Cocoa & Chocolate, charts the economic consequences of the addition of chocolate to Western diets, and the consequent boom in cocoa sales, over 150 years. While the cocoa boom might have been expected to transform the economic conditions of the cocoa producers from rural poverty into prosperity, it somehow failed to achieve this.
This pioneering study examines all aspects of the history of cocoa and chocolate and the effect of these commodities globally. William Gervase Clarence-Smith looks at the effects of increased production of cocoa on the environment and on land distribution, at the coercion of labour to work the plantations, at the manufacture of chocolate, at taxation and at consumption.

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First Published in 1989. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Cocoa and Chocolate,1765-1914 focuses on the period from the Seven Years War, to the First World War, when a surge of economic liberalism and globalisation should have helped cocoa producers to overcome rural poverty, just as wool transformed the economy of Australia, and tea that of Japan. The addition of new forms of chocolate to Western diets in the late nineteenth century led to a great cocoa boom, and yet economic development remained elusive, despite cocoa producers having certain advantages in the commodity lottery faced by exporters of raw materials. The commodity chain, from sowing a cocoa bean to enjoying a cup of hot chocolate, is examined in Cocoa and Chocolate, 1765-1914 under the broad rubrics of chocolate consumption, the taxation of cocoa beans, the manufacture of chocolate, private marketing channels, land distribution, ecological impact on tropical forests, and the coercion of labour. Cocoa and Chocolate, 1765-1914 concludes that cocoa failed to act as a dynamo for development.

First Published in 1989. Well over a million slaves were exported from Indian Ocean and Red Sea ports in Eastern Africa during the nineteenth century, and millions more were shifted around the interior of the continent and along the coast of East Africa. And yet we still know remarkably little about this great movement of people, particularly from an economic point of view. This is a collection of twelve essays looking at the economics of the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea Slave trades of the nineteenth century.

Coffee beans grown in Brazil, Colombia, Vietnam, or one of the other hundred producing lands on five continents remain a palpable and long-standing manifestation of globalization. For five hundred years coffee has been grown in tropical countries for consumption in temperate regions. This 2003 volume brings together scholars from nine countries who study coffee markets and societies over the last five centuries in fourteen countries on four continents and across the Indian and Pacific Oceans, with a special emphasis on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The chapters analyse the creation and function of commodity, labour, and financial markets; the role of race, ethnicity, gender, and class in the formation of coffee societies; the interaction between technology and ecology; and the impact of colonial powers, nationalist regimes, and the forces of the world economy in the forging of economic development and political democracy.

Emphasizing the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this volume brings together scholars from nine countries who study coffee markets and societies over the last five centuries in fourteen countries, on four continents, and across the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The chapters analyze the creation and function of commodity, labor, and financial markets; the role of race, ethnicity, gender, and class in the formation of coffee societies; the interaction between technology and ecology; and the impact of colonial powers, nationalist regimes, and the forces of the world economy in the forging of economic development and political democracy.

The livelihood of Third World farmers conflicts with saving the remaining tropical forests. The advantages of growing cocoa in cleared primary forest drive from the fertility of virgin soils and low concentrations of weeds, pests and diseases. The consequent emergence of new 'pioneer fronts' has also been affected by cheap labour, relative commodity prices, pests and diseases, credit resources, entrepreneurship, information, physical infrastructures, and government policies. The dynamism of smallholdings and competitive private marketing over estates and marketing boards is demonstrated.

In this important book, Clarence-Smith provides the first general survey of the Islamic debate on slavery. Sweeping away entrenched myths, he hopes to stimulate more research on the neglected topic. He draws on examples from the 'abode of Islam', from the Philippines to Senegal and from the Caucasus to South Africa, paying particular attention for the period from the late eighteenth century to the present. Once slavery had disappeared, it was the Sufi mystics who did most to integrate former slaves socially and religiously, avoiding the deep social divisions that have plagued Western society in the aftermath of abolition.

Contemporay debates about Muslim slavery occur in a context of fierce polemics between Islam and other belief systems. While Islamic groups had an ambivalent and generally muted impact on the legal repudiation of slavery, a growing religious commitment to abolition was essential if legislation was to be enforced in the twentieth century. Drawing on examples from the whole 'abode' of Islam, from the Philipines to Senegal and from the Caucasus to South Africa, Gervase Clarence-Smith ranges across the history of Islam, paying particular attention to the period from the late 18th century to the present. He shows that "sharia-minded" attempts to achieve closer adherence to the holy law restricted slavery, even if they did not end it. However, the sharia itself was not as clear about the legality of servitude as is usually assumed, and progressive scholars within the schools of law might even have achieved full emancipation over the long term. The impact of mystical and millenarian Islam was contradictory, in some cases providing a supportive agenda of freedom, but in other cases causing great surges of enslavement. The revisionist Islam that emerged from the 18th century was divided. "Fundamentalists" stressed the literal truth of the founding texts of Islam, and thus found it difficult to abandon slavery completely. "Modernists, ' appealing to the spirit rather than to the letter of scripture, spawned the most radical opponents of slavery, notably Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, the Islamic William Wilberforce. Once slavery had disappeared, it was the Sufi mystics who did most to integrate former slaves socially and religiously, avoiding the deep social divisions that have plagued Western societies inthe aftermath of abolition. In this important new book, Clarence-Smith provides the first general survey of the Islamic debate on slavery. Sweeping away entrenched myths, he hopes to stimulate more research on this neglected topic, thereby contributing to healing the religious rifts that threaten to tear our world apart in the 21st century.