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The Fate of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence |  | Author: Martin Meredith
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Category: Book
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Rating:  68 reviews
Media: Paperback
Pages: 768
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.2
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.2 x 2.2
ISBN: 1586483986
Dewey Decimal Number: 960.32
EAN: 9781586483982
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Product Description
Fifty years ago, as Europe's colonial powers withdrew, Africa moved with enormous hope and fervor toward democracy and economic independence. Today, most African countries are effectively bankrupt, prone to civil strife, subject to dictatorial rule, weighed down by debt, and heavily dependent on Western assistance for survival. What went wrong? Focusing on the key personalities, events and themes of the independence era, Martin Meredith's magisterial history seeks to explore and explain the myriad problems that Africa has faced in the past half-century, and faces still. Acclaimed by reviewers and readers from across the political spectrum, The Fate of Africa is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how it came to this - and what, if anything, is to be done.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 68
 From euphoria to despair August 18, 2005
Pieter (Johannesburg)
81 out of 89 found this review helpful
In its 750 pages, this book thoroughly and meticulously charts the history of Africa since independence. Dealing with every single country, it explores and analyses the reasons for the continent's dismal failure. Although it provides a plethora of facts and figures, the work is an accessible and compelling read as it charts the bitter history of 50 years of independence from its hopeful beginnings to today's poverty and despair. Some passages may however upset the sensitive reader.
Africa has been cursed with corrupt and incompetent leaders who never cared for their people. There have been at least 40 successful and many more unsuccessful coup attempts over the past five decades, whilst the latest fashion is to hold sham elections as happened recently in Zimbabwe. Wherever there are natural resources like oil, the money ends up in the pockets of small ruling cliques while most ordinary people live in misery.
The rest of Africa has followed Ghana's example. The first African state to gain independence in 1957, the country was bankrupt within 8 years. Upon taking power, African leaders appointed their cronies in government instead of properly trained civil servants, of which there weren't many to begin with. These ruling elites indulged in corruption, oppression and bribery from the beginning. Today the whole continent produces less than Mexico.
The rogue's gallery of African despots includes Amin, Bokassa, Mobutu, Nyerere, Banda, Mugabe, Kaunda, Kenyatta, Mengistu, Nasser, Nguema and Nkrumah. The extent of the corruption has given rise to the term Kleptocracy. Meredith also looks at other reasons for the failure of Africa, for example rapid population increases and trade protectionism in the West.
The pattern set by Ghana is still repeating, leading to coups d'etat, oppression, misery, murder, refugees and the collapse of civil society. In the 1990s there was the tragedy of Rwanda and most recently, the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. Throwing money at the problem has never resolved anything but may instead have made things worse. Africa has had the equivalent of six Marshall Plans but most of the money ends up in overseas bank accounts. The author points out the relentless tide of graft that characterizes government and business in Africa.
Meredith also looks at the exceptions, like Botswana, South Africa and Senegal. These countries are multiparty democracies with well-run economies. They represent some hope that Africa might one day become a decent place to live. The book includes maps, black & white photographs, explanatory notes and bibliographic references. Well-researched and well-written, it will remain the standard work on the modern history of Africa for a long time to come.
fifty years of failure January 17, 2007
Daniel B. Clendenin (www.journeywithjesus.net)
24 out of 24 found this review helpful
In the late 19th century, in the space of fifty years or so, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Belgium carved up Africa among themselves in an orgy of violence and greed. Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness (1902) was one of the first to narrate the devastating legacy of European exploitation and colonialism. More recent studies have included Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost, and Barbara Kingsolver's novel The Poisonwood Bible, both treatments of the Congo published in 1998. With nearly a dozen important books about Africa to his credit, Martin Meredith's massive tome begins where Thomas Pakenham left off in his panoramic book, The Scramble for Africa: White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912 (1991).
There are very few bright spots for the 880 million people who live today in Africa's 53 countries. Nelson Mandela showed what sound judgment, integrity and a conciliatory posture can accomplish. Even so, most people in South Africa remain abysmally poor, and his successor, Thabo Mbeki, defended the psychopathic dictator Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and alternately claimed that HIV did not exist or that it was a white conspiracy. Compared to South Africa, most of Africa fares far worse. With only four independent states in Africa in 1945, Meredith documents this continental disaster country by country, beginning with Ghana's independence on March 6, 1957. Conventional wisdom argues that nothing could have been worse than colonial rule. Meredith demonstrates how and why this conventional wisdom is probably false.
After nearly 700 pages of meticulous research (and moving prose), Meredith finishes with a concluding chapter. Despite rhetoric about an African "renaissance," by almost every conceivable index Africa today faces complex problems of epic proportions. Fifty years after independence, its prospects, he believes, "are bleaker than ever before." As for politics and democracy, for example, "when Abdou Diouf of Senegal accepted defeat in an election in March 2000, he was only the fourth African president to do so in four decades." Half of all Africans live on less than US$1 a day. Its world trade has plummeted by half since 1980. It is the only part of the world where school enrollment is falling--40% of all Africans and 50% of African women cannot read. Life expectancy is dropping. AIDS has taken a devastating toll. Worst of all, Africa will never succeed without significant aid from the West, but these countries, having poured $300 billion into Africa with very little to show for it, are more reluctant than ever to invest. Even if the West did help, Meredith believes, "the sum of Africa's misfortunes--its wars, its despotisms, its corruption, its droughts, its everyday violence--presents a crisis of such magnitude that it goes beyond the reach of foreseeable solutions." Ultimately, in his opinion, Africa's own "Big Men" dictators are to blame, for they are the ones who have plundered the continent for personal gain and political power.
