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The Fortunes of Africa: A 5,000-Year History of Wealth, Greed, and Endeavor
A sweeping history the fortune seekers, adventurers, despots, and thieves who have ruthlessly endeavored to extract gold, diamonds, and other treasures from Africa and its people.
Africa has been coveted for its rich natural resources ever since the era of the Pharaohs. In past centuries, it was the lure of gold, ivory, and slaves that drew merchant-adventurers and conquerors from afar. In modern times, the focus of attention is on oil, diamonds, and other rare earth minerals.
In this vast and vivid panorama of history, Martin Meredith follows the fortunes of Africa over a period of 5,000 years. With compelling narrative, he traces the rise and fall of ancient kingdoms and empires; the spread of Christianity and Islam; the enduring quest for gold and other riches; the exploits of explorers and missionaries; and the impact of European colonization. He examines, too, the fate of modern African states and concludes with a glimpse of their future.
His cast of characters includes religious leaders, mining magnates, warlords, dictators, and many other legendary figures-among them Mansa Musa, ruler of the medieval Mali empire, said to be the richest man the world has ever known.
Africa has been coveted for its rich natural resources ever since the era of the Pharaohs. In past centuries, it was the lure of gold, ivory, and slaves that drew merchant-adventurers and conquerors from afar. In modern times, the focus of attention is on oil, diamonds, and other rare earth minerals.
In this vast and vivid panorama of history, Martin Meredith follows the fortunes of Africa over a period of 5,000 years. With compelling narrative, he traces the rise and fall of ancient kingdoms and empires; the spread of Christianity and Islam; the enduring quest for gold and other riches; the exploits of explorers and missionaries; and the impact of European colonization. He examines, too, the fate of modern African states and concludes with a glimpse of their future.
His cast of characters includes religious leaders, mining magnates, warlords, dictators, and many other legendary figures-among them Mansa Musa, ruler of the medieval Mali empire, said to be the richest man the world has ever known.
745 pages, Hardcover
First published October 14, 2014
About the author
Martin Meredith
22 books224 followersMartin Meredith is a historian, journalist and biographer, and author of many acclaimed books on Africa.
Meredith first worked as a foreign correspondent in Africa for the Observer and Sunday Times, then as a research fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford. Residing near Oxford, he is now an independent commentator and author.
Meredith’s writing has been described as authoritative and well-documented, despite the pessimism inherent in his subject matter.
He is the author of Diamonds, Gold and War, Mugabe: Power, Plunder – which sold over 15 000 copies in South Africa, and The Struggle for Zimbabwe’s Future, The State of Africa and Nelson Mandela: A Biography, among many others.
His most recent book is Born in Africa, published by Jonathan Ball Publishers.
Meredith first worked as a foreign correspondent in Africa for the Observer and Sunday Times, then as a research fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford. Residing near Oxford, he is now an independent commentator and author.
Meredith’s writing has been described as authoritative and well-documented, despite the pessimism inherent in his subject matter.
He is the author of Diamonds, Gold and War, Mugabe: Power, Plunder – which sold over 15 000 copies in South Africa, and The Struggle for Zimbabwe’s Future, The State of Africa and Nelson Mandela: A Biography, among many others.
His most recent book is Born in Africa, published by Jonathan Ball Publishers.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 138 reviews
March 28, 2015
I found this to be an extremely disappointing book. My disappointment partially came from how much I enjoyed and got out of the two previous books by Meredith about African history that I've read: The Fate of Africa and In the Name of Apartheid.
Actually, what I liked so much about those books helps explain why I was so disappointed in this one.
Let's look at The Fate of Africa. This was a broad overview of Africa since independence. It is a work of pop history. I don't mean that in any sort of insulting way. Heck, no - it was great pop history. But all I mean is that in Fate, Meredith took the most well-known stories of African countries since the 1950s and spend a chapter on each one. Essentially, he was a teller of twice-told tales. But he did a really good job telling those tales (and many weren't that familiar to me). Meredith is by no means a world class expert on Africa. He's more a guy who reads what the experts have written and reports on it (hence why I called him a teller of twice-told tales). But he knew enough about his material and he aimed at an achievable goal based on his knowledge of the material.
And that leads to the problem with this book. He's aiming way too high. The title tells us it's a 5,000 year history of the continent, but it's clear he doesn't know that much about huge chunks of the continent. Let me put it to you this way - this book consists of 71 chapters -- and the Portuguese voyagers show up in Chapter 10. Yeah, the first 4,500 years out of 5,000 cover just 9 out of 71 chapters. Look, I know there is a lack of written records for much of the continent. I don't expect the book to spend equal time for each era. But ... damn, that really ain't much.
