Biliographical information: Klein, Martin A., Slavery And Colonial Rule in French West Africa, 1998, Cambridge University Press. The book is important as it is one of the few studies of domestic slavery in French West Africa. He contributes to the field of study, elaborating on the importance of slavery in Senegal, Sudan and Guinea in the development of Africa. The period of the study is from 1876 to 1922, where Klein finally shows the evolution of slavery. In the years before 1876, Klein argued that slavery had economic and social significance in societies. There are two themes that constitute the main part of the book. Among them: the conflict between the French in the metropolis and the French in Africa; and conflicts between slave and master. It is clear that Klein is liberal due to his support for pragmatists like Ponty. There is evidence of a critique of the conservative colonial values ​​of keeping slaves, as it opposes the tactics of slave masters. Klein also thoroughly criticizes administrators' assessments of slaves, acknowledging the lack of substantial evidence. Klein's main argument concerns the corruption of local administrators, and slavery is at the forefront of the argument. Their role in hiding evidence of slavery or preventing slaves from being free during emancipation is explored. Klein argued that local administrators wanted to maintain peace (due to the socioeconomic importance of slavery), as well as upholding selfish values ​​with chiefs in wanting to take advantage of them with resources. Klein explains how the internal consensus after 1879 (during the Third Republic) was anti-slavery, which forced local administrators to deceive France which emancipated...... middle of paper......social statuses for define their own power compared to those of slave origin. This was especially true in the sense that some slaves became richer than their masters. There is one major weakness of the book and it concerns the provenance of the information. The main problem is that throughout the book Klein argues that local administrators have had a history that distorts much of the information. However, with the facts presented by Klein, such as the number of escaped slaves in 1905, it is difficult to consider them reliable on this basis. Klein does not explain the processes that were followed to obtain the numbers and much of his points are based on administrators' "facts." Potentially, for example, the numbers could have been fabricated. Ultimately, it is easier to accept the use of facts as the only information to rely on (since it was the administrators who wrote the most about the region).