A fistful of shells - Toby Green

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 gold
had fuelled the economies of Europe and Islamic world since around
1000, and its sophisticated kingdoms had traded with Europeans along the
coasts from Senegal down to Angola since the fifteenth century. 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.

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

Over time, the
relationship between Africa and Europe revolved ever more around the
trade in slaves, damaging Africa's relative political and economic power
as the terms of monetary exchange shifted drastically in Europe's
favour. In spite of these growing capital imbalances, longstanding
contacts ensured remarkable connections between the Age of Revolution in
Europe and America and the birth of a revolutionary nineteenth century
in Africa.

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.

'Astonishing, staggering' Ben Okri, Daily Telegraph