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

by James L.A., Jr. Webb

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780299143343
Publisher:	University of Wisconsin Press
Publication date:	12/15/1994
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)

Editorial Reviews

Documents the increasing aridity of the transitional zone between the full desert of the Sahara and the open grassland of western Africa, the border moving 200-300 kilometers south during a brief two and half centuries; and the political and economic changes as pastoral nomads of the desert edge followed the shift south, and the agricultural communities in their way had to abandon their villages or face subjugation. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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