A fist full of shells6/28/2023 ![]() ![]() Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. A Fistful of Shells shows that there was so much more, and of so much relevance when looking at the issues of our own time.' Spectator 'His book is a work of staggering scholarship, drawing on previously untapped sources locked away in European vaults and historical records which, taken as a whole, contradict the age-old perceptions foisted. 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. Toby Green's groundbreaking new book transforms our view of West and West-Central Africa. 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. A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution, Toby Green, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019, pp. ![]() ![]() Its gold had fuelled the economies of Europe and the Islamic world since around 1000 CE, and its sophisticated kingdoms had traded with Europeans along the coasts from Senegal down to Angola since the fifteenth century. By the time of the 'Scramble for Africa' in the late nineteenth century, Africa had already been globally connected for many centuries. ![]()
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