The waves of structural adjustment programs and democratic transitions that swept across Africa during the late 1980s and early 1990s have once again renewed interest in the role of ordinary people in the economic and political transformation of their country. Echoing the spirit of the classic revolutions of the West and most recently the great transformations in East and Central Europe, Thomas Bassett challenges contemporary discourses on African development that see the peasants as passive participants in the development process of their country. To the contrary, the peasants of Côte d'Ivoire proved to be independent partners, albeit oppressed, in the development of cotton in the country.