The report by the Commonwealth Observer Group of the 2001 Gambian elections. Illustrated with b/w photographs. Tables, notes, 31pp. COMMONWEALTH SECRETARIAT.

Diverse contractual arrangements and forms of exchange established between smallholder farmers, their households and community work groups, are important to our understanding of processes of agrarian transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, little has been written in this area. Challenging portrayals of West African female farmers as a homogenous group, the present study provides an ethnographic account of the contractual relations established between female hosts and migrants, in the exchange of land and labour for agrarian production in a Gambian community. Further, it demonstrates the way in which, despite the liberalization of the economy, local cultural practices, such as that of entrustment, continue to be of significance in affecting the nature and particular character of agrarian transformation and postcolonial capitalist development. 220pp, NETHERLANDS. BRILL.

Emphasizes the pre-colonial expansion of production through migrant labour, local domestic producers and European merchants who created a credit system and the means of collecting produce. The trade was also shaped by fluctuations in world market prices. By the early 20th century the British Administration was trying to manage a migrant driven economy requiring imported food, and a deteriorating climate, exacerbated by. The First World War and the following Trade depression. 250pp, NETHERLANDS. E J BRILL.

New in paperback. Account of the political and economic events in this tiny West African state since the advent of military - and quasi-military - rule in 1994. 198pp, USA. LEXINGTON BOOKS.

First complete account of the political history of the former British West African dependency to be written. It makes use of much hitherto not consulted or unavailable British and Gambian official and private documentary sources, as well as interviews with many Gambian politicians and former British colonial officials. The first part of the book charts the origins and characteristics of modern politics in colonial Bathurst (Banjul) and its expansion into the Gambian interior (Protectorate) in the two decades after World War II. By independence in 1965, older urban-based parties in the capital had been defeated by a new, rural-based political organisation, the People's Progressive Party (PPP). The second part of the book analyses the means by which the PPP, under President Sir Dawda Jawara, succeeded in defeating both existing and new rival political parties and an attempted coup in 1981. The book closes with an explanation of the demise of the PPP at the hands of an army coup in 1994. Index, bib, notes, apps, 530pp, USA. UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER PRESS.

Revised edition. Niumi, a little-known territory located on the bank of the Gambia River in West Africa, is seemingly far from the reaches of world historical events. And yet the outside world has long had a significant impact on Niumi. This work shows how global events have affected people's lives over the past eight centuries in this small region in Africa's smallest country. Drawing on written and oral testimony, and writing in a clear and personal style, Donald R. Wright connects globalization with real people in a real place. 319pp, USA. M E SHARPE.