The Gold Coast

Abstract

This chapter details how, at the end of 1952, shortly after returning from a tour of Asia where his intellectual breakthrough led to the article on unlimited supplies of labor, W. Arthur Lewis received an invitation to advise the government of the Gold Coast on industrialization. The invitation came not from British colonial offices in the Gold Coast, but the rising nationalist party, the Convention People's Party (CPP), led by its charismatic political leader, Kwame Nkrumah. The vitality of the Gold Coast nationalists impressed Lewis, and the opportunity to advise Africans, rather than British officials, was new and exciting. Although he spent only several months of 1952 in the Gold Coast, preparing the report, and immediately returned to his teaching position at Manchester, his stay linked him to the Gold Coast and its leaders. From then onwards, British officials and Gold Coast nationalists alike regarded him as the top expert on their economy and turned to him to evaluate economic projects. Ultimately, the decision to advise the Gold Coast on its industrial prospects led Lewis away from purely academic endeavors and placed him squarely in the public arena.