Money Matters: Instability, Values, and Social Payments in the Modern History of West African Communities

"By examining currency and value in African communities over the past hundred years, this collection offers a social history of ordinary people's conceptions of money, their innovations in its use, and the interactions between indigenous monetary systems and those emanating from the international arena. The contributors to this volume include British, French, Ghanaian, Nigerian, and American scholars, all recognized specialists in the history, economics, and anthropology of African societies. Money Matters offers an essential complement to the new history of imperialism, suggests fresh ways of analyzing money in those vast areas of the globe outside the centers of financial power, and contributes to a new economic anthropology of West Africa."--BOOK JACKET.