A new book by Frederick Cooper seeks to change our understanding both of Africa's role in the global economy over the centuries and of how the independent nation-state replaced colonial rule.

The grand social and ideological systems that people construct for themselves invariably carry large consequences, for the environment no less than for more strictly human affairs. Among the swirl of ideas, policies, and political structures of the twentieth century, the most ecologically influential were the growth imperative and the (not unrelated) security anxiety that together dominated policy around the world. … By 1970, however, something new was afoot.