The World and a Very Small Place in Africa is a fascinating look at how contacts with the wider world have affected how people have lived in Niumi, a small and little-known region at the mouth of West Africa’s Gambia River, for over a thousand years.
Drawing on archives, oral traditions and published works, Donald R. Wright connects world history with real people on a local level through an exploration of how global events have affected life in Niumi. Thoroughly revised and updated throughout, this new edition rests on recent thinking in globalization theory, reflects the latest historiography and has been extended to the present day through discussion of the final years of Gambian President Yahya Jammeh’s regime, the role of global forces in the events of the 2016 presidential elections and the changes that resulted from these elections. The book is supported throughout by photographs, maps and Perspectives boxes that present detailed information on such topics as Alex Haley’s Roots (part set in Niumi), why Gambians take the risky "back way" to reach Europe, or "Wiri-Wiri," the Senegalese soap that has Gambians’ attention.
Written in a clear and personal style and taking a critical yet sensitive approach, it remains an essential resource for students and scholars of African history, particularly those interested in the impact of globalization on the lives of real people.
Table of Contents:
List of illustrations
List of maps
List of perspectives
Preface to the fourth edition
Introduction
A very small place in Africa
Globalization
PART I
Archaic globalization: before 1600 CE
1 The global setting for Niumi’s history: early archaic globalization
Western Europe’s strengthening connections
Fourteenth-century setback
The lure to expand
Portuguese expansion into the Atlantic
West Africa’s strengthening connections
Islam’s movement into West Africa
State-building in West Africa
The Mali Empire
Mali’s decline
2 Niumi during early archaic globalization: before 1450 CE
The physical setting
The cultural setting
Niumi’s early residents, their commercial milieu, and the Niumi state
3 Niumi during late-archaic globalization, 1450–1600: waxing Atlantic trade, enduring Sudanic trade
Western Europe and the rise of the Atlantic plantation complex
Early Atlantic trade and political change in Niumi
Trade diasporas and new identities
Muslim traders
Christian (and "New Christian") Portuguese and Luso-Africans
New ways of life
PART II
Proto-globalization: 1600–1800
4 Niumi during proto-globalization: the height of the Atlantic complex
Niumi’s expanding world
The ecological base
The growth of mercantile capitalism and expanding Atlantic complex
The long march of Islam
The Niumi polity
State structures
Court officials
State administration
Dependent territories
State revenues
A wider world at home
Niumi’s changing material world
Niumi’s changing social and intellectual world
Luso-Africans
Muslims
Soninke
The changing nature of dependence
PART III
Modern globalization: 1800–1950s
5 Niumi in a time of transition: 1816–1897
Revolutionary change in the West
Islam’s militant strain
Weakening of the Niumi state
New systems of production and exchange: the peanut revolution
The Soninke-Marabout Wars
Formal British takeover
A deepening dependence
6 Niumi as part of the Gambia Colony and Protectorate: 1897–1965
The unsettled twentieth-century world
Establishment of colonial rule
The world of peanuts
Development
A quiet broadening and deepening of Islam
Niumi in a world at war
World War I
World War II
Postwar malaise
Toward independence
PART IV
Post-colonial globalization, 1950s
7 Independent Niumi in the First Republic of The Gambia: 1965–1994
Mid-twentieth century global realities
New rulers, old rules
A chance encounter with world history and a boost for tourism: Roots
Modernization?
8 Niumi in the recent wave of globalization: the Second Republic, 1994–2017
Globalization’s newest wave
Soldier to statesman to tyrant
Is globalization good for the world’s poor? Niumi as case study
The economy
Non-sustainable development
Culture and society
Women’s roles
Freedom, dignity, and human rights
Niumi in diaspora
The presidential election of 2016
Epilogue, 2017: #Gambia HAS Decided
Bibliography
Index
