A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution
De (autor) Toby Greenen Limba Engleză Carte Hardback – 31 Jan 2019
A groundbreaking new 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.
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Carte Hardback (2) | 156.59 lei Economic 19-25 zile | +38.20 lei 6-10 zile |
Penguin Books – 31 Jan 2019 | 156.59 lei Economic 19-25 zile | +38.20 lei 6-10 zile |
University of Chicago Press – 22 Mar 2019 | 223.46 lei Precomandă |
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9780241003176
ISBN-10: 0241003172
Pagini: 656
Dimensiuni: 162 x 240 x 43 mm
Greutate: 1.10 kg
Editura: Penguin Books
Colecția Allen Lane
Locul publicării: London, United Kingdom
ISBN-10: 0241003172
Pagini: 656
Dimensiuni: 162 x 240 x 43 mm
Greutate: 1.10 kg
Editura: Penguin Books
Colecția Allen Lane
Locul publicării: London, United Kingdom
Notă biografică
Toby
Green
has
worked
widely
with
academics,
musicians
and
writers
across
Africa,
organising
events
in
collaboration
with
institutions
in
Angola,
Ghana,
Guinea-Bissau,
Sierra
Leone
and
the
Gambia.
He
has
written
a
number
of
previous
books,
and
his
work
has
been
translated
into
twelve
languages.
Awarded
a
2017
Philip
Leverhulme
Prize
in
History,
he
is
Senior
Lecturer
in
Lusophone
African
History
and
Culture
at
King's
College
London.
Recenzii
A
multifaceted
history
of
West
Africa
which
turns
many
old
assumptions
on
their
heads.
Green
utterly
demolishes
the
tired
Western
view
that
Africa
had
no
history
before
the
arrival
of
the
Europeans,
and
that
they
naively
ceded
power
in
the
region
to
the
newcomers
by
exchanging
valuable
goods
for
baubles.
A
magisterial,
extensive
and
fresh
account
of
the
history
of
West
Africa
that
rewrites
the
region
and
its
peoples
back
into
World
History,
where
they
belong.
Toby Green's book restores the rich African history which she had been denied for too long. Here the author reveals that Africa was never at the margins of global commerce but was in fact a decisive player with the prowess to negotiate and also the goods - ivory, gum, gold - to supply.
Toby Green's transformative book repositions West African history in an entirely new light. It brings into focus the region's fundamental place in shaping the modern world as well as the powerful and also difficult legacy of this today.
An epic journey and an astonishing tale
Very beautifully, very movingly written... by someone who knows Africa
Very seldom do I pick up a history book and wish I had written it myself. Toby Green's A Fistful of Shells is one such book. Brilliantly conceptualized, beautifully written, Fistful of Shells breaks with colonially configured regional boundaries-which work to re-create unintended silos of knowledge-to imagine a West and West Central African Atlantic history of money, power, religion, and inequality that is as rich as it is sound.
Toby Green's book restores the rich African history which she had been denied for too long. Here the author reveals that Africa was never at the margins of global commerce but was in fact a decisive player with the prowess to negotiate and also the goods - ivory, gum, gold - to supply.
Toby Green's transformative book repositions West African history in an entirely new light. It brings into focus the region's fundamental place in shaping the modern world as well as the powerful and also difficult legacy of this today.
An epic journey and an astonishing tale
Very beautifully, very movingly written... by someone who knows Africa
Very seldom do I pick up a history book and wish I had written it myself. Toby Green's A Fistful of Shells is one such book. Brilliantly conceptualized, beautifully written, Fistful of Shells breaks with colonially configured regional boundaries-which work to re-create unintended silos of knowledge-to imagine a West and West Central African Atlantic history of money, power, religion, and inequality that is as rich as it is sound.