In 1665 Crispina Peres, the most powerful trader in the West African slave trafficking port of Cacheu, was arrested by the Inquisition. Her enemies had conspired to denounce her for taking treatments prescribed by Senegambian healers: the djabakós. But who was Peres? And why was the Portuguese Inquisition so concerned with policing the faith of a West African woman in today’s Guinea-Bissau?

In The Heretic of Cacheu Toby Green takes us to the heart of this conundrum, but also into the atmosphere of a very distant time and place. We learn how people in seventeenth-century Cacheu built their houses, what they wore, how they worshipped – and also the work they did, how they had fun, and how they healed themselves from illness.

Through this story, the haunting realities of the growing slave trade and the rise of European empires emerge in shocking detail. By the 1650s, the relationship between Europe, West Africa, and the Americas was already an old one, with slaving entrepots, colonies, and military bases interweaving over many generations. But Cacheu also challenged the dynamic. It was globally connected to places ranging from China and India to Brazil and Colombia, and women like Crispina Peres ran the town and challenged the patriarchy of empire.

For the first time, through the surviving documents recording Peres’s case, we can see what this world was really like. Cacheu is an extraordinary act of historical recovery. It is the story of a seventeenth-century West African woman, but also of the shifting, sophisticated world in which she lived – its beliefs, values and people.

Many of Tony Blair's policy decisions in the Israeli-Palestinian arena were controversial and politically costly. This book argues that gaps between him and his party were rooted in different world views, which became increasingly significant after 9/11. Based on new interviews and previously unseen documents, this unique case study shows how the distinctive world view of a political leader defined foreign policy, by shaping Britain's response to Islamist violence and its interconnected approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The region between the river Senegal and Sierra Leone saw the first trans-Atlantic slave trade in the sixteenth century. Drawing on many new sources, Toby Green challenges current quantitative approaches to the history of the slave trade. New data on slave origins can show how and why Western African societies responded to Atlantic pressures. Green argues that answering these questions requires a cultural framework and uses the idea of creolization - the formation of mixed cultural communities in the era of plantation societies - to argue that preceding social patterns in both Africa and Europe were crucial. Major impacts of the sixteenth-century slave trade included political fragmentation, changes in identity and the re-organization of ritual and social patterns. The book shows which peoples were enslaved, why they were vulnerable and the consequences in Africa and beyond.

Shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize, Cundill History Prize, Fage and Oliver Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Pius Adesanmi Memorial Award Winner of the Historical Writers' Association Non-Fiction Crown 2020 Winner of the American Historical Association's Jerry Bentley Prize in World History 2020 Winner of the Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding 2019 An Observer and Wall Street Journal Book of the Year 2019 A groundbreaking history that will transform our view of West Africa 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 Islamic world since around 1000, 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. 'Astonishing, staggering' Ben Okri, Daily Telegraph

This book contains some of the richest written material in existence for precolonial West Africa with unique insights into daily life in an Afro-Atlantic coastal trade settlement. Presenting the complete translated and annotated text of the Inquisition trial of Crispina Peres, an African woman born in the Guinea-Bissau region, of a Portuguese father and an African mother, it documents the Portuguese Inquisition's religious persecution of Africans on African soil. Set in a slave port in 17th century West Africa, the trial focuses on the worldview of an African woman accused of engaging in African rites and witchcraft, who is imprisoned and brought before Inquisitioners in Lisbon. It highlights her resourcefulness, resilience and spirited defence of her innocence, providing precious details on her life, household, work, health and social and commercial networks in this understudied African region.

The region between the river Senegal and Sierra Leone saw the first trans-Atlantic slave trade in the sixteenth century. Drawing on many new sources, Toby Green challenges current quantitative approaches to the history of the slave trade. New data on slave origins can show how and why Western African societies responded to Atlantic pressures. Green argues that answering these questions requires a cultural framework and uses the idea of creolization - the formation of mixed cultural communities in the era of plantation societies - to argue that preceding social patterns in both Africa and Europe were crucial. Major impacts of the sixteenth-century slave trade included political fragmentation, changes in identity and the re-organization of ritual and social patterns. The book shows which peoples were enslaved, why they were vulnerable and the consequences in Africa and beyond.

4 CITIES, 4 LIVES, 1 CRIME - In Madrid, an Argentinian bookseller gets caught up in the scheme of an American professor to prevent an appalling crime. Her sidekicks soon include a Gambian migrant in Paris and a Spanish waitress in London. Seeking some sort of companionship in their exiles, the four characters join forces in a quest that becomes a dangerous obsession. All four lives seem to be fatefully connected. But how to get people to take the crime seriously if it does not yet exist? In Buenos Aires, the criminals are remorselessly pursued. They cross paths with a Nigerian judge, the wife of one of General Franco's thugs, a caretaker to the wealthy, and Peter Halbtsen, an expert in Chinese culture. It is early March 2004. Halbtsen has spent years deciphering a book which may hold the key to the mystery. But where is the crime? Who is the criminal? And can anything be done to prevent humanity from reaping the whirlwind?

Many of Tony Blair's policy decisions in the Israeli-Palestinian arena were controversial and politically costly. Blair, Labour and Palestine argues that gaps between him and much of his party were rooted in different world views. A positive attitude towards Israel came to be seen as a defining mark of New Labour loyalists. However, contrasting views among left-leaning strands in the party reflected a broader set of ideological rifts. Such differences became increasingly significant in the wake of 9/11 as British policymakers sought to understand and respond to Islamic anger against the West. Based on interviews conducted by the author and on previously unseen documents, this unique case study shows how the distinctive world view of a political leader defined foreign policy, by shaping Britain's response to Islamist violence and its interconnected approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Author Toby Greene also examines the extent to which ministers and officials considered shifting foreign policy in response to fears of Islamist radicalisation in the UK, and Blair's role in stopping this trend, especially after the 7/7 bombings.