Actually, it's even worse than that. Those first nine chapters? Two are on ancient Egypt. One is on the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage. One is on the Roman Empire in Africa. One is on Christianity and another is on Islam. Sure, those are all worthwhile items to talk about - but that means you only have three chapters on all the rest of the continent over the first 4,500 years the book's title claims to cover. (And even in those three chapters, two are about trade with the outside world. You basically get just one chapter on sub-Saharan African until the Portuguese show up. That chapter is 5 pages long.
Then, once the Europeans do show up, the focus of the book is on European activity in Africa. Out of 675 pages of text, nearly 300 are on the 19th century - and the focus is on Europeans dividing it up. Again, this SHOULD be an important topic and should be a key theme. But there is a distressing trend here. Africans rarely are actors in a story on Africa. They are more the passive objects in a story of other people's actions. And when we do get stories of Africans, it's rarely of black Africans.
While sources are a problem in African history, it is possible to tell something of the story. Books like "Africa in World History" by Erik Gilbert and Jonathan T. Reynolds, or "History of Africa" by Kevin Shellington give you LOTS more insight on what was going on across the continent during all phases of its history.
Well, those are textbooks. Maybe it isn't fair to compare a pop history like Meredith to the authors of actual college-level textbooks on Africa. You know what, though? It IS fair. It is completely fair. Because when Meredith attempts to write a book on the entire history of Africa, that's the competition he's setting out for himself. And he fails.
What's weird is how little time he spends on modern Africa. After spending a huge amount of time on the conquest of Africa, he spends about 35 pages on the colonies from 1900ish to WWII, then about 65 pages on the end of white rule in Africa, and a final section of about 85 pages on Africa since independence. It's odd that a history book spends more time on the 1800-1899 then on 1900-onward, but that's the case here. It's especially odd because Meredith has written an entire book on post-independence Africa, but here he just glosses over it. I guess he didn't want to repeat himself too much. I can respect that, but it adds to the overall effect of marginalizing black Africans in a book on the history of Africa.
There is one spot of Africa that Meredith does seem to have quite a bit of knowledge; one area that he more than just a pop history. But, unfortunately, his knowledge of that country just further amplifies the problems with this book. He really knows his history of South Africa. I already noted that I read and loved his "In the Name of Apartheid." Well, he's also written several other books on that country, too. It's his specialty.
Sure enough, you get more on that place than any other part of the book. About 12-13 chapters focus just on South Africa (Chapters 22-25, 34-38, 49, 51, 56, and most of 64. While he does a solid job there, it's also the country where whites have had the most inroads and impact. So that just adds to the overall problem I have with the book.
I don't mean to imply that a writer should ignore the impact of whites (or Arabs or any others) from the history of Africa. That impact is huge and not including it would be a terrible oversight. I'm well aware that that Africa is more than just sub-Saharan blacks. But in a book that purports to be a history of the entire continent of Africa, there is far too much focus on Europeans.
Actually, what I liked so much about those books helps explain why I was so disappointed in this one.
Let's look at The Fate of Africa. This was a broad overview of Africa since independence. It is a work of pop history. I don't mean that in any sort of insulting way. Heck, no - it was great pop history. But all I mean is that in Fate, Meredith took the most well-known stories of African countries since the 1950s and spend a chapter on each one. Essentially, he was a teller of twice-told tales. But he did a really good job telling those tales (and many weren't that familiar to me). Meredith is by no means a world class expert on Africa. He's more a guy who reads what the experts have written and reports on it (hence why I called him a teller of twice-told tales). But he knew enough about his material and he aimed at an achievable goal based on his knowledge of the material.
And that leads to the problem with this book. He's aiming way too high. The title tells us it's a 5,000 year history of the continent, but it's clear he doesn't know that much about huge chunks of the continent. Let me put it to you this way - this book consists of 71 chapters -- and the Portuguese voyagers show up in Chapter 10. Yeah, the first 4,500 years out of 5,000 cover just 9 out of 71 chapters. Look, I know there is a lack of written records for much of the continent. I don't expect the book to spend equal time for each era. But ... damn, that really ain't much.
Actually, it's even worse than that. Those first nine chapters? Two are on ancient Egypt. One is on the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage. One is on the Roman Empire in Africa. One is on Christianity and another is on Islam. Sure, those are all worthwhile items to talk about - but that means you only have three chapters on all the rest of the continent over the first 4,500 years the book's title claims to cover. (And even in those three chapters, two are about trade with the outside world. You basically get just one chapter on sub-Saharan African until the Portuguese show up. That chapter is 5 pages long.
