Osumaka Likaka, Rural Society and Cotton in Colonial Zaire. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997. ix + 189 pp. $47.95 cloth; $19.95 paper.

Abstract

Osumaka Likaka's book is a fascinating account of the impact of cotton cultivation on the lives of the people of northern and southern Zaire between 1917 and 1959. Using a materialist approach, the author begins the first chapter by describing the limited success of the cotton industry between 1917 and 1920. Nonetheless, the industry overcame these difficulties with the introduction of concession companies in cotton cultivation between 1920 and 1946. Likaka shows how the concession companies organized work in order to incorporate a large number of peasants. Disruption of the traditional activities necessary to their subsistence and the progressive emergence of an African farming class accompanied the “capture” of the peasants.