The political economy of West African agriculture

Author(s)

Bibliographic Information

The political economy of West African agriculture

Keith Hart

(Cambridge studies in social anthropology, no. 43)

Cambridge University Press, 1982

  • : hard
  • : pbk

Available at  / 38 libraries

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Note

Bibliography: p. 174-207

Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

West Africa's agriculture has, for 150 years, been heavily geared toward export, yet the region is one of the world's poorest. Keith Hart examines this question, focusing particularly on how this situation has affected the indigenous peoples of West Africa. Commerce has grown impressively, but productivity remains low and capital accumulation is retarded. The reasons exist primarily in internal conditions shaping social institutions. Before, during, and since colonialism, the particular problems of these preindustrial states have shaped agricultural development more than the pressure supposedly emanating from the 'world system' of international capitalism. This book, following the classical economists as well as Marx and Lenin, argues for the necessity of rapid capitalist penetration into West African agriculture. The book is also a readable introduction to the history and ethnography of the region as a whole.

Table of Contents

  • Acknowledgements
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. West Africa's economic backwardness in anthropological perspective
  • 3. The organization of agricultural production
  • 4. The state in agricultural development
  • 5. The market and capital in agricultural development
  • 6. The social impact of commercial agriculture
  • 7. What is to be done?
  • Notes
  • Select annotated bibliography
  • Supplementary bibliography
  • Index.

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