Then, once the Europeans do show up, the focus of the book is on European activity in Africa. Out of 675 pages of text, nearly 300 are on the 19th century - and the focus is on Europeans dividing it up. Again, this SHOULD be an important topic and should be a key theme. But there is a distressing trend here. Africans rarely are actors in a story on Africa. They are more the passive objects in a story of other people's actions. And when we do get stories of Africans, it's rarely of black Africans.
While sources are a problem in African history, it is possible to tell something of the story. Books like "Africa in World History" by Erik Gilbert and Jonathan T. Reynolds, or "History of Africa" by Kevin Shellington give you LOTS more insight on what was going on across the continent during all phases of its history.
Well, those are textbooks. Maybe it isn't fair to compare a pop history like Meredith to the authors of actual college-level textbooks on Africa. You know what, though? It IS fair. It is completely fair. Because when Meredith attempts to write a book on the entire history of Africa, that's the competition he's setting out for himself. And he fails.
What's weird is how little time he spends on modern Africa. After spending a huge amount of time on the conquest of Africa, he spends about 35 pages on the colonies from 1900ish to WWII, then about 65 pages on the end of white rule in Africa, and a final section of about 85 pages on Africa since independence. It's odd that a history book spends more time on the 1800-1899 then on 1900-onward, but that's the case here. It's especially odd because Meredith has written an entire book on post-independence Africa, but here he just glosses over it. I guess he didn't want to repeat himself too much. I can respect that, but it adds to the overall effect of marginalizing black Africans in a book on the history of Africa.
There is one spot of Africa that Meredith does seem to have quite a bit of knowledge; one area that he more than just a pop history. But, unfortunately, his knowledge of that country just further amplifies the problems with this book. He really knows his history of South Africa. I already noted that I read and loved his "In the Name of Apartheid." Well, he's also written several other books on that country, too. It's his specialty.
Sure enough, you get more on that place than any other part of the book. About 12-13 chapters focus just on South Africa (Chapters 22-25, 34-38, 49, 51, 56, and most of 64. While he does a solid job there, it's also the country where whites have had the most inroads and impact. So that just adds to the overall problem I have with the book.
I don't mean to imply that a writer should ignore the impact of whites (or Arabs or any others) from the history of Africa. That impact is huge and not including it would be a terrible oversight. I'm well aware that that Africa is more than just sub-Saharan blacks. But in a book that purports to be a history of the entire continent of Africa, there is far too much focus on Europeans.
October 25, 2014
We can be confident that the Garden of Eden was in Southern Iraq and not in Africa, but we also know that there have always been people in Africa and throughout recorded history it seems they have traded in slaves, gold and ivory with the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. Black Africans have typically been represented as mysterious people without a history of their own. Now we have this superb, single volume history of Africa, providing the raw material to investigate a thousand interesting and important questions. In order to cover so much ground, it is inevitably very concise and many major stories are compressed to a few pages, which can have the effect of making them a bit too simple and too definitive. I would have liked another few hundred pages, to spend a bit more time on description and explanation, and to include more anecdotes and human details. As it stands, this history is terribly stark and pretty fearful. The book brings its history up to 2014, and it had every prospect of an upbeat ending, with developments like majority rule in South Africa, the Arab Spring in the North, the spread of democracy, but sadly it also reports on the disappointing aftermath of those changes and the final pages seem close to despondent. I can imagine a separate volume of essays to draw out some of the themes in this history and I can imagine heated debates as people use and interpret this history to suit conflicting value systems, because let’s face it - people will read the facts in a way that fits their prejudices and prior commitments. Even so, I cannot imagine such debates ever being better informed or more balanced than now, having the benefit of such a lucid and comprehensive survey.
February 18, 2015
It's important that you realize one thing about this book: it is a history of how the peoples and land of Africa have been exploited from Egypt to the present; it not a history of Africa. I'd like to read Meredith do the latter, but this isn't it.
It's important to mention this because I can easily imagine someone criticizing this book for its focus on the various peoples who have done the exploiting, whether ancient Egyptian, Muslim, African or European. There's a great deal less in here about the good and great things that the various African peoples have done for themselves. Also, he's writing about thousands of years of history of a place that isn't really coherent at all. If you get nothing else out of this book, you'll get the huge differences between the regions of Africa. That means he has to make some big generalizations, and they can probably be picked apart by specialists. That's okay. We need the specialists. We also need the generalists.
With those caveat in mind, this is a glorious book. Meredith writes well, the structure is intuitive (i.e., though he jumps around in time and space, the jumps are never jarring, and are always signaled with section breaks etc...) I cannot explain how much I learned from this book.
