Desert Frontier: Ecological and Economic Change Along the Western Sahel, 1600-1850

by James L.A. Webb Jr.

Desert Frontier is a study of the ecological and economic impact of a long-term trend toward increasing aridity along the southern edge of the western Sahara. Beginning in the early seventeenth century, this climatological trend forced the desert approximately 200-300 kilometers to the south, transforming ethnic identities and ways of life along the length of the Sahel. Based on extensive archival research and on Saharan oral data, Desert Frontier argues that the principal historical dynamics of the precolonial Sahel were determined by this pervasive ecological crisis, rather than by the dynamics of a European-dominated world system.

Genres: Africa, History

208 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 1994

About the author

Dr. James L.A. Webb Jr. is a historian who specializes in ecological history and historical epidemiology. He is Professor Emeritus of History at Colby College.

Webb's work endeavors to integrate approaches from the biological sciences and the social sciences to produce perspectives that are useful to historians, practitioners, and planners in the field of global public health. He is the founding editor of the series Perspectives on Global Health and the Series in Ecology and History at the Ohio University Press.

Reviews

[Mandy Berghela]

Lots of data! Pretty good read

[Lydia]

I have to be real I did not like the way this was written at all. it was an interesting topic though

[Mwanafunzi]

This is an innovative ecological history of the western Sahel region from 1600 to 1850. The guiding observation that frames the book is that a "desert frontier" moved several hundred kilometers south over 250 years. Webb argues that political and economic history were significantly influenced by this changing ecological context. An important ramification of this framing is that it decenters the Atlantic world from the region’s history. Instead internal and trans-Saharan factors are identified as historical drivers, especially in relation to trade and systems of exploitation. Two trades in particular were central to these processes. The first was a trade in horses which Webb seems as allowing nomadic “Arabo-Berber” peoples from North Africa to predominate militarily and economically over sub-Saharan peoples. Many of the latter societies were drawn into the trans-Saharan trade in people, which also reinforced lasting systems of vassalage. Horses and people—as well as other goods like salt and grain—traversed the region, following routes dictated by the changing frontier. Webb packs much analysis into a relatively small amount of space.