ABSTRACT
One basic assumption that many Western social scientists make about urbanization in Africa is that it is a very recent phenomenon, originating after European contact. Equating the incorporation of Nigeria and the rest of West Africa into the capitalist world economy with formal European intervention would, of course, be a basic error. The area actually became a key component of the modern world-system much earlier, with the rise of the Atlantic slave trade. The effects of this incursion on African societies are the object of a great deal of discussion and debate. The political economy of the world-system approach suggests that colonization is usually motivated by a direct economic payoff. To an extent, the imposition of formal British colonial power in West Africa in the late nineteenth century seems to contradict this proposition. At the time, the British exhibited great strength, if no longer absolute hegemony, in the world-economy.