I am interested to see what Meredith's study does to conversations about Africa, especially in light of outspoken advocates for vigorous intervention like Bono and Jeffrey Sachs (The End of Poverty, 2005). Further, given the magnitude of Africa's dysfunction, this book renewed my appreciation for all the many NGOs, Christian and otherwise, that have not given up but have served Africa with expertise, passion, and love. Finally, having traveled to Africa five times, I echo Meredith's tribute to "the resilience and humor with which ordinary Africans confront their many adversities."
A horror story August 7, 2005
P. Bryant (Nottingham, England)
51 out of 57 found this review helpful
Five stars for this plain, urgent, and very comprehensive account of Africa since the colonial powers packed up and left, or were booted out. And as far as I know, this is the only book which covers all of Africa in the last 50 years. But I think readers should be issued with a very strong warning. You have to ask yourselves if you have a strong stomach. Because make no mistake, this is a horror story, and it has left me, after all the Geldoff-inspired euphoria, after the recent debt-cancellations, after all those good words from Blair and Brown, close to despair. Let me give you some examples chosen as random. From page 173 : "President Omar Bongo of Gabon...ordered a new palace for himself with sliding walls and doors, rotating rooms and a private nightclub, costing well over $200 million". From page 273: "The disruption caused by the `villagisation' programme nearly led to catastrophe (in Tanzania). Food production fell drastically, raising the spectre of widespread famine.... Drought compounded the problem." From page 368: "By the mid-1980s most Africans were as poor or poorer than they had been at the time if independence." From page 460: "Over a ten-year period (in Algeria) more than 100,000 people died. Nor was there any end in sight. The violence seemed to suit both sides - the military and the Islamist rebels."
The story of each African country seems to be the same. There is the early promise of independence, the charismatic new leader (it could be Nkrumah or Kenyatta or even Mugabe, of whom Ian Smith, the leader of white Rhodesia, said : "He behaved like a balanced, civilised westerner, the antithesis of the communist gangster I had expected"). There follows corruption and megalomania - palaces built, roads to nowhere commissioned, Swiss bank accounts opened, the president's tribal associates given all the top jobs. The president bans all political parties except his own, because multi-party democracy is not the African way and just plays into the hands of unscrupulous tribal leaders (but of course it is the President himself - and in Africa there has never yet been a herself - who's the biggest player of tribal politics). Then comes twenty - sometimes thirty - years of tyranny, with all political opponents jailed and tortured, and the country bankrupted. Then comes the military coup with the idealistic young military leader declaring a Council of National Salvation and a raft of anti-corruption laws. A few years later, the same young military leader (could be Samuel K Doe of Liberia, could be Yoweri Museweni of Uganda) has turned into a clone of the tyrant he deposed.
Slavery in Africa was followed by colonialism, and once that was ended, by Cold War proxy wars, and once they were over, by Aids. You would think that - plus the endemic disease and drought of course - was enough. But no, Africa suffers from another disease just as debilitating - the infestation of their own "vampire-like" ruling classes. By the end of Martin Meredith's book the horrors were not diminishing. We had had the Rwandan genocide, the children's armies of Liberia (ten year old kids high on cocaine shooting each other with Armalites) and the Lord's Resistance cult in Uganda. Still it goes on. "When Abdou Diouf of Senegal accepted defeat in an election in March 2000 he was only the fourth president to do so in four decades." And again: "The World bank estimates that 40% of Africa's private wealth is held offshore.".
The author leaves no room for any false optimism. I salute every aid agency and every politician willing to even try to improve the dire situation. But if they read this book they will be wondering where to begin.
Meaner Truths a Thousand Strong: Africa Slouching Toward Bedlam August 8, 2007
Dr. Kasumu O. Salawu (Maplewood, New Jersey USA)
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
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.
A very readable and enlightening history March 29, 2006
J. Higgins (Jessup MD)
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
Overall, this is a very good history of modern Africa. While a lengthy (800+ pages) book, "The Fate of Africa" has a flowing narrative that makes it quite enjoyable to read. The text is supported by the inclusion of a nice selection of black-and-white photographs, and several maps depicting the various regions of the continent.
It is impossible to come away from the book with any attitude, other than one that must regard contemporary Africa as a place of unrelenting squalor, violence, and disease. This is not Meredith's bias, but simply a consequence of his objective reportage of events as they have unfolded since the early 50's. There is no way to gloss over a numbing and depressing litany of despots, massacres, epidemics, and atrocities. There are many villains, few heroes, and a vast and disturbingly faceless array of victims, in the pages of recent African history.
Meredith tries to portray the end of apartheidt in South Africa as a rare but triumphal achievement of the African spirit amidst all the unrelenting horror. But anyone with even a passing awareness of conditions in South Africa today - massive crime; covertly organized campaigns of violence that are leading to the emigration of many whites; the uncontrolled influx of immigrants from poorer regions of the continent straining existing social and economic resources; and the crippling of a large segment of the black population from AIDS - will recognize that the downfall of Afrikaner rule is cruelly unlikely to lead the country into a new era of stability or prosperity.
To his credit Meredith does not close the book with an extended recitation of "how can we save Africa ?". Colossal sums of money have been spent to "save" Africa with little to show for it save the enrichment of a tiny coterie of dictators. The intervention of Western powersis rarely done with the most noble of intentions. There is no clearer example of this than the eye-opening disclosure of the machinations of the French government in Rwanda in the mid-1990s, actions which, as Meredith relates, exacerbated the dutiful slaughter of the Tutsi at the hands of their erstwhile Hutu neighbors.
The task of converting their continent from a place of ceaseless misery and suffering, to one with a promise of a better existence for its millions, lies- for better or worse- with the Africans themselves. It will be interesting to see what happens in Africa in the next decade; I am sure Meredith will be the writer best-qualified to tell us the story as it unfolds.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 68
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