This work investigates how the intensification of the Atlantic slave trade between 1550 and 1750 fundamentally restructured the political and economic landscape of the West African Slave Coast. Robin Law, a distinguished historian of West Africa, utilizes extensive primary source documentation from European trading records and indigenous oral traditions to analyze this transformation. He argues that the rise of the militarized kingdom of Dahomey was not an isolated event but a direct consequence of the pressures and opportunities created by the external demand for enslaved people. The text provides a rigorous framework for understanding the intersection of indigenous state-building and global commercial exploitation.

Scholars and historians regard this text as a foundational study for understanding the specific regional impacts of the Atlantic slave trade on West African state formation. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose and the meticulous use of archival evidence to support the author's arguments.