This is a sophisticated analysis of the realities of slavery in an African culture in which belonging to a social group was the basis for both wealth and power. Mann (Emory Univ.) has devoted 30 years of research into the legal and financial records of this great port city in Nigeria to produce a masterpiece of urban history. She arranges her material in three chronological periods: the era of slave exports, the era of palm oil exports, and the late-19th-century period of conversion to wage labor. The central theme is the 'slow demise' of slavery and its reorganization through the medium of the social structures of the population of Lagos. Mann thus argues for the adaptive qualities of African slavery, which had economic and social roots. Both former master and slave developed new relationships in the growth of the new colonial urban culture. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.
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Choice *
It may not be possible to write a better social history of Lagos-let alone less fully documented African port cities; and, even if it is, future scholars will have to recognize Mann's book as a benchmark.Jan 1, 2009
-- Ralph Austen * University of Chicago *
Slavery and the Birth of an African City is an original and insightful work. This book is well written and well organized. It is an important guide to the history of the Atlantic slave trade, to the economic history of Lagos, and to the intervention of the British, especially since 1861 when Lagos was annexed. Overflowing with anthropological, cultural, and historical information, this book will be of interest to general readers and undergraduate and graduate students of West African history and anthropology.April 2010
-- Julius O. Adekunle * Monmouth University *
Mann's work is an intellectually engaging, multifaceted, and tantalizingly in-depth study of slavery's gradual demise. She does an admirable job of offering fresh insights into the redefinition and rearrangement of employer-worker relationships in Lagos County, especially in the last decade of the 19th century.American Historical Review
* American Historical Review *
The author covers a lot of ground in this book, and she fills in an important gap in the historiography of Lagos. Through her careful use of a set of primary sources not often used by historians for this purpose, she has expanded the boundaries of the debate about slavery and dependency and has offered new details about the organization of business in nineteenth-century Lagos.Vol 83.2 summer 2009
-- Dmitri van den Bersselaar * Business History Review *
This story is told by the author with the skill of a master-master researcher, master analyst, master story-teller, and master essayist.51, 3 Dec. 2008
-- A. E. Afigbo * Ebonyi State University, Nigeria *
A valuable contribution not only to African history, but also to the history of slavery on both sides of the Atlantic. . . . Brilliantly organized . . . Mann's style makes the reading enjoyable.June 2008
-- Ana Lucia Araujo * H-net / H-Atlantic *
A sophisticated analysis . . . Highly recommended.
-- R. T. Brown * Choice *
[T]his book combines extensive archival research and interviews and does an excellent job in chronicling the complex history of Lagos with authority and clarity, and it does so in a manner that is pleasant to read. This is, indeed, a well-written book with an insightful trajectory attesting to the author's decades-long research on West Africa and the Atlantic world.
* Journal of World History *
By looking at an emergent commercial town with deeply engrained political and economic competition, and relating this study to the wider library, Mann provides a fine example of how the rise and decline of African slavery can be traced in its complexity.
* International Journal of African Historical Studies *
