Published with the support of the Department of History, the Laney Graduate School, and the Emory College of Arts and Science at Emory University; and the University of Wisconsin–Madison African Studies Program.
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ISSUE HIGHLIGHTS
African Economic History was founded in 1974 by the African Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin and subsequently has also been associated with the Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on Africa and Its Diasporas at York University. The journal publishes scholarly essays in English, French, and Portuguese on the economic history of African societies from precolonial times to the present. It features research in a variety of fields and time periods, including studies on labor, slavery, trade and commercial networks, economic transformations, colonialism, migration, development policies, social and economic inequalities, and poverty. The audience includes historians, economists, anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, policymakers, and a range of other scholars interested in African economies—past and present.
Latest Articles
- Open AccessTrade and Money in British West Africa, 1912–1970Evidence from Seasonal CyclesLeigh A. GardnerAfrican Economic History, June 2025, 53 (1) 144-165; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3368/aeh.53.1.144Leigh A. GardnerLeigh A. Gardner is a Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics and a Research Associate at Stellenbosch University. Her work focuses on Africa’s interactions with the global economy during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the ways these have shaped state capacity and long-run development in the region.
- Open AccessThe Colonial Currency TransitionA View from East AfricaKarin PallaverAfrican Economic History, June 2025, 53 (1) 166-182; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3368/aeh.53.1.166Karin PallaverKarin Pallaver is Associate Professor at the Department of History and Cultures, University of Bologna, where she teaches Modern African History and Indian Ocean History. She has recently edited the volume Monetary Transitions. Currencies, Colonialism and African Societies (Palgrave 2022).
- Open AccessCrises and AdaptationThe Colonial Currency System in Lagos and Its Hinterland, ca. 1900–1930Ayodeji OlukojuAfrican Economic History, June 2025, 53 (1) 119-143; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3368/aeh.53.1.119Ayodeji OlukojuAyodeji Olukoju is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. He was DAAD Guest Professor at Bayreuth University (2022) and STIAS Fellow at Stellenbosch University (2024). A member of the advisory board of Journal of Global History, his recent publications include Politics, Economy and Society in Twentieth-Century Nigeria (London, 2023, co-edited with Tokunbo Ayoola), and articles in Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte (2024) and The International History Review (2025).
- Open AccessWar, Finance, and Monetary Reform in Ashanti, 1807–1935Kofi Adjepong-BoatengAfrican Economic History, June 2025, 53 (1) 21-59; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3368/aeh.53.1.21Kofi Adjepong-BoatengKofi Adjepong-Boateng is the Associate Director, Centre for Financial History, University of Cambridge. He is a Trustee of the United Kingdom’s Royal Economic Society and a past head of the Policy Committee, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford. He holds a PhD in History from the University of Cambridge.
- Open AccessCrossing Borders, Counting CoinsTaxation and Multiple Currencies at the Haute Volta/Gold Coast Border in the Early Twentieth CenturyDomenico Cristofaro and Seiji NakaoAfrican Economic History, June 2025, 53 (1) 89-118; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3368/aeh.53.1.89Domenico CristofaroDomenico Cristofaro is a research fellow and adjunct lecturer at the University of Bologna. He is a historian of Africa with an anthropological background. His interests encompass urban history, economic history, and the relationship between African planning, political changes, currencies, and commercial and infrastructural transitions. He has published with international publishers and journals such as the International Journal of African Historical Studies and The Journal of African History.Seiji NakaoSeiji Nakao is an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University. He has conducted his research in Burkina Faso, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, and France and received his PhD (Anthropology) from Nanzan University in 2017. He won the 33rd Japan Association for African Studies Research Award for his book, Modernities of the Interior West Africa: Historical Anthropology of State and Stateless Societies (2020, Fukyosha, in Japanese) in 2021.
- Open AccessFrom Commodity to Colonial Currencies in West AfricaIntroductionGareth AustinAfrican Economic History, June 2025, 53 (1) 1-20; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3368/aeh.53.1.1Gareth AustinGareth Austin , Emeritus Professor of Economic History, University of Cambridge.