Africonomics

‘The west’s economic agenda — while full of good intentions — created significant problems for the continent… A historically insightful read’ Tej Parikh, Financial Times Best New Books on Economics

‘The history of interactions between Western economists and the African continent provides a vast array of erroneous assumptions … Africonomics and the lessons therein bear reading and rereading’ Morten Jerven, Literary Review

‘Cheerfully provocative … sparkles with some illuminating moments’ TLS

‘In this wry, rollicking, and provocative history of international economics, Bronwen Everill shows us how, over the course of centuries, Western ideals have collided repeatedly and disastrously with African realities – and how even the best-intended of interventions have often paved a road to hell’ Michael Taylor, author of The Interest

‘A thought-provoking analysis of Africa’s relationship with economic imperialism’ Astrid Madimba and Chinny Ukata, authors of It’s A Continent

‘This book outstandingly analyses the shortcomings of a certain approach to thinking about Africa, and it implicitly indicates the other side of the coin: the forces for change that will continue to shape the continent from within’ Kofi Adjepong-Boateng, Centre for Financial History, University of Cambridge

REVIEWS FOR NOT MADE BY SLAVES:

‘Impressive…[Readers] will be rewarded with greater understanding of historical developments that changed the relationship between consumers and producers in a global economy in ways that reverberate to this day’ Wall Street Journal

‘Everill repositions West Africa as central to the broader Atlantic story of 18th and 19th century economic morality, its relationship with commercial ethics, and the expansion of capitalism’ Financial Times

‘Offers a penetrating new perspective on abolition in the British Empire …Impressive’ Jacobin

Bronwen Everill is the author of Not Made by Slaves and Abolition and Empire in Sierra Leone and Liberia. She has held a Leverhulme Fellowship, is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and was the Director of the Centre of African Studies at the University of Cambridge. She now teaches at Princeton and is a Research Affiliate at the Laboratory for the Economics of Africa’s Past in the Department of Economics at Stellenbosch University, South Africa.