And if you're concerned about political bias, which you should be in any book of this kind, know that Meredith is seriously biased against everyone. A typical string of argument leads from, say, the horrors of the intra-African slave trade, to the horrors of the slave trade to Europe, to the greater horrors of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Here most accounts fall silent. Meredith, instead, proceeds to discuss the ways that African leaders, from the earliest contacts with Muslim states through to the end of the American slave trade, used their people as a way to make wealth and consolidate their power. Most slaves, in other words, were sold by Africans. The trade only ended once the entire continent (minus Abyssinia) was colonized by European powers who opposed the slave trade.
Such is the history of the exploitation of Africa: if you think something's getting better (e.g., slave trade ends), rest assured that something else is getting much worse.
It's important to mention this because I can easily imagine someone criticizing this book for its focus on the various peoples who have done the exploiting, whether ancient Egyptian, Muslim, African or European. There's a great deal less in here about the good and great things that the various African peoples have done for themselves. Also, he's writing about thousands of years of history of a place that isn't really coherent at all. If you get nothing else out of this book, you'll get the huge differences between the regions of Africa. That means he has to make some big generalizations, and they can probably be picked apart by specialists. That's okay. We need the specialists. We also need the generalists.
With those caveat in mind, this is a glorious book. Meredith writes well, the structure is intuitive (i.e., though he jumps around in time and space, the jumps are never jarring, and are always signaled with section breaks etc...) I cannot explain how much I learned from this book.
And if you're concerned about political bias, which you should be in any book of this kind, know that Meredith is seriously biased against everyone. A typical string of argument leads from, say, the horrors of the intra-African slave trade, to the horrors of the slave trade to Europe, to the greater horrors of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Here most accounts fall silent. Meredith, instead, proceeds to discuss the ways that African leaders, from the earliest contacts with Muslim states through to the end of the American slave trade, used their people as a way to make wealth and consolidate their power. Most slaves, in other words, were sold by Africans. The trade only ended once the entire continent (minus Abyssinia) was colonized by European powers who opposed the slave trade.
Such is the history of the exploitation of Africa: if you think something's getting better (e.g., slave trade ends), rest assured that something else is getting much worse.
December 1, 2023
Three years ago I read a book by Nigerian-American journalist Dayo Olopade called The Bright Continent. This was an upbeat and optimistic account of the author's experiences in Africa and gave the perception that the African people were up to the challenges facing them. Professor Meredith has, in this volume, described those challenges in detail. Without the perspective provided by Ms. Olopade, I would have found Meredith's efforts even more disheartening. From the pharaohs to Robert Mugabe and the current roster of kleptocrats, Mr. Meredith has summarized the greed, corruption and lust for power that seem to be the defining characteristics of the African historical milieu. Even more distressing, since November, 2016, I no longer feel entitled to look down my nose at citizens of countries who seem indifferent to the ethical shortcomings of their political leaders.
For Americans, like myself, who have more or less assumed that enlightened democracy was generally the type of government that we would be enjoying and that the rest of the world aspired to the same, the history of Africa, as presented by Professor Meredith, is a disquieting reminder that maintaining a democracy requires a greater degree of commitment than appears to prevail in most places at the current time.
For Americans, like myself, who have more or less assumed that enlightened democracy was generally the type of government that we would be enjoying and that the rest of the world aspired to the same, the history of Africa, as presented by Professor Meredith, is a disquieting reminder that maintaining a democracy requires a greater degree of commitment than appears to prevail in most places at the current time.
April 5, 2023
I was a little worried when this started that it would tread the same ground in The African Experience: From "Lucy" to Mandela, and for a time, it did. But being an extra eight hours long, there is a lot more information here. It is still very Euro-centric, understandable to an extent since European screwed up that continent severely over the centuries, but I was hoping there'd be more focus on the time prior to that other than just ancient Egypt and the rise of Christianity.
I did like how he presented the material. Very "just the facts, ma'am". He didn't feel the need to insert his opinion on any of the subjects raised, nor did he try to apologize for the actions of historical peoples. If I were to recommend only one of these, it'd be this one over The Great Courses series mentioned above.
That said, there are less personal accounts from those historical peoples in this one, and it was sometimes hard for me to follow where in Africa we were in the material. I'm certainly not going to remember any of the names here. But it was interesting to see how Muslim came to Africa, and how early Europeans actually started advocating for improvements, though change, as we all know, was much slower to happen.
I did like how he presented the material. Very "just the facts, ma'am". He didn't feel the need to insert his opinion on any of the subjects raised, nor did he try to apologize for the actions of historical peoples. If I were to recommend only one of these, it'd be this one over The Great Courses series mentioned above.
That said, there are less personal accounts from those historical peoples in this one, and it was sometimes hard for me to follow where in Africa we were in the material. I'm certainly not going to remember any of the names here. But it was interesting to see how Muslim came to Africa, and how early Europeans actually started advocating for improvements, though change, as we all know, was much slower to happen.
