Tropical Africa's emergence as a banana supplier in the inter-war period

This study deals with the development of banana exports from Africa during the interwar period, with special attention being paid to the development of specialized sea transport. It investigates similarities and differences between the banana projects which emerged in various parts of Africa and the way in which the French, German and Italian colonial governments sought to encourage the production of export bananas in the 1930s. In particular, it describes the German banana project in the Southern Cameroons (administered by the British as part of Nigeria and formerly a part of German Kamerun), the French banana projects in French Guinea, Ivory Coast and French Cameroon, the Italian banana project in Somaliland (Somalia), and, briefly, banana exports from the Belgian Congo (Zaire), the Gold Coast (Ghana), and Mozambique, and experiments in the French Congo and Eritrea