Description
This monograph addresses the modern history of money and finance in the region of the current Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1885 to 1995. The study starts by exploring a series of devices which served as money in the ancient Kingdom of Congo (13th-17th centuries), explaining the significance and limits of the monetary function of such devices in traditional communities accustomed to barter-based mechanisms of exchange. Secondly, monetary and financial provisions set up for the Congo Free State (1885-1908), and the main strands of King Leopold IIs financial policy for the Congo are examined. Thirdly, the study explores the colonial period (1908-1960), revealing the biased approach of the Belgian colonial power to Congolese monetary and financial issues. Finally, an examination of the monetary and financial dimension of major political events and unrest that have occurred in the Congo since 1960 is offered, focusing particularly on the political background of the Congolese monetary collapse of the early 1990s, marked by phases of hyperinflation, which resulted in an increased dollarisation of the economy.
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