October 11, 2021
For Mr. Meredith to shove 5,000 years of history into about 670 pages of text, he did a remarkable job. Well detailed about every region of Africa, gives us a sense of what the continent was, is, and will become in the future. As the book progresses, he gets to tell us about how Africa became an interconnected continent and how it has shaped world affairs, especially in the past 200 plus years. A real page turner for sure. The first 12 chapters are a bit slow, but once you get past that and start talking about the middle passage, then it really picks up. Great volume and a really nice job covering so much in so little space.
February 5, 2023
Rating: 4 star plus for being informative, well researched and well written.
The book consists of 71 chapters which are organized into Parts I through XVI with between two and seven chapters being allocated to each Part. The parts themselves are unnamed and lack dates or regional designations. The chapter names are sometimes descriptive (e.g. Land of the Pharaohs, Unlocking the Congo) but more often poetic (e.g. The Sword of Truth, The Magnificent Cake, A Tale of Two Towns) or otherwise obscure (e.g. Zanj, The Black Guard, Pieds Noirs). With this deficiency, the author loses the opportunity to help the reader mentally organize the material about to be described. See Additional Note B below for original title alongside a descriptive title for each chapter.
One could organize the large book’s content into four main groups:
• Chapters 1-9 cover history before 1400 (9 chapters over 4400 years)
• Chapters 10-17 covers 1400 to 1800 (8 chapters over 400 years)
• Chapters 18- 57 cover 1800 to Independence (39 chapters over ~150 years)
• Chapters 58-71 cover Independence to 2014 (13 chapters over ~60 years)
Until 1900, this is a story that concerns itself with four topics: rulers, explorers, conquerors and traders. The one welcome exception is periodic reference to local religious practices. Before 1600, there would be little other historical material since until recent times, Africans outside the ruling classes were rarely literate. However, from 1600, there should be letters from missionaries with more information on the society than the four topics above such as: sources of food (hunting, farming), how local communities ran, family life, tools, education, etc. If this content was collected then a worthwhile analysis would examine how these aspects of African life varied in equatorial, arid and temperate parts of Africa. Regrettably in this book, content outside the “main four” topics (and periodic information on religion) is exceedingly rare at least until 1900.
The material in periods prior to 300AD is heavily focussed on the north and northeast of Africa – either involving cultures with their own/nearby writing systems or cultures in contact with external sources (Roman, Greek) who wrote about them. Material in other parts of Africa is sparse and my research found that this is apparently due to the relative scarcity of archaeological research in these pre-literate regions of Africa.
As North Africa becomes Islamic post 600AD and traders from those regions started to trade with sub-Saharan regions and regions on coastal East Africa, more parts of Africa start to have available history. Descriptions of sub-Saharan regions are generally told from the point-of-view of literate Muslim outsiders who came to trade. This “outsider view” of African history continues with European contact as their ships landed on different parts of the African coast to trade goods and engage in slave trade. Presumably, through much of the early contact period, there is little written material available produced by Africans native to the sub-Sahara.
Overall, the book provides a very good introduction to Africa over the last 5000 years. There will naturally be some portions that a reader finds more interesting and informative and other portions that seem to get too much emphasis (e.g. post-European settlement of South Africa) but overall, I highly recommend the book for a reader interested in learning much more about Africa.
Additional Note A: Slavery
Slavery has been depressingly widespread and extensive through African history. Some of the notable figures (all mentioned in the book but not necessarily with the specific totals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery...
• The slave trade across the Sahara and Red Sea of inhabitants of the Sahara, the Horn of Africa, and East Africa, has been estimated at 6.2 million people between 600 and 1600.
• the European’s Atlantic slave trade took about 12 million slaves between the 1500s and 1800s primarily from west Africa, while about 1.5 million died on board ship and 10.5 million arrived in the Americas.
• Between the 1500s and 1800s, natives of the Barbary Coast (northern Libya to Morocco) are estimated to have taken over 1 million European slaves and the slave seekers ventured as far as the English Channel to find their quarry.
• Between 1500 and 1900, up to 17 million Africans slaves were transported by Muslim traders to the coast of the Indian Ocean, the Middle East, and North Africa.
Additional Note B: Book Chapters
Notably informative chapter names are preceded by an asterisk (*).
Part I: c3000BC to early AD period in northern Africa
1. *Land of the Pharaohs: Old, Middle and New Kingdoms of Egypt 3150BC to 1078BC.
2. *Venture into the Interior: Origins and spread of the Bantu language family in Africa from 3000BC to 1000AD.
