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Books > History > African history
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A Fistful of Shells - West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution (Hardcover)
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A Fistful of Shells - West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution (Hardcover)
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By the time of the 'Scramble for Africa' in the late nineteenth
century, Africa had already been globally connected for many
centuries. Its gold had fuelled the economies of Europe and the
Islamic world since around 1000 CE, and its sophisticated kingdoms
had traded with Europeans along the coasts from Senegal down to
Angola since the fifteenth century. Until at least 1650, this was a
trade of equals, using a variety of currencies - most importantly
shells: the cowrie shells imported from the Maldives, and the
nzimbu shells imported from Brazil. Toby Green's groundbreaking new
book transforms our view of West and West-Central Africa. It
reconstructs the world of kingdoms whose existence (like those of
Europe) revolved around warfare, taxation, trade, diplomacy,
complex religious beliefs, royal display and extravagance, and the
production of art. Over time, the relationship between Africa and
Europe revolved ever more around the trade in slaves, damaging
Africa's relative political and economic power as the terms of
monetary exchange shifted drastically in Europe's favour. In spite
of these growing capital imbalances, longstanding contacts ensured
remarkable connections between the Age of Revolution in Europe and
America and the birth of a revolutionary nineteenth century in
Africa. A Fistful of Shells draws not just on written histories,
but on archival research in nine countries, on art, praise-singers,
oral history, archaeology, letters and the author's personal
experience to create a new perspective on the history of one of the
world's most important regions.
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