This edited volume addresses the root causes of Africa's persistent poverty through an investigation of its longue durée history. It interrogates the African past through disease and demography, institutions and governance, African economies and the impact of the export slave trade, colonialism, Africa in the world economy, and culture's influence on accumulation and investment. Several of the chapters take a comparative perspective, placing Africa's developments aside other global patterns. The readership for this book spans from the informed lay reader with an interest in Africa, academics and undergraduate and graduate students, policy makers, and those in the development world.
How do the intellectual origins and historical background of western and other theories of development affect their relevance to contemporary Third-World conditions? This is the central question...
This collection of twelve essays is based on the premise that a better understanding of the economic development process can be gained by studying the history of those countries that have experienced...