Abstract: | Liberal economic historians, on the one hand, and radical dependency/underdevelopment theorists, on the other, have disputed the impact of African international trade upon the continent's internal development before and after the fifteenth century European voyages of discovery. The problem with all of their arguments (particularly of the radicals) is that they have been carried on at a very general level, with greater or lesser sophistication of theory and never worked out through a serious investigation of the relevant history. The present paper seeks to move toward such an investigation by attempting to demonstrate that the Sudanic Mediterranean link via the transsaharan trade route did promote a genuine development process in West Africa. At the same time East African trade on the Indian Ocean produced little real development but also little underdevelopment. Sections: Introduction - The framework of comparison - The Sudanic-Saharan case - The East African-Indian Ocean case - Conclusion: comparison and teleology. Notes, Ref. |