ABSTRACT
The macro-history of the modern world system often ignores the constitutive role of colonial connections in general, and the contributions of Africa and Africans in particular. At the same time, while a lot of literature highlights how the onset of the Washington Consensus enabled a neoliberal order which introduced structural adjustments of the African economies between the late 1970s and late 1990s, there is a tendency to forget that since the 15th century African economies and African lives at large began to be subjected to a series of structural adjustments in the service of Europe. This chapter identifies the longue durée of structural adjustments of African economies in particular and African lives in general in the service of a rising Europe and North America since the 15th century. These broad structural adjustments of African economies and life can be categories into four phases. The first phase is that of mercantilism with the enslavement of Africans as its signature. The second phase is that of the rise of industrial capital, which necessitated the physical colonization of Africa. The third phase is the shift from empire to modern nation-states otherwise known as decolonization but also characterized by the rise of the two superpowers, namely the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the United States of America. The fourth phase is that of the advent of the Washington Consensus-driven structural adjustments of African economies accompanied by imposed deregulation, privatization, and forced withdrawal of the state. This macro-historical approach not only enables a redefinition of modern histories of both Europe and Africa but also helps in understanding the invidious position occupied by Africa in the modern world system and contemporary global orders.
