Introduction: a golden pendulum -- Context for credit : a setting at the source of the Nile -- Three faces of the loan : charity, usury ... and fantasy -- Plans and dreams : an integrated approach on paper -- Lenders and lineages : nepotism as loyalty -- Untying a package deal: borrowing green revolution technology -- Debts and dodges: the moral and the hazard in repayment -- In a white elephant's shadow: reversal and repetition -- Wildfire: tobacco contract farming -- Self-help and the underground : individual incentive and the group guarantee -- Self-help with help: banking between charity and usury -- Crossing back: rethinking credit between cultures
Summary
Parker Shipton offers a range of perspectives on the process of lending & borrowing in Africa. His conclusions challenge the conventional wisdom of the past half century about the need for credit among African farmers
