Drivers of Divergence: Textile Manufacturing in East and West Africa from the Early Modern Period to the Post-Colonial Era

This chapter places the preceding case studies in comparative perspective and examines why industries tended to decline in southern and central East Africa while cloth production persisted in much of northern East Africa and West Africa—where per capita cloth imports were significantly higher—well into the post-colonial twentieth century. The chapter begins by identifying salient underlying regional characteristics that affected the relative strength of textile industries in different regions of sub-Saharan Africa prior to the nineteenth century and then examines the development trajectories of textile industries as they confronted forces of globalization and colonization. Comparative analysis reveals a number of location-specific factors that influenced the relative resilience of industries in East and West Africa during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.