In the late 1950s, the National Archives of Ghana (NAG) began a decentralizaton programme which has progressed to the point where there is now a NAG regional depository in eight of the country's nine regions, the only exception so far being the Upper Region. Furthermore, unlike many of the efforts at bureaucratic decentralization in Ghana, which have been more de jure than de facto -- archival decentralization in Ghana is a reality. As a result, the historical researcher who limits his efforts to the Accra branch of the NAG is risking the loss of considerable richness of detail, as a recent trip to Sekondi made abundantly clear to me.

Sekondi houses the Western Regional Branch of the NAG. The Western Region is, in many respects, one of Ghana's most interesting areas. Until relatively recently it was, at one and the same time, the major center of foreign business activity in the country, and one of the country's most backward and underdeveloped areas. While ironic, this juxtaposition is certainly not surprising. But more importantly, from the point of view of the researcher into Ghana's history, it affords the opportunity for a more detailed micro-level historical examination of, for instance, the relationship between “modernity” and “tradition,” or between the “capitalist mode of production” and the “pre-capitalist mode of production.” The Western Region has been almost an ideal type in this respect, and as a consequence is virtually a laboratory, not only for the historian, but also for the historically-minded sociologist, economist, and political scientist.