Africonomics: A History of Western Ignorance

In this eye-opening account, historian Everill (Not Made by Slaves) outlines the biases, projections, misunderstandings, and irrationalities underlying Western economic intervention in Africa since the 18th century. For example, European interventionists argued that the existence of the African slave trade, along with large swaths of underdeveloped land, indicated moral deficiencies in Africans, who needed to be turned into disciplined, high-productivity farmers. But, as Everill notes, this viewpoint ignored Africans’ differing definitions of wealth (in parts of Africa, land was a communal resource, and wealth was measured in terms of people, not property), not to mention the fact that the slave trade was a European-enforced institution (one African king who tried to intervene was deposed in a European-backed coup). Europeans likewise ignored obvious similarities in economic thought—the 19th-century British marriage market, for instance, could be seen as an example of wealth-in-people; and many British proverbs emphasized the kind of work-smart-not-hard ethos held by the “low-productivity” African farmers. Often, Everill shows, the reforms were not as “scientific... and timeless” as imagined. For instance, 19th-century British officials pushed for “rational” paper currency instead of “irrational” shells and glass beads—even though the British themselves had only just managed to stabilize paper by backing it with gold, a similar commodity currency. Surveying today’s “international development” efforts, Everill damningly finds such mismanagement still reigns. It’s a laser-focused, relentless deconstruction of European “reform” in Africa. (Sept.)