As Africa's role on the global stage is rising, so does the need to understand the shadow of history on the continent …'s economy and polity. We discuss recent works that shed light on Africa's colonial and precolonial legacies. The emerging corpus … Africa's post-independence maladies, we first review works that uncover the lasting legacies of colonial investments in …

investigate how heterogeneous agents in precolonial Africa relied on social distance-reducing signals to make trade with one … stifling trade between diverse agents, colonial institutions contributed to Africa's poor economic growth …

As Africa's role on the global stage is rising, so does the need to understand the shadow of history on the continent …'s economy and polity. We discuss recent works that shed light on Africa's colonial and precolonial legacies. The emerging corpus … Africa's post-independence maladies, we first review works that uncover the lasting legacies of colonial investments in …