Kevin P. Donovan

Teaching Resources for Money, Value, and the State

Unlike other regional literatures, African history often lacks readily accessible primary sources to use with students in classes. The material below helped inform my book, Money, Value, and the State (Cambridge University Press, 2024), and I thought it may be useful should you wish to teach some of the arguments and stories in it.

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Moneychanger State

  • Erwin Blumenthal, Tanganyika’s Monetary System. [file to download]
  • BoE OV7/81: Loynes Address to Kenya Economic Society, 10 January 1961. [file to download]
  • BoE OV7/86: Loynes to editor of Tanganyika Standard, 10 December 1964. [file to download]
  • BoE OV76/3: Conference of East African Heads of Government, 10 April 1964. [file to download]

Chapter 2: A Monopoly on Valuation

  • DCO 11/2451: Mubiru, “Central Banking with Special Reference to Developing Countries. [file to download]
  • BoE OV75/9: Banking System and Regulation of Liquidity in Uganda, 1972. [file to download]
  • BoU 0, GOV.120.9: Kibirango to General Manager, 20 July 1970. [file to download]
  • BoU 0, GOV.120.9: General Manager to Governor, “Border Posts,” 1970. [file to download]
  • BoU G.56.70, GOV.806.4: Oral Evidence of Mubiru, 18 July 1967. [file to download]
  • BoU Relations between Uganda and Rwanda, 17 June 1972. [file to download]
  • JDA Trade & Industry 14/25: The Natives of the Land, Ugandan Traders of Busoga District to Idi Amin, 8 August 1972. [file to download]
  • KDA 743/2 Ocaba Wiy to Bank of Uganda, December 1977. [file to download]
  • KDA 743/2: Allocation of Foreign Exchange, 13 January 1978. [file to download]
  • KDA 743/2: Application for 10,000 in Kenya Currency, 9 March 1978. [file to download]
  • KDA 864: Opening of Uganda Commercial Bank in Kakumiro, 6 September 1976. [file to download]
  • KDA 864: Report on Kagadi Uganda Commercial Bank Proposed Branch, 19 July 1977. [file to download]
  • KDA 864: Uganda Commercial Bank Branch at Kakumiro, 1 September 1976. [file to download]

Chapter 3: Restricted Value

[Sources to come!]

Chapter 4: Crimes Against Economy

  • BoU: Kibirango to Governor, 23 October 1972. [file to download]
  • JDA Admin Complaints & Petitions 4/4: People of Budondo to D.C., 19 May 1977. [file to download]
  • JDA Trade & Industry 11/17: Request for Commodities, 20 March 1978. [file to download]
  • JDA Trade & Industry 14/25: The Natives of the Land, Ugandan Traders of Busoga District to Idi Amin, 8 August 1972. [file to download]
  • JDA Trade & Industry 23/3: Jonathan Mukasa to Minister of Commerce & Industry, 30 September. [file to download]
  • JDA Trade & Industry 23/3: Traders’ Memo submitted to Amin. [file to download]
  • KDA 401/1: Expensive Selling of Meat and Sugar, 27 August 1972. [file to download]
  • KDA 654: John Baptist Musana to Provincial Governor, 1 September 1978. [file to download]
  • KDA 654: Solomon Kasaija-Atwooki to G.M., National Sugar Works, 7 June 1978. [file to download]

Chapter 5: Magendo

Most of my data comes from interviews, but students may be interested in reporting from Kenya’s Weekly Review at the time and the recollections published more recently in Uganda’s Independent. If you can get a copy of Black Gold from Chepkube, the novel by Wamugunda Gateria, it’s also a fun read.

  • Alfred Geresom Musamali, “Flash back to 1970s coffee smuggling through Chepkube,” The Independent 22 April 2023. [file to download]
  • “Coffee: Kenya’s Black Gold,” Weekly Review 22 August 1977. [file to download]

Conclusion

  • BoE OV7/82: Problems of Price Collection in African Markets, 1955 [file to download]
  • “The International Monetary System and the New International Order,” Development Dialogue 1980:2 [file to download]
  • KRC HB/1/48: Complaint Against Police and a Trader, 21 December 1978 [file to download]