The Fate of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence by Martin Meredith Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Fate of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence
Book Review: Novice Historian
Summary: 4 Stars
I picked up this book at an airport bookstore more than a year ago but only read the first couple chapters before setting it aside and forgetting about it.
I picked it up again and finished it. I am 44 years old and truly ashamed for how little I knew about this continent. I had it drilled into my head that all of Africa's woes were due to the awful "colonists". I never heard the full story, never heard the other side to the droughts and famines which caused thousands upon thousands to starve, never heard boths sides of the genocide stories.
This book is a worthwhile read if you want to open your eyes to a problem which is far deeper than a legacy from the bad ole colonists. A study of African history should be a MUST for high school and college students the world over. Maybe then can history stop repeating itself.
Book Review: An excellent view of how modern Africa came to be
Summary: 5 Stars
At first view, The Fate of Africa is daunting: at 700 pages, it reminds you of all those books you found interesting at first sight but never had the patience to finish. This is why I launched myself into it without too much commitment; however, it flowed so smoothly that I never thought of putting it down, finishing it in under 2 weeks. The main reason is that Meredith has broken his book down into 35 independent chapters which allow for clean breaks.
This book is an excellent tour of African history from 1950 - 2000, a period where the evils of colonialism were replaced by the greater evils of corrupt bureaucracies, civil wars, dictators, and cold war manipulation. It's hard for those of us who weren't around at the time to realize that 50 short years ago, Africa was as rich as Korea or China and seemed to have more potential.
The book goes chronologically, jumping from country to country from the 50s until the 90s. Unlike some previous reviewers, I found this was the correct way of organizing the information: the reader feels like a bird overseeing the whole of the African continent, advancing in time. Countries with similar circumstances, such as white domination in South Africa and Rhodesia or Islamic fundamentalism in Algeria and Egypt, are grouped together.
This is not light reading: the problems faced by the Congo alone would be enough for one to give up on human nature, while the chapter on the Rwandan genocide moved me to tears. I believe, however, that it is necessary reading: the West had promised "never again" after the Holocaust, yet Rwanda, Congo and Darfur have put the lies to these words. Highly recommended to anyone who wants to understand the most desperately poor region in the world today.
Book Review: A Must Read but not an Only Read
Summary: 4 Stars
I found "The Fate of Africa" to be the most informative book I have ever read on post-colonial Africa. Mr. Meredith's book is well written, highly readable, and enormously engaging -- he tells the story of African independence in great detail and in chronological order. The book also provides insights into a lot of the social dynamics and ideologies which were born or built in Africa. Such ideologies include the pan-African movement which was embodied as well as exploited by many of the early nationalist regimes, and the Islamic fundamentalist movement that was started in Egypt later spreading to places like Algeria and Sudan. The window into the origins of the Islamic fundamentalist movement is particularly interesting, it is primarily a nationalist phenomena not an outgrowth of traditional muslim theology.
Still, however informative "The Fate of Africa" might be, it does have a few flaws. The author dwells heavily on the misconduct of government and dictators in most African nations, indeed, to the point that the reader might become apathetic. Additionally, his focus is primarily on political struggles and difficulties. Thus, while Mr. Meredith's book provides an invaluable resouce for understanding the political and economic problems facing Africa it does not provide a particularly personable narrative, or a good understanding of indiginous African society.
Book Review: Meaner Truths a Thousand Strong: Africa Slouching Toward Bedlam
Summary: 5 Stars
The father of Russian literature, Alexander Pushkin, once observed: "The falsehood that exalts we cherish more than meaner truths a thousand strong." So, when a Western poll recently identified Nigerians as the happiest people in the world, amidst their squalor, corruption and confusion, the ghost of Pushkin was resurrected. This book does not paint a flattering picture of Africa; in fact, the news is downright bereft of cheer.
Country by country, Meredith's tour de force is, at once, a panoramic survey of all 53 African countries as well as a statistical compendium of each since Ghana was granted independence by Britain in 1957. Except for South Africa, Botswana and Senegal, Meredith retraces the recent 50-year history of each country in a way that plots its course through ethnic violence and infernal pillage by respective Big Men to present-day failure.
Born and raised in Nigeria, I submit that, in meeting all that its title portends, this 752-page book is unequaled in scope, substance and authenticity and should remain so for a long time to come. By omission or commission, Africans may have been set up to fail by their colonial masters, for instance, the sandwich arrangement of British-ruled countries, Nigeria and Ghana, which are each surrounded on all sides by different Francophone countries and the vertical yoking together of heterogeneous ethnic groups that are horizontally homogeneous across countries, have been troublesome. Meredith's magisterial work should persuade Africans to abandon further tendencies to blame former colonial masters and assume full responsibility for the current state of disintegration in which their continent is mired.
[...]One wonders why an African has not published a book that credibly sets the record straight; one asks where else a vulture would stand by waiting for an abandoned, emaciated child to expire so that it can feast on it? Continued denial can only exacerbate the problems of Africa. For other views, visit [...].
Africa, a continent which produces less than the country of Mexico, is not to be pitied; a continent with only 10% of the world's population but which accounts for 70% of AIDS victims is to be rehabilitated; a continent that inherits one despot after another to rule its countries can only retrogress, even with the best-intentioned foreign aid packages.
The wishes and dreams of eternal optimists such as the polymath, Columbia University professor, Jeffrey Sachs, (The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, Penguin, New York, 2005), are no match for named, predatory African leaders who steal, mismanage or waste foreign aid. Until the well-meaning, disenfranchised, cadre of African professionals, who are economic refugees, living in Western countries, return to rescue, if not recover, their continent, Africa will not return from the depths of despair to the heights of hope.
Meredith's book is insistent in its message and should be read by everyone interested in the economic and political self-reliance of Africa.
Book Review: The best intro to African modern history
Summary: 5 Stars
The author managed to give some level of detail about almost all the African countries without confusing me. This is not a small task. Actually, I think I still retain quite a bit of detail after reading 700 pages of mass murder and killing that seems to happen to every country. This book offers a good, probably standard, explanation on the cause of all the chaos and tragedy in Africa. Before reading any book about a specific country in Africa, it is well advised to begin with this book. Since this is a daunting topic, I want to especially highlight that I finished reading this book very quickly. There was never a dull moment.
Often times, a history book written by a journalist and a political scientist and a historian takes pretty different view even if they are discribing the same thing. This book falls into the journalist category, which, to me, usually means that this books is great for providing background information, but do not expect a lot of deep subjective critical analysis or historical insights. This is not a criticism as the author did not claim to be anything but a journalist.
What I would love is for the author to add a new chapter on the updated status of Africa (this book is a bit outdated). For example, I recently saw that Charles Taylor, the dictator in Liberia, is finally being trialed by the international courts. I am also very interested in the Zimbabwe situation. I love to see more international pressure on these dictators and that oil/commodity money benefiting real local people one day.