'Slaves for Peanuts' weaves a complex story crossing time and oceans
Jori Lewis tells eye-opening stories of individuals despite scant historical record. At the outset she asks: "How do we tell the stories of people that history forgets and the present avoids?"
One of the pleasures of reading is discovering unfamiliar history and geography.
Jori Lewis' debut book, Slaves for Peanuts: A Story of Conquest, Liberation, and a Crop That Changed History, offers myriad discoveries. With a focus on a discrete period, primarily the latter half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and a discrete geography — Saint Louis, Senegal, south along the West African coast to Freetown, Sierre Leone — Slaves for Peanuts weaves a complex story crossing time and oceans.
Lewis is an award-winning journalist focusing on agriculture and environment. In addition to publishing in a
