Abstract:
This book is a synthesis of the nineteenth
century economic history of Africa. This
was a time when European capitalism was basking in the sun of industrial and
technological advancement. Finance capital was ransacking the globe and was very
eager to spread its tentacles in search of profits. This development caused various
studies to be conducted on the
phenomenon including J.A. Hobson's (1902)
Imperialism: A Study and V.l. Lenin's (1917) Imperialism: the Highest Stage of
Capitalism.
Thus, European scholars and commentators launched studies on the African
economic
past in Euro-çentric terms. They conceived socio-economic change in
Africa in dichotomous models.
Change was often depicted as the abrupt substitution
of one ideal
type by its opposite. These dualities came to characterize social and
historical studies on Africa.
They appeared in all manner of convoluted forms as
'traditional-modem' societies, 'subsistence-market' economies, 'formal-informal'
sectors and so on. These
conceptualizations are a product of colonial anthropology
and
development economics, grounded in the problematics of the modernization
theory.