This first history of the poor of Sub-Saharan Africa begins in the monasteries of thirteenth-century Ethiopia and ends in the South African resettlement sites of the 1980s. Its thesis, derived from histories of poverty in Europe, is that most very poor Africans have been individuals incapacitated for labour, bereft of support, and unable to fend for themselves in a land-rich economy. Only recently has there emerged the new poverty of those excluded from access to productive resources. Natural disaster brought widespread destitution, but as a cause of mass mortality it was almost eliminated in the colonial era, to return recently in those areas where drought has been compounded by administrative breakdown. Professor Iliffe investigates what it was like to be poor, how the poor sought to help themselves, how their counterparts in other continents. The poor live as people, rather than merely parading as statistics. Recent famines have alerted the world to African poverty, but the problem itself is ancient. Its current forms will not be understood until those of earlier periods are revealed and trends of change are identified. This is a book for all concerned with the future of Africa, as well as for students of poverty elsewhere.
Contents
Preface; 1. The comparative history of the poor; 2. Christian Ethiopia; 3. The Islamic tradition; 4. Poverty and pastoralism; 6. Yoruba and Igbo; 7. Early European initiatives; 8. Poverty in South Africa, 1886–1948; 9. Rural poverty in colonial Africa; 10. Urban poverty in tropical Africa; 11. The care of the poor in colonial Africa; 12. Leprosy; 13. The growth of poverty in independent Africa; 14. The transformation of poverty in southern Africa; Notes; Bibliography; Index.
Reviews
‘This is history which is in empathy with Africa which seeks, and finds, the positive elements in the suffering of the poor.’ The Times Higher Educational Supplement
‘This pioneering book is both comprehensive and also eminently fair: whether in dealing with pre-colonial, colonial, or contemporary conditions, Iliffe presents a splendidly balanced and unprejudiced view always meticulously supported by the factual evidence.’ American Anthropologist
Printer friendly version
Email a colleague