3. *A Clash of Empires: Carthage and its clash with Rome 800BC to 140BC
4. Death on the Nile: A series of non-Egyptian rulers dominate from c1000BC until Rome in 30BC
5. Roman Interlude: Roman rule over Egypt and nearby areas from 30BC to 640AD.
Part II: Early AD period to 1400s in northern, eastern and central Africa
6. Saints and Schisms: Christianity in North Africa c60AD to 640AD
7. *The Arab Conquest: of Egypt and North Africa 640AD to 1400s
8. *Highways of the Desert: Camels and cross-Saharan trade c700s to c1400
9. Zanj: East African coast and contact with Muslim traders c900 to c1400
Part III: 1400s to 1600s in eastern & western coastal Africa as well as southern Africa
10. *A Chain of Crosses: In the 1400s and early 1500s, Portuguese explore further down Africa’s West Coast and start trading
11. In the Land of Prester John: in 1487 to early 1500s - Portuguese round Africa’s southern tip, and proceed to explore and trade on Africa’s Eastern Coast
12. The Middle Passage: West Africa - 1500s to 1600s: Many Europeans start to trade in goods and slaves
13. Southern Frontiers: Visits and European Settlement in South Africa from the early 1600s to early 1800s
Part IV : Late 1400s to 1700s in Northern Africa and Sahel (region just south of Sahara)
14. *Mamluks and Ottomans: Ottomans conquer Egypt and N. Africa early 1500s to 1700s
15. The Black Guard: Moroccan Empire from late 1400s to 1700s
16. The Sword of Truth: Islamic fundamentalists cross from West Sudan, across the Sahel to West Africa late 1600s to late 1800s
17. A Matter of Faith: Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia) from the mid 1500s to late 1700s
Part V: Late 1770s to 1880s in Western and Northern Africa
18. *The Gates of Africa: British efforts in West Africa from the late 1700s to mid-1800s
19. *The Pasha: Egypt from 1790s to mid-1800s
20. Pieds Noirs: French conquest and initial colonization of Algeria in the 1830s to 1870s
21. *Bibles, Ploughs, and Bullets: In the 1840s to 1880s, British and French vie for control in West Africa
Part VI: 1806 to 1870s in South Africa
22. Masters and Servants: 1806 to 1840 – British Administration begins in South Africa
23. *The People of the Heavens: 1810s to 1830s Zulus expand control in modern NE South Africa
24. Republics on the Highveld: 1830s to 1850s – Boers move into modern NE South Africa
25. The Missionaries’ Road: 1840s to 1870s – South African settler expansion continues along with Missionary Activity
Part VII: 1820s to 1880 in Eastern, Central and Western Africa
26. *The Tunes of Zanzibar: Activities in and around Zanzibar from the 1820s to 1870s
27. Unlocking the Congo: 1870s to 1880s Exploring the Great Lakes and Congo River.
28. *The Pearl of Africa: 1860s-1880s in the African Great Lakes Region
29. A Game of Thrones: Stories of Emperors of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) from 1855 to early 1880s
Part VIII 1860s to 1880s in Northeastern Africa
30. The Khedive: 1860s to late 1870s in Egypt
31. Equatoria: Events in the Upper Nile region in the 1850s-1870s
32. Delegate of the People: Early 1880s in Egypt with disputes over European financial control
33. The Expected One: Sudan takes Control of Itself in the early 1880s
Part IX: 1850s to early 1890s in South Africa
34. Diamond Fever: In the 1870s, diamonds are found in South Africa causing a diamond rush.
35. The Fellowship of Afrikaners: After seeking British military help, the Boer republic of Transvaal is annexed.
36. The Washing of Spears: In the 1850s and 1860s, the British fight the Zulus and annex most of their lands.
37. A Chosen People: Transvaal regain independence in early 1880s
38. The Most Powerful Company in the World: 1880s to 1890s - Diamond mining in South Africa is consolidated under DeBeers (under Cecil Rhodes).
Part X: 1870s to early 1900s in western, southwestern, eastern and Saharan Africa
39. This Magnificent Cake: in the 1870s-80s, French and Belgium explore and make claims in the Congo basin.
40. *Spheres of Interest: During the 1880s, European powers agree on rules for dividing the wide sections of unclaimed Africa.
41. The Eagle and the Lion: The German (Eagle) and British (Lion) split up areas of East Africa in mid 1880s to early 1890s.
42. Carving up the Niger: from the 1880s to early 1900s, British and French agree on a division of territory in the Congo and the Sahara.
43. By Right of Conquest: In the late 1800s to 1900: the British conquer Ashanti/Asanti people around modern Ghana.
Part XI: 1880s to early 1900s in northeastern and Saharan Africa
44. *New Flower: 1884 to 1906 - Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia) consolidates under an empire independent of Europeans in spite of Italian attempts to annex it.
