The Fate of Africa:
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such as South Africa and Botswana have made, he pulls no punches in pre- senting an unfiltered history of Africa and describing how many of Africa's
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From the Hopes of Freedom to the Heart of Despair A History of 50 Years of Independence
By Martin Meredith Book review provided by LCDR Mark Nevitt
The Fate of Africa:
Tracing the last 50 years from colonial independence to the present, “The Fate of Africa” begins with the initial hopeful spirit of independence that the continent experienced after World War II, as it was freed from the shackles of colonialism. It proceeds through the numerous despotisms and calamities that have led to the present sense of despair. The author does an extraordinary job describing the myriad personalities of African leaders from the charismatic and courageous Nelson Mandela to the ruthlessness of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and Uganda’s Idi Amin. The greed and perverse personalities of some countries’ leaders are shocking and at times difficult to read. This is an exceedingly frank and pessimistic book. While the author does discuss the progress that countries such as South Africa and Botswana have made, he pulls no punches in presenting an unfiltered history of Africa and describing how many of Africa’s ills have resulted from corrupt African leadership. This is a tough book to read. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed it. First, as a military officer who is working in the European/African area of responsibility, I found this book a terrific starting point to help make sense of Africa’s complicated history and issues that it faces. Second, this book adds historical perspective to many cur-
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f you think a future assignment will involve Africa, or if you are interested in learning more about the continent, you should read this book. The geographer George Kimble once famously said, “the darkest thing about Africa has always been our ignorance of it.” This book helps shine welcome light upon that darkness. “The Fate of Africa,” published in 2005 but already on the Chief of Naval Operations’ Professional Reading list, is neatly organized and divided into 35 chapters. Each chapter addresses a particular country or region of Africa. This provides a nice roadmap for the reader to begin to decipher the different countries, regions, and history of this complex continent. The book is fact-laden and reads at times like a history textbook. Do not worry; the history is fascinating. The author, British historian Martin Meredith, has written extensively on Africa. he asserts no personal opinions, letting the facts underlying Africa’s problems speak objectively and starkly for themselves. For example, Meredith points out that half of Africa’s 900 million people continue to live on less than $1 a day, half of all African women are illiterate, and over 20 million people have died from AIDS in Africa since 1980. Today, the economic output of the entire continent of Africa is less than the country of Mexico.
rent events. Readers can view Zimbabwe’s recent violent election, the scourge of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, and the genocide in Darfur in a more informed light after reading this book. For example, to understand Zimbabwe’s recent violent election it may be helpful to know about the country’s beginnings as Rhodesia that brought Mugabe to power. The genocide in Darfur is presided over by Sudan’s President Bashir, recently indicted by the International Criminal Court. Yet Darfur is impossible to understand without knowledge of Bashir’s rise to power and the history of violence among Sudanese ethnic groups. The strength of this book is the ability to encapsulate and document, in an interesting way, a broad subject within one text. Americans rarely learn about the breadth of African history and culture in school, and this book is a good way to attempt to fill this gap. The author concludes “The Fate of Africa” with a provocative sentence: “Fifty years after the beginning of the independence era, Africa’s prospects are bleaker than ever before.” Martin Meredith presents compelling factual evidence to support this assertion. Perhaps the challenge for all, in U.S. Africa Command or elsewhere, is ultimately to prove his pessimism wrong.
Book Review
Check out Lawyer, Liar, Pants on Fire by former JAG Corps officer Elissa Wellikson. This is Ms. Wellikson’s first novel after spending the last 25 years practicing law, first in the Navy and then in corporate America. Lawyer, Liar, Pants on Fire is the story of Rachel Goodman, a Jewish woman from Philadelphia who joins the Navy and is sent to Subic Bay in the Philippines for her first duty station after graduating from law school. Interspersed with accounts of military trials are descriptions of military life at an overseas duty station; the novel is a witty look at life in the military and is loosely based on Ms. Wellikson’s experiences in the JAG Corps.
Submit a book review to natalie.morehouse@navy.mil.
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