I am especcialy interested in the history of Africa from a 'economic' perspective. What were the ecological and economic circumstances that defined the 'political' structures of the peoples of the continent?
You want to read Frederick Cooper. He’s the go to expert (and academy favourite) on African history from an economic standpoint that branches into the political and cultural realms. Only issue is that he mostly focused on colonial and decolonising/postcolonial history. You didn’t specify a time period, but if you are looking for pre-colonial texts you would want to pick a specific region or grab a more generalised ‘text’ book.
For Cooper- his standout book is Cooper, F. (2002) Africa Since 1940: The Past of the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) with an excellent follow up a few years later in Cooper, F. (2005) Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge History (Berkeley: University of California Press)
If you just want to gather a lot of information in little snippets, John Iliffe has been writing about African History longer than most people have been alive. This book is a nice introduction to the whole continent over a long period of time to help narrow you down to topics and regions of interest