. I am particularly indebted to Al Hajj Hawa Touré Karamo Kaba, who shared with me his own Arabic manuscript on Kankan’s history. The many afternoons we spent in conversation brought together two different approaches to the study of the past—Karamo is a Koranic teacher immersed in Arabic and Malinke scholarly and oral traditions, while I come out of a western academic context that is informed by English and French texts and documents. But while we often talked about historical processes in different ways, our discussions were animated by a common interest in Kankan’s past and a curiosity about the various ways in which it could be interpreted. In addition to the extended dialogue with Karamo, I conducted interviews with individuals and groups of people who lived in and around Kankan. Those contributors offered ideas and opinions that are fundamental to the arguments advanced by the book. Of those men and women who took the time to speak with me, I thank in particular Djemory Kaba of Baté-Nafadie and Mamadou Kaba of Somangoi. The other xii w Acknowledgments people who shared their knowledge and views on the past are too numerous to name here, but they are listed in the bibliography. Conducting those oral interviews was a labor-intensive process that took me, typically by bicycle, to towns and villages that had once given form to the precolonial state of Baté. Mory Kaba and Mustapha Kaba worked with me as research assistants at different stages of that process. I am also grateful to Lansin é Kaba, Mamady Djan Kaba, Bijou Condé, Kaliva Bilivogui, and Lancei Magassouba, each of whom brought warmth and friendship to my sojourns in Kankan. (Note that none of the Kabas listed here are directly related to one another; indeed, this book helps explain why the family name Kaba is so common in the Milo River Valley.) This book also draws on archival sources collected elsewhere in West Africa and France. I thank in particular Babacar Ndiaye and Saliou Mbaye of the National Archives in Senegal as well as the staffs of the National Archives in Bamako, Mali, and of the Archives Nationales d’Outre Mer in Aix-enProvence , France. This manuscript has been enriched by the comments and critiques of a number of people who have read it, in one stage or another, in part or in full. Those individuals include Richard Roberts, Walter Hawthorne, David Robinson, Mark Canavera, Lansiné Kaba, Pier Larson, Djibril Tamsir Niane, David Conrad, Kassim Kone, and Stephen Belcher. I extend special thanks to colleagues here at the University of Chicago for their thoughtful input: Ralph Austen, Leora Auslander, Jennifer Palmer, and Tara Zahra. I appreciate the support of Margaret Meserve, Sophie White, Sara Maurer, Wendy Arons, Julia Thomas, and Gail Bederman. I also owe much to the intellect and collegiality of Paul Cheney, Lynn Schler, Benjamin Lawrance, Martin Klein, Mamadou Diouf, Hilary Jones, Boubacar Barry, Karen Smid, Greg Mann, Lorelle Semley, Brett Shadle, Richard Pierce, and Paul Ocobock. I feel a special debt to Lamin Sanneh for his research on the Jakhanke, which has influenced my own thinking on Baté’s origins and pacifist...

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