Fistful of Shells

Shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize, Cundill History Prize, Fage and Oliver Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Pius Adesanmi Memorial Award

Winner of the Historical Writers' Association Non-Fiction Crown 2020
Winner of the American Historical Association's Jerry Bentley Prize in World History 2020
Winner of the Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding 2019

An Observer and Wall Street Journal Book of the Year 2019

A groundbreaking 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 goldhad fuelled the economies of Europe and Islamic world since around1000, and its sophisticated kingdoms had traded with Europeans along thecoasts from Senegal down to Angola since the fifteenth century. Untilat least 1650, this was a trade of equals, using a variety of currencies- most importantly shells: the cowrie shells imported from theMaldives, and the nzimbu shells imported from Brazil.

TobyGreen's groundbreaking new book transforms our view of West andWest-Central Africa. It reconstructs the world of kingdoms whoseexistence (like those of Europe) revolved around warfare, taxation,trade, diplomacy, complex religious beliefs, royal display andextravagance, and the production of art.

Over time, therelationship between Africa and Europe revolved ever more around thetrade in slaves, damaging Africa's relative political and economic poweras the terms of monetary exchange shifted drastically in Europe'sfavour. In spite of these growing capital imbalances, longstandingcontacts ensured remarkable connections between the Age of Revolution inEurope and America and the birth of a revolutionary nineteenth centuryin Africa.

A Fistful of Shells draws not just on writtenhistories, but on archival research in nine countries, on art,praise-singers, oral history, archaeology, letters, and the author'spersonal experience to create a new perspective on the history of one ofthe world's most important regions.

'Astonishing, staggering' Ben Okri, Daily Telegraph

Reviews

This book represents an extraordinary and admirable archival and bibliographic undertaking.