Part one: Causes : economic divergence in West and West-Central Africa. "Three measures of gold" : the rise and fall of the great empires of the Sahel
Causeways across the savannah : from Senegambia to Sierra Leone
Ready money : The Gold Coast and the gold trade
Rivers of cloth, masks of bronze : the bights of Benin and Biafra
The kingdom of Kongo : from majesty to revolt
Part two: Consequences : politics, belief and revolutions from below. "With boots worth 3 slaves" : slavery and value in the eighteenth century
On a war footing : the "fiscal-military state" in West African politics
Feeding power : new societies, new worldviews
Transnational Africas, struggle and the rising of modernity
Warrior aristocracies and pushback from below
Let them drink rum! : Islam, revolution and the aristocracy.
