Spanish influenza remains a touchstone for pandemics. Fear of a coming influenza pandemic has led a number of commentators to draw parallels with the Spanish flu of 1918-1920. However, the... Show moreSpanish influenza remains a touchstone for pandemics. Fear of a coming influenza pandemic has led a number of commentators to draw parallels with the Spanish flu of 1918-1920. However, the majority of observers have chosen to base their findings on data from comparatively accessible North American and Northern European sources, and have excluded African data. This absence of African data has not prevented them from making bold statements about Africa's future. In response to these statements, the present paper draws attention to the social impact of Spanish influenza in Africa, thereby emphasizing the importance of the pandemic for Africa's history in the first half of the 20th century and suggesting further research opportunities. The paper also shows that there is ample material available which would allow for the development of the arguments made by those who choose to exclude African data from their analyses. In particular, the paper uses a sample of material gleaned from the National Archives in Kew to illustrate the course of the Spanish influenza pandemic in three of Britain's West African colonies - Sierra Leone, Gambia, and Nigeria. [ASC Leiden abstract] Show less
Sum.: The West African governments fix annual producers' prices for most kinds of export produce. These prices, which are considerably lower than the corresponding world market prices, have to be... Show moreSum.: The West African governments fix annual producers' prices for most kinds of export produce. These prices, which are considerably lower than the corresponding world market prices, have to be paid by produce buyers, when they buy from farmers. This study reports on research done among the cocoa and coffee farmers in four West African countries (Cameroon, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, and Nigeria) in 1979 and 1980. The author investigated on the spot whether the farmers received the official producers' price and, if not, what kind of deviations occurred and how large they were. The author found that on the whole the producers' price system was effective but there were also deviations, negative as well as positive. These deviations are discussed and presented in tables. They are expressed as percentages of the producers' price to allow comparisons for countries and crops. Show less
Investigates the direct effects of modern transport on advance into the interior, structure and organization, and withdrawal from the interior in the 1950s and 1960s of these firms. A revised... Show moreInvestigates the direct effects of modern transport on advance into the interior, structure and organization, and withdrawal from the interior in the 1950s and 1960s of these firms. A revised edition of this article in: Cahiers d'études africaines, 21 (1981), 84, p. 547-575. Show less
