The Fate of Africa

The Fate of Africa
Martin Meredith

It's been sitting, reading complete, on the shelf for some time now. I just haven't gotten around to talking about it. As I described in the reading list, it's academic. Not dry but academic. But importantly, it does provide a good survey of African history since the beginning of the Independence period in the mid-twentieth century.

I wouldn't say there's anything earth-shattering here. Quite a bit of interesting history, but nothing that's going to make you put/throw the book down and say 'Gee, that's interesting'.

I know this sounds like a bit of faint praise, but it isn't. The book is quite good, and written to be easily read. Meredith spends some time discussing the causes of the continuous problems African states seem to have breaking out of the cycle of poverty-especially when you look at the progress made in other areas of the world that were in a similar state in the 1950s.

Here's a quick summary:
by the time the 'scramble for Africa' was complete, something on the order of 10,000 independent, states, kingdoms, communities etc had been amalgamated into some forty colonies and protectorates. The borders were largely 'random', mostly drawn in Europe, by people who hadn't actually been to Africa, and that didn't take into account local political / ethnic borders, terrain, history....

By the early twentieth century, colonial administrations were well entrenched, and generally accepted by the local populace. That is not to say that there was not resistance, which there was, and occasionally quite skillful, but the colonial administrations had legitimacy, and that was important.

Colonial footprints remained small and mostly coastal. Most of the day-to-day ruling was done by local chiefs in the service of the colonial administration (a policy which had some serious negative long term consequences).

When the colonial period came to an end after the second world war, there had been little if any preparation for self-governance. In fact, the policies of some European powers (France) were specifically designed to bind the colonies more closely to the European power than to prepare for independence. Then there was an apparently abrupt change and many colonies were 'cut free' with predictable consequences.

Looking back on the book now (I finished it a while ago) I notice that I marked up the introduction and early chapters quite well but the later chapters are mostly devoid on notes. As the book progressed it became more and more survey-ish, and less and less academic.

Still, a worthwhile read and a good introduction to modern African history.