The state of Africa: A history of fifty years of independence - Martin Meredith

The fortunes of Africa have changed dramatically in the fifty years since the independence era began. As Europe’s colonial powers withdrew, dozens of new states were launched amid much jubilation and to the world’s applause. The circumstances seemed auspicious. Independence came in the midst of an economic boom.

On the world stage, African states excited the attention of the world’s rival power blocs: in the Cold War era, Africa was considered too valuable a prize to lose.

Today, Africa is spoken of only in pessimistic terms. The sum of its misfortunes – its wars, its despotisms, its corruption, its droughts – is truly daunting. No other area of the world arouses such a sense of foreboding, and few states have managed to escape the downward spiral.

What went wrong? How did Harold Macmillan’s ‘wind of change’ turn into Tony Blair’s ‘scar on the conscience of the world’? What happened to this vast continent, so rich in resources, culture and history, to bring it so close to destitution and despair in the space of two generations?

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. From the giddy enthusiasms of the 1960s to the ‘coming of tyrants’ and rapid decline, The State of Africa is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how it came to this – and what, if anything, is to be done.