In Coffee and Colonialism in Angola, 1820–1960, Jelmer Vos provides a nuanced account of continuity and rupture in Angola’s rural political economy by engaging with the existing historiography on colonialism, agrarian transition, and commodity frontiers. The author demonstrates how focused examination of a specific crop can shed light on broader processes of colonial power, labor, and social change, thereby highlighting the intricate dimension of historical complex processes and making a significant contribution to African studies and postcolonial theory. He examines the trajectory of coffee production from the aftermath of the Atlantic slave trade to the late colonial period, proposing that the history of coffee in Angola must be understood beyond the confines of the colonial system of exploitation. Instead of depicting coffee production as an inevitable consequence of European occupation or as uniformly coercive, Vos emphasizes African agency, historical contingency, and transformation. He suggests that coffee was not simply an export crop produced under coercive African labor, but rather a central mechanism through which African smallholders, colonial authorities, settler interests, and global markets reshaped labor regimes, land tenure, and social hierarchies in northern Angola. This book also presents a compelling argument for conceptualizing coffee as a historical agent, thereby mediating relationships between African communities and settlers, as well as the colonial state. This coffee-centered perspective establishes a nexus between Angola and global circuits of consumption and capital. Vos’s analysis aligns with anthropological approaches that emphasize the intertwined nature of colonial relations and power.

The book is organized chronologically and thematically, tracing long-term economic and social change in Angola from 1820 to 1960. Vos meticulously examines the post-slavery political economy of northern Angola and the global coffee market in the first three chapters. He showcases the intricate connections that underpinned the early twentieth-century cultivation and expansion of robusta coffee in Angola and its consumption in the Global North. The subsequent three chapters delve into the transition to settler plantations and its consolidation during the twentieth century. The book examines the plantation labor regime’s evolution, the transition from slavery to contract labor, and the involvement of colonial administrators and commercial firms. It discusses African forced and wage labor practices on coffee plantations, highlighting the relations between European settlers and African smallholders. The final chapter expands beyond the violence associated with forced labor experienced by plantation workers to encompass the small-scale coffee cultivation practices of African farmers. Vos posits that these autonomous coffee cultivators have developed entrepreneurial strategies to pursue access to goods that would translate into material, social, and symbolic rewards. These strategies have the potential to alter local logics of consumption, wealth, social status, and quality of life, which have intensified after World War II.

By prioritizing coffee in his analysis, rather than focusing on minerals or late colonial development schemes, Vos highlights coffee’s role in promoting independent peasant coffee production during the twentieth century. The book complements coffee frontier studies by emphasizing Portuguese colonial governance in Angola and African smallholders’ role in using indigenous knowledge and technology. Vos offers a different narrative, one that challenges the commonly accepted view of Africa as a passive recipient of European colonial occupation. He highlights the active involvement of Africans in the development of commodity frontiers, demonstrating their role as active participants in the capitalist order. This offers a “counter-narrative” (173) of Africa, which is often portrayed as subaltern to global capitalism.

The book’s strength lies in its archival research across Africa, Europe, and North and South America. It uses diverse sources, including colonial administrative and missionary records, company papers, and visual materials. This methodological approach links macroeconomic trends and micro-level social relations. Labor regimes are analyzed robustly, avoiding rigid dichotomies between forced/wage/free labor. Instead, coercion is conceptualized as a spectrum shaped by legal frameworks, economic pressures, African engagement with capitalist logics, and local power relations.

However, this strength can also present a challenge, as it may not be well-suited for every situation. An increased level of engagement with an explicitly anthropological approach could have resulted in a more substantial enhancement of the analysis of “African entrepreneurship” (2) and the intertwined practices of colonial exploitation, African production, and consumption. A comparative analysis of the book’s focus on the coffee economy reveals a relative neglect of other aspects of African rural life. The study of subsistence agriculture, alternative cash crops, and nonagricultural livelihoods could improve our understanding of how these factors shaped African coffee culture and the response to colonial settler expansion. Therefore, coffee periodically emerges as the leading factor in economic, cultural, and institutional dynamics. Additionally, Vos demonstrates a commitment to African agency. However, the narrative is significantly mediated through colonial sources. Ethnographical fieldwork would complement the study and enrich the “counter-narrative” by recovering absent narratives and memories. A more sustained engagement with African oral histories might have offered additional insight.

Vos’s study on coffee and colonialism in Angola contributes to ongoing debates on settler colonialism and agrarian capitalism within European colonial empires. Coffee and Colonialism in Angola, 1820–1960 is a well-written, rigorous, and insightful work that will appeal to a diverse readership, including historians, anthropologists, social ecologists, scholars of political economy, and the public.

This text employed minimal and nongenerative AI tools (Deepl and ChatGPT—free versions) in the preparation of the manuscript for the purpose of English language enhancement.