0.1. CONTENTS

EXAMPLES ARE 

The sub-Saharan savannah from the Middle Ages to the freeing of local slaves in 1907

  The Shehu of Bornou 1824

Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa in 1821, 1822, 1823 by Capt. Hugh Clapperton, London, 1826.

France from the end of the 15th century to the Industrial Revolution 

                   Louis XIV by M. Leloir in G. Toudouze, Le Roy Soleil, 1931

*     *

0.2. Why choose Africa?
0.3. My background as a historian of Africa

I. HINTERLANDS AT THE DAWN OF SUDDEN ECONOMIC GROWTH 

II. KEEPING GAIN FROM BEING INVESTED

2.1. One can't bring in the harvest alone   

2.2. Curbs on profits that villagers impose  

2.3. The grandiose destruction of wealth

2.4. Elders, chiefs and kings

2.5. Ways whose logic escapes us 

2.6. Were — are —  the real aims recognized? 

2.7. Awareness of the economic base would avoid tragedies like this

III. CURBING GROWTH: KINGS AND RITUALIZED WARFARE 

3.1. Kings maintain the status quo 

3.1.1. Kings concentrate wealth, then make it circulate 

3.1.2. African kings, prestige and constraint 

3.1.3. "Absurd" succession practices 

3.1.4. Kings of medieval Europe are also restricted  

3.1.5. Detour: Images of Christ, from shepherd to warrior to king 

3.1.6. Commercial peoples' emphasized subordination

3.2. Ritualized warfare, a way to cancel wealth

3.2.1. Traditional slave raids limit violence

3.2.2. European warfare had comparable limits

3.2.3. Valor: nobles react to nascent capitalists

3.2.4. Did memory of feudal valor add to the carnage of World War I?

IV. THE AFRICAN PAST REVISITED

   4.1. The belief that whites dominate the African past

   4.2. The choice of a backwater

   4.3. Cycles of growth, violence and new authority 

4.3.1. The legendary empires of the medieval savannah

4.3.2. Economic change and a sign of the future

4.3.3. Another upheaval, kola nuts and routes to the forest

4.3.4. Traders and textiles come to Djimini

 

4.3.6. A divisible currency brings upheaval

4.3.7. Djimini shows the struggle up close 

 4.4. Destabilized crowds sweep the Sahel  

4.4.1. Change ripples down from the Saharan fringe

4.4.2. An explorer is taken for the messiah   

4.4.3. "Everywhere the humble show the masters their teeth"   

4.4.4. A theocracy amps up growth...

4.4.5. Then contains it

4.5. Back to Djimini: violence returns

4.5.1. New forces menace

4.5.2. Senufo fight back

4.5.3. Interpreting the story

4.6. The new producers win, then crumble 

4.6.1. Destruction, slavery and economic growth

4.6.2. Adapting Islam to the need for labor

4.6.3. Samory's legend skips the raided

4.6.4. Detour: Nationalist history hides modern issues

4.6.5. Samory and the Senufo Judas

4.6.6. Colonial conquest does not bring economic control 

4.6.7. The slaves are freed and economies collapse

           4.7. Islam, a non-Western topic?

4.8. Africans take center-stage

 

V. USING THE SAME METHOD FOR FRANCE

 5.1. Similar economies, similar cycles of change

 5.2. Growth breaks lose 

 5.3. Economic growth and the "Wars of Religion"

5.3.1. Violence that has nothing to do with religion

5.3.2. The "season" of Protestant massacre

5.3.2. Catholic communities where people intertwine 

5.3.4. The traditional faith puts brakes on gain

5.3.5. The new faith shatters them

5.4. Absolute Monarchy takes the reins

5.4.1. Growing economies bring more active kings

5.4.2. Stronger kings disperse wealth

5.4.3. Detour: the French monarchy's lasting éclat

5.4.4. French Baroque's sobriety

5.4.5. Archaic opponents of growth resist and are defeated 

5.5.6. Spain, no civil war, no protestants, no capitalists

5.5. Super-spending returns 

5.5.1. Celebrations
5.5.2. Favorites

5.5.3. Creation, destruction, replacement

5.5.4. The Hall of Mirrors 

VI. LOUIS XIV, THE ULTIMATE ANTI-CAPITALIST 

6.1. Louis does not need another palace

6.2. Waterless Versailles

6.3. Gargantuan works bring water to the site 

6.4. Outlawing Protestants brings capitalists to heel

6.5. Detour: a faith specific to France

6.6. Detour: memories of persecution and wartime rescue of Jews

6.7. Controls on profit start to crack

VII. HISTORY THAT ILLUMINATES

*    *    *