This book recounts development efforts in Dahomey/Benin's oil palm sector across several political and economic shifts, from the late-nineteenth-century Scramble for Africa to the negotiation of structural adjustment programs in the 1990s. This volume, based on meticulous archival research in six different countries, addresses the twofold question of why oil palm development did not enrich the producers and who instead benefited from it. It argues that exploitation was systemic in rural development. Development interventions took place in the sector only when there was the possibility of extracting wealth from oil palm producers. The latter never found themselves in a position to command the wealth they produced or determine the path of development. The book illustrates how this exploitation functioned and evolved over time. By taking development as a multifaceted issue, it offers an integrated history that adopts a multi-actor perspective and combines social, agricultural, environmental, economic, and global history. With its long-term focus on a single commodity within a single national context, this book provides a rich framework to explore the long history of development, its losers, and its winners.
