A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution by Toby Green (review)

A Fistful of Shells is not only an accessible and fascinating account of the economic history of West and West Central Africa, but it also offers a timely intervention into and contribution to the recently revitalized field of historical studies of capitalism. As the author highlights and shows throughout the book, a global history of capitalism can hardly be written without taking into account developments on the continent. The range of sources employed in this book is deeply impressive and the adopted narrative mode refreshing and powerful: Green draws on art and praise singers, and employs archaeology, musicology, and historical linguistics besides various written records. He powerfully brings the period to life, and when Green weaves personal experiences into the narrative, these not only illustrate the power of oral traditions, how the distant past is remembered until today, but also allow the author to achieve one of his narrative aims, namely, with reference to Achille Mbembe, "to not adopt the historian's fiction of a comprehensive and impartial objectivity" (xxvii).

A Fistful of Shells's main argument rests on an analysis of currencies: it argues that the inequality between Africa and the West is the result of inequalities in the exchange of economic value. Although West Africa exported hard currencies such as gold for centuries, the first two centuries of the Atlantic trade saw the import of large amounts of goods, such as cloth, which were used as currencies, but lost value over time. By 1700, and due to these inequalities in the exchange of economic value, the purchasing power of the currencies of West and West Central Africa were lagging. Inequalities in economic development and capital accumulation associated with the trade in enslaved peoples further exacerbated this unequal exchange. Green thus shows that "barter trade" is a gross simplification of exchanges between Africa and the West. Moreover, the book shows that more trade does not always mean more wealth, and Green argues that people do not always act in rational economic self-interest and highlights the importance of contrasting ideas of value in making sense of economic exchanges.

A Fistful of Shells is divided into two parts. The first part starts with a chapter highlighting long-standing West African trading networks and the flows of currencies before Green draws out how a new set of pressures emerged with the rise of the Atlantic trade. In chapters covering Senegambia to Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, the Bights of Benin and Biafra, and the Kingdom of Kongo, the book illustrates how exchange created growing imbalances in capital accumulation. The second part of the book looks at the social, cultural, and political transformations that unfolded against this background in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The book pursues a more thematic approach, with chapters focusing on changing notions of value; processes of state formation; social and religious changes in labor relations; transnational connections and identities; the widening gulf between rulers and ruled; and finally revolts and revolutions of the nineteenth century.

Situating West Africa firmly in relation to world history, A Fistful of Shells connects developments on the continent to the American, French, and Haitian revolutions, and highlights how their consequences were connected to formal colonization in the nineteenth century. The author shows how African war techniques informed struggles of enslaved persons in the Americas, but also how awareness of the diaspora in the Americas—for instance, talk about the Haitian revolution, which reached African Atlantic ports (394)—became a relevant factor in movements to overthrow the dominant slave-holding aristocracies in some parts of West Africa. Heeding calls by Dipesh Chakrabarty, V. Y. Mudimbe, and Levi Strauss, the book also argues against provincializing Africa by showing similarities and parallels among Africa, Europe, and beyond regarding the dynamics of state formation and expansion. Green highlights that...