45. Omdurman: in the mid-1890s, British extend control southward all the way to Lake Victoria, including Sudan.
46. *A Desert Fraternity: mid 1800s to 1930s: The Senussi people carry out trans-Saharan trade from modern Libya to modern Cameroon.
Part XII: 1880s to 1908 in Congo “Free” State (western Africa)
47. *Bula Matari: (the Breaker of Rocks) In the 1880s and 1890s: using brutal methods, natives are forced to collect ivory for Belgian authorities.
48. **The Rubber Regime: From the mid-1890s until 1908, rubber in Congo is obtained in large quantities through brutal coercion of inhabitants, resulting in the death of millions.
Part XIII: 1880s to early 1900s in southern, southwestern and southeastern Africa
49. A Tale of Two Towns: In the late 1880s to 1890s, mainly English miners pour into Johannesburg to exploit gold mining in Transvaal.
50. The Road to Ophir: In the 1880s and 1890s, the British South Africa Company expands north and gains sovereign territory in what becomes Rhodesia.
51. Marching to Pretoria: Tensions between the Cape Colony and the Boer Republic break out in the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 and the eventual Union of South Africa in 1910.
52. **The Extermination Order: German rule in southwest Africa and Eastern African turns brutal in the first years of 1900s.
Part XIV: 1900 to 1940s – Continental View plus specific northeastern and southern Africa content
53. *Interregnum: Continental overview from early 1900s until 1918 as Europeans rule starts for their recent acquisitions.
54. A Veiled Protectorate: British rule in Egypt from the early 1900s to 1930s.
55. Elect of God: Abyssinian events with focus on the 1930s.
56. The Goal of Mastery: South Africa and its relations between English, Afrikaners and Blacks from the early 1900s to 1939.
57. *The Turn of the Tide: Wider African view from 1920s to late 1940s.
Part XV: 1939 to Early 1960s Across Most of the Continent
58. *Before the Deluge: An overview of post-WWII colonial administration of the British, French, Belgians and Portuguese holdings.
59. *Revolution on the Nile: 1939 to late 1950s in Egypt and Sudan
60. *The Nationalist Urge: Post WWII to 1960 Leads to Independence for The Gold Coast and Nigeria.
61. *Gone with the Wind: Independence for several British Colonies in the 1960s
62. *An Honorable Exit: French rule ends in many former colonies: 1950s to early 1960s
63. *The Congo Bet: Belgium Grants Independence to Congo, Rwanda and Burundi in the early 1960s
64. *In the Name of Apartheid: 1940s to 1960s – Ongoing White Rule in the southern Africa region
Part XVI: 1960s to 2014: Developments across the Continent
65. **The First Dance of Freedom: Governing Newly Independent Countries in the 1960s
66. Coups and Dictators: 1960s and later – Coups and Attempted Coups Across Africa
67. **Lost Decades: Africa in the 1980s, with 1960s and 1970s background content
68. Liberation Wars: Early 1970s to 1994 – Minority white rule in southern Africa ends
69. In Search of Democracy: Events across Africa from 1990 to early 2000s
70. Soldiers of God: 1970s to 2010s - Radicial Islamism and other Events in North Africa
71. Platinum Life: Developments from 2000 to early the 2010s with a Focus on Corruption
The book consists of 71 chapters which are organized into Parts I through XVI with between two and seven chapters being allocated to each Part. The parts themselves are unnamed and lack dates or regional designations. The chapter names are sometimes descriptive (e.g. Land of the Pharaohs, Unlocking the Congo) but more often poetic (e.g. The Sword of Truth, The Magnificent Cake, A Tale of Two Towns) or otherwise obscure (e.g. Zanj, The Black Guard, Pieds Noirs). With this deficiency, the author loses the opportunity to help the reader mentally organize the material about to be described. See Additional Note B below for original title alongside a descriptive title for each chapter.
One could organize the large book’s content into four main groups:
• Chapters 1-9 cover history before 1400 (9 chapters over 4400 years)
• Chapters 10-17 covers 1400 to 1800 (8 chapters over 400 years)
• Chapters 18- 57 cover 1800 to Independence (39 chapters over ~150 years)
• Chapters 58-71 cover Independence to 2014 (13 chapters over ~60 years)
Until 1900, this is a story that concerns itself with four topics: rulers, explorers, conquerors and traders. The one welcome exception is periodic reference to local religious practices. Before 1600, there would be little other historical material since until recent times, Africans outside the ruling classes were rarely literate. However, from 1600, there should be letters from missionaries with more information on the society than the four topics above such as: sources of food (hunting, farming), how local communities ran, family life, tools, education, etc. If this content was collected then a worthwhile analysis would examine how these aspects of African life varied in equatorial, arid and temperate parts of Africa. Regrettably in this book, content outside the “main four” topics (and periodic information on religion) is exceedingly rare at least until 1900.
