ABSTRACT
This chapter surveys the evolution of studies of African economic history and scrutinizes the debates within topical and especially temporal sub-fields of African economic history. It analyzes economic history at the continental rather than the national level. The chapter treats Africa as part of a global economic system. Independent governments focused initially on Keynesian policies of social welfare, thus extending the postwar era of economic growth. The chapter explores the studies conducted during the colonial era, the literature on African economic history. Colonial administrations developed and published records of revenue, expenditure, and overseas trade; official ethnologists studied African social life. The chapter founds to Paul Tiyambe Zeleza's extensive 1994 economic history of nineteenth-century Africa brought a flurry of excitement and concerns for revival in the field, through its attention to shifting economic structures and the agency of merchants and producers within the continent.
