Brilliant. Breaks many ideals, convictions and rose-colored glasses.
At times reminded me of Russia's perennial underachievings and misfortunes. ( )

A big, depressing book that focuses each chapter on a country or a few countries near each other and explains what challenges they faced, especially in building democratic institutions out of the rubble that colonial powers left behind. Transitions to self-government were fast, mostly because Africans wanted it that way, but the Europeans took/destroyed stuff on the way out and hadn’t invited participation before that, so the newly “independent” nations were left without the infrastructure of governance. In many cases, they also had to deal with ethnic divisions that had been exploited by the Europeans to hold on to power. Coup after coup, slaughter after slaughter resulted. ( )

An impressive work, covering the post-war experience of a number of African countries in a set of short, crisp chapters that makes it easy to read despite its length. The subject matter, however, makes for grim reading, and may be traumatic for the average reader, although the author narrates the history in a dispassionate and methodical manner. The reader is left wondering whether there is some deficiency in human nature that makes such awful and self-defeating cruelty possible. The chapter on South Africa's search for freedom and reconciliation is one of the few causes for hope.
A massive work, over 700 pages, as demanded by the subject. However, the style is crisp and engaging, individual chapters are to the point and workmanlike, making the overall reading less arduous than it could have been. ( )

A short history from independence to the relatively modern day; a grand tour of African countries. ( )

I was looking for a book to summarize the recent history of Africa as I felt that I had a clearer sense of its colonial history than its post-colonial history. I wanted to know how Kwame Nkrumah handled Ghana's transition to independence, what had happened to Nigeria since Biafra, how South Sudan and Eritrea sustained separatist movements. This book admirably told those stories. It also told endless tales of civil war and corruption.

What it didn't do was to explain why this pattern repeated itself so regularly in each of these countries. I don't think that this is a fault of the book, but rather it is a fault of my expectations. The notion of a history of Africa as a singular thing is unrealistic. African history, from what I learned here, is a collection of histories of individual states. This book provides a framework for these histories, but the idea of a comprehensive narrative of post-colonial Africa within a single set of covers, such as Tony Junt's book on post-war Europe, is unrealistic. The continent is too fragmented and diverse. ( )