This thesis presents a reassessment of historical change in Nigeria and its relationship with economic performance. Situated within the context of recent debates on the country's agricultural 'crisis', it finds the contributions structured within the political economy tradition to be analytically deficient and factually inaccurate. Using Marx's method of historical analysis, a more coherent and e£fective study of social change is presented which refutes the stagnationist slant evident in Radical Political Economy perspectives. Transformations in the structure of property relations and the level of productive forces are highlighted in various contexts, as well as the contradictions they embody. A case study, based on extensive fieldwork is used to assess the implications of the depicted changes for rural reproduction. A process of social differentiation is revealed which confers cumulative advantages to a segment of the peasantry. The sources of this differentiation and the relationship it expresses and generates, linked to wider histc>rical processes, together portendithe emergence of capitali~m. The dynamic consequences of capitalist transformation in Nigerian agriculture- the potential provided for accumulation and productivity increases, are however found to be retarded by powerful forces exogenous to the agrarian structure. An assessment of the macroeconomic contours of capitalist development in Nigerian agriculture identifies the constraining features to agricultural growth to consist mainly of internal factors aqd policies, rather than structural constraints deriving from international trade relations. A brief examination of contemporary debates on economic policy reforms is found to provide an insufficient basis for unguarded optimism regarding the potential for long-term agricultural growth.