A fistful of shells : West Africa from the rise of the slave trade to the age of revolution / Toby Green.

9780226644578 (hardcover)
022664457X (hardcover)
9780226644745 (electronic book)

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2019.

English

xxxv, 613 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

DT476 .G74 2019

966/.02

"With A Fistful of Shells, Toby Green transforms our view of West and West-Central Africa by reconstructing the world of these kingdoms, which revolved around trade, diplomacy, complex religious beliefs, and the production of art. Green shows how the slave trade led to economic disparities that caused African kingdoms to lose relative political and economic power. The concentration of money in the hands of Atlantic elites in and outside these kingdoms brought about a revolutionary nineteenth century in Africa, parallel to the upheavals then taking place in Europe and America. Yet political fragmentation following the fall of African aristocracies produced radically different results as European colonization took hold. Drawing not just on written histories, but on archival research in nine countries, art, oral history, archaeology, and letters, Green lays bare the transformations that have shaped world politics and the global economy since the fifteenth century and paints a new and masterful portrait of West Africa, past and present."--Publisher's website.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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