Part One Cotton policies and African realities: note on cotton and climate; the cotton campaign in northern Nigeria 1902-14 - a planning failure; cotton in german Toogoland 1800-1914; cotton and colonial order in Sudan - the Gezira system; the Portuguese colonial cotton regime in Angola and Mozambique 1946-74. Part Two Struggles over labour/struggles over markets: forced cotton cultivation in northern Mozambique; peasants and the struggle for labour in cotton regimes of the Rufiji Basin, Tanzania 1890-1918; forced cotton cultivation and social control in the Belgian Congo; cotton, peasants and the colonial state in the French Soudan 1924-32. Part Three Cotton, food security and reproduction of rural communities: cotton in Cote d'Ivoire 1912-46; ritual and resistance cash cropping in colonial Tanganyika 1920-40; the conflict between cotton and food in colonial Malawi.