Few crop plants get as much ink as the African oil palm. As the “most widely consumed fat on the planet,” its palm oil is probably also the most contentious (1). Despite its ubiquity in both our markets and our debates, Oil Palm by Jonathan E. Robins shows us just how much our discussions were missing. With insight and nuance, the book provides a sweeping global, environmental, economic, and political history of Elaeis guineensis Jacq.—from its ancient emergence in West Africa to its vast and destructive agro-industrial plantations across the twenty-first-century tropics. The tome immediately stands as the standard historical reference on the African oil palm, and yet it does so much more.
Using the African oil palm as its anchor, the book lays out the complex global assemblages linking slavery, colonialism, and international commerce across vast expanses of time and space. It charts the historical development and historiography of...
