The Texture of Change is a striking social and cultural intervention focusing on a textile trade that, in tandem with the transatlantic slave trade, had a transformative effect on West Africa. Writing with fluidity, clarity, dexterity, and with analytical depth, Benjamin makes an original contribution to the study of the periods global system of exchange.
- Michael A. Gomez, New York University Jody Benjamin has crafted an engaging and deeply researched study that opens new vistas in African history. He deftly demonstrates the critical role that textile production and consumption played in expanding regional economies-western Africa-while also integrating Africa into global networks of trade that linked the continent to India, Europe, and the Americas. Chapters may focus on methodology, an event, or a social group, yet collectively they capture the multiple, and sometimes overlapping, processes that led the region to cohere: environmental crises, rise of new states, resistance to enslavement, the transatlantic slave trade, and the emergence of new social groups. Through analyses of dress and adornment in oral traditions, images, travel accounts, museum collections, and government reports, Benjamin provides a more granular perspective on how these changes shaped the lived experiences of elites, popular classes, and laborers in multiple occupations. This book will be of great value to scholars in social and economic history, cultural studies, anthropology, sociology, and fashion studies.
- Judith A. Byfield, Cornell University
