The author is one of Africa's most distinguished historians, and was head of the Department of History at the University of Ghana, Legon, for many years. These three collected lectures are republished in response to demand, and remain centrally relevant to social, economic and political problems facing Ghana. The sphinx of the title lecture refers to the Greek myth and the riddle posted by the monster. Ghana's riddle is why a country so generously endowed has failed to develop and progress. The other lectures are 'The Era of Men on Horseback' - the 1972 coup to the June 4 uprising; 'The Era of the Culture of Silence' - from the Third Republic to the second phase of the PNDC.