Princeton University Press
Capitalism in the Colonies: African Merchants in Lagos, 1851-1931
Key Metrics
- A G Hopkins
- Princeton University Press
- Hardcover
- 9780691258843
- -
- -
- History > Africa - West
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
An account that challenges the conventional views of African merchants under colonialism, examining the emergence and changing fortunes of indigenous entrepreneurs in Lagos, Nigeria
In Capitalism in the Colonies, A. G. Hopkins provides the first substantial assessment of the fortunes of African entrepreneurs under colonial rule. Examining the lives and careers of 100 merchants in Lagos, Nigeria, between 1850 and 1921, Hopkins challenges conventional views of the contribution made by indigenous entrepreneurs to the long-run economic development of Nigeria. He argues that African merchants in Lagos not only survived, but were also responsible for key innovations in trade, construction, farming and finance that are essential for understanding the development of Nigeria's economy.
The book is based on a large, representative sample and covers a time span that traces mercantile fortunes over two and three generations. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Hopkins shows that indigenous entrepreneurs were far more adventurous than expatriate firms. African merchants in Lagos pioneered motor vehicles, sewing machines, publishing, tanneries and new types of internal trade. They founded the construction industry that built Lagos into a major port city, moved inland to start the cocoa-farming industry and developed the finance sector that is still vital to Nigeria's economy. They also took the lead in changing single-owned businesses into limited liability companies, creating freehold property rights and promoting wage labour. In short, Hopkins argues, they were the capitalists who introduced the institutions of capitalism into Nigeria. The story of African merchants in Nigeria reminds us, he writes, that economic structures have no life of their own until they are animated by the actions of creative individuals.
Author Bio
Tony Hopkins is Emeritus Smuts Professor of Commonwealth History at Cambridge and Emeritus Walter Prescott Webb Chair in History at the University of Texas in Austin. He holds a PhD from the University of London and honorary doctorates from the Universities of Stirling and Birmingham.
He is Emeritus Smuts Professor of Commonwealth History at the University of Cambridge and an Emeritus Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge.
Professor Hopkins's main interests lie in the history of the non- Western world, economic history of Africa, and the history of European imperialism.
He has written extensively on African history, imperial history, and globalization. His publications include: An Economic History of West Africa (1973; 2019), British Imperialism written with P. J. Cain (1993; 3rd ed. 2016), Globalization in World History (2001), Global History: Interactions between the Universal and the Local (2006), American Empire: A Global History (2018), Africa, Empire and World Disorder: Historical Essays (2020) and numerous scholarly articles.
Research Interests
- Western expansion overseas;
- African and ‘Third World’ history;
- Historiography; globalization; development issues
Education
- St Paul’s School, London, 1953-57 University of London, B.A. (History, 1960);
- Ph.D. (1964): ‘An Economic History of Lagos, 1880-1914’
Source: The University of Texas at Austin Department of History
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