A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution
Toby Green
West Africa's rise and crisis, told through money, from cowrie shells to gold.
Green reconstructs West and West-Central African history through money and value, cowries, gold, cloth and iron, to show that the region was deeply enmeshed in the early global economy. He argues that unequal monetary and trade relationships, intensified by the slave trade, drained wealth and helped push West African states toward political crisis and revolution by the eighteenth century. Drawing on griots, archives and material evidence, it centers African economic agency.
Its legacy. Shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize, it renewed attention to precolonial African economic history.
- Author
- Toby Green
- First published
- 2019
- Genre
- Economic History
- Theme
- The Continent's Own History
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