Book review: Africa’s last colonial currency: the CFA franc story by Fanny Pigeaud and Ndongo Samba Sylla

In Africa’s Last Colonial Currency: The CFA Franc Story, Fanny Pigeaud and Ndongo Samba Sylla explore how the CFA franc, created in 1945, has functioned as a form of French monetary imperialism. Demolishing the shallow rhetoric surrounding the CFA system, the authors are excellent guides to its political, diplomatic and technical history, finds Scott Timcke, offering a book that will be particularly of interest to economic historians, postcolonial theorists and political scientists. Africa’s Last Colonial Currency: The CFA Franc Story. Fanny Pigeaud and Ndongo Samba Sylla (translated by Thomas Fazi). Pluto Press. 2020.