Chapter 1: Ordering their worlds
Spirit power and state power in Burganda
Xhosa worlds: homestead, neighborhood, kingdom, ancestors
Matriclans and entrepreneurs in the making of the Asante state
Titles and lineages in Igbo-speaking societies
Reigning in greed and anarchy in Bakongo and Jaga state and society
Feature: Beatriz of Saint Anthony
Chapter 2: Global Africa in an oceanic era
Feature: the chronicles of Pate and 19th century Swahili identity
Chapter 3: Spiritual belief and practice in cosmopolitan Africa
African "world" and African "traditional" religions
African Islam in the eighteenth century
African Christianity and Protestant evangelism
Feature: the Xhosa cattle-killing
Chapter 4: African economies and the industrial revolution
Production and productivity in late eighteenth century Africa
Africans and the industrial revolution
Settlers, peasants, and plantations
Feature: Muhammad Ali's Egypt
Chapter 5: Africans write back
Men and women in the middle?
Egyptian intellectuals on France and Islam
The "educated men" of the Fante Confederation
