Yaw's Brief: Guns, Trade, Cobalt & Africa Beyond Colonialism | Substack

Sub-Saharan Africa

Can an Anti-Corrupt Military Strongman Fix Nigeria? Buhari's Military Rule in the 1980s

Nigeria got its anti-corruption crusader in 1984. The economy was collapsing anyway.

Jun 1 • Yaw

Printing Naira, Burning Dollars: The 1980s Nigerian Debt Crisis

Understanding Nigeria's Finances, Debunking Myths, and Understanding Debt Monetization

May 16 • Yaw

Nigeria's Corruption Machine: How the Second Republic Built a System That Could Only Run in One Direction

Can Democracy Work in Nigeria? Let's See Nigeria's Second Attempt

Apr 20 • Yaw

The High-Wage Trap: Why Nigeria’s Oil Wealth Killed Its Factories in the late 1970s

Nigeria's 1st "Golden Age" had many underlying issues

Mar 23 • Yaw

The Making of Nigeria’s Petrostate: Gowon's Post War Years

From Civil War Ruin to Petro-State Boom: Nigeria 1970–1976

Feb 22 • Yaw

Insights on United States

Gambling to Solvency: The Savings & Loans Crisis, Part III

The accounting magic, brokered deposits, and burning condos that cost taxpayers $124 billion

May 24 • Yaw

How the First Five Nuclear Powers Built Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs

Spies, Stolen Blueprints, and the Race for the Ultimate Weapon

Mar 8 • Yaw

The U.S. Savings & Loans Crisis Part II: Band-Aids on a Dying Industry: The 1970s Presidents Who Kicked the S&L Can Down the Road

A government engineered crisis, where there was no good solution

Feb 8 • Yaw

The $124 Billion Disaster No American Remembers: The Savings & Loans Crisis Part I

How a “boring” mortgage machine became a ticking time bomb

Dec 27, 2025 • Yaw

The Technological Origins of the Culture War

From Obama’s microtargeting to Twitter’s moral mobs — how algorithms changed what Americans believe is “good.”

Oct 24, 2025 • Yaw

The Q&A Section: Guns, Germs, and Cobalt

Why Canada Fell Behind America, Plus labor productivity, my research process, and what I do for a living. (And a thank-you to 6,000 of you!)

A mailbag Q&A on the productivity gap, plus how I write the African series and what I do for work

May 10 • Yaw

6 of My "Must-Read" Articles for New Subscribers

Here are a few articles I’ve written that I believe are worth checking out

Jan 31 • Yaw

What topics are you excited for me to write about in 2026?

Dec 12, 2025 • Yaw

Yaw's 3-Year Mailbag: Ethiopia, My Biases, and Paleo-Colonialism

Thank you to all my subscribers!

Nov 16, 2025 • Yaw

5 Answers to Questions You may have: Guyana, Somalia, Egypt, Libya, and African History(Part 5)

Get ready to learn about Carry trades

Mar 31, 2024 • Yaw