Bibliographical research on Mali must begin with the monumental Bibliographie générale du Mali, prepared by Paule Brasseur (Dakar, IFAN, 1964). The present essay is in no way a substitute for such a basic volume. It is an attempt to introduce the reader to some of the best and most important works concerning Mali, at the same time stressing materials that have appeared in English or since the publication of the Brasseur work.

Neither the Brasseur bibliography nor this essay takes adequate account of the manuscript sources in Peul and Arabic concerning the western Sudan. Still in private hands or in the archives of Paris, Dakar, Zaria, Kano, Ibadan, or Timbuktu, these manuscripts are largely unclassified and unstudied. Once analyzed, they will provide an important source for the study of Malian history. Vincent Monteil, “Les manuscrits historiques arabo-africains,” Bulletin de l'IFAN, série B, XXVII, No. 3-4 (July-October 1965), 531-542, surveys efforts being made to collect and classify such manuscripts in West Africa. H. F. C. Smith, “The Archives of Segu,” Bulletin of News of the Historical Society of Nigeria, Supplement to Vol. IV, No. 2 (September 1959), presents a brief analysis of some of the great collection of manuscripts captured by Archinard in 1890 and now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. In addition, in “Source Material for the History of the Western Sudan,” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, I, No. 3 (December 1958), 238-248, Smith surveys significant materials from the Gironcourt Collection, in the Institut de France, Paris. This is updated by him in “Nineteenth-Century Arabic Archives of West Africa,” Journal of African History, III, No. 2 (1962), 333-336, a brief listing of literary works, diplomatic correspondence between West African emirates, etc.