Shantel George (University of Glasgow), “The Kola Nut in the Atlantic World: Consumption Culture and Disporic Mobilities” (Gilder Lehrman Center)

This project foregrounds the role of Africans in the production, distribution, and consumption of the kola nut from 1500-1900. My research has two objectives: to chart the complex history and wide-ranging influence of the kola nut in Africa, the circum-Caribbean, Europe, and North America over this extended time period, and to use this investigation of the kola nut as a case study to highlight and explain the long-neglected role of Africans as distributors and consumers of global commodities.

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