The material in periods prior to 300AD is heavily focussed on the north and northeast of Africa – either involving cultures with their own/nearby writing systems or cultures in contact with external sources (Roman, Greek) who wrote about them. Material in other parts of Africa is sparse and my research found that this is apparently due to the relative scarcity of archaeological research in these pre-literate regions of Africa.
As North Africa becomes Islamic post 600AD and traders from those regions started to trade with sub-Saharan regions and regions on coastal East Africa, more parts of Africa start to have available history. Descriptions of sub-Saharan regions are generally told from the point-of-view of literate Muslim outsiders who came to trade. This “outsider view” of African history continues with European contact as their ships landed on different parts of the African coast to trade goods and engage in slave trade. Presumably, through much of the early contact period, there is little written material available produced by Africans native to the sub-Sahara.
Overall, the book provides a very good introduction to Africa over the last 5000 years. There will naturally be some portions that a reader finds more interesting and informative and other portions that seem to get too much emphasis (e.g. post-European settlement of South Africa) but overall, I highly recommend the book for a reader interested in learning much more about Africa.
Additional Note A: Slavery
Slavery has been depressingly widespread and extensive through African history. Some of the notable figures (all mentioned in the book but not necessarily with the specific totals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery...
• The slave trade across the Sahara and Red Sea of inhabitants of the Sahara, the Horn of Africa, and East Africa, has been estimated at 6.2 million people between 600 and 1600.
• the European’s Atlantic slave trade took about 12 million slaves between the 1500s and 1800s primarily from west Africa, while about 1.5 million died on board ship and 10.5 million arrived in the Americas.
• Between the 1500s and 1800s, natives of the Barbary Coast (northern Libya to Morocco) are estimated to have taken over 1 million European slaves and the slave seekers ventured as far as the English Channel to find their quarry.
• Between 1500 and 1900, up to 17 million Africans slaves were transported by Muslim traders to the coast of the Indian Ocean, the Middle East, and North Africa.
Additional Note B: Book Chapters
Notably informative chapter names are preceded by an asterisk (*).
Part I: c3000BC to early AD period in northern Africa
1. *Land of the Pharaohs: Old, Middle and New Kingdoms of Egypt 3150BC to 1078BC.
2. *Venture into the Interior: Origins and spread of the Bantu language family in Africa from 3000BC to 1000AD.
3. *A Clash of Empires: Carthage and its clash with Rome 800BC to 140BC
4. Death on the Nile: A series of non-Egyptian rulers dominate from c1000BC until Rome in 30BC
5. Roman Interlude: Roman rule over Egypt and nearby areas from 30BC to 640AD.
Part II: Early AD period to 1400s in northern, eastern and central Africa
6. Saints and Schisms: Christianity in North Africa c60AD to 640AD
7. *The Arab Conquest: of Egypt and North Africa 640AD to 1400s
8. *Highways of the Desert: Camels and cross-Saharan trade c700s to c1400
9. Zanj: East African coast and contact with Muslim traders c900 to c1400
Part III: 1400s to 1600s in eastern & western coastal Africa as well as southern Africa
10. *A Chain of Crosses: In the 1400s and early 1500s, Portuguese explore further down Africa’s West Coast and start trading
11. In the Land of Prester John: in 1487 to early 1500s - Portuguese round Africa’s southern tip, and proceed to explore and trade on Africa’s Eastern Coast
12. The Middle Passage: West Africa - 1500s to 1600s: Many Europeans start to trade in goods and slaves
13. Southern Frontiers: Visits and European Settlement in South Africa from the early 1600s to early 1800s
Part IV : Late 1400s to 1700s in Northern Africa and Sahel (region just south of Sahara)
14. *Mamluks and Ottomans: Ottomans conquer Egypt and N. Africa early 1500s to 1700s
15. The Black Guard: Moroccan Empire from late 1400s to 1700s
16. The Sword of Truth: Islamic fundamentalists cross from West Sudan, across the Sahel to West Africa late 1600s to late 1800s
17. A Matter of Faith: Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia) from the mid 1500s to late 1700s
Part V: Late 1770s to 1880s in Western and Northern Africa
18. *The Gates of Africa: British efforts in West Africa from the late 1700s to mid-1800s
19. *The Pasha: Egypt from 1790s to mid-1800s
20. Pieds Noirs: French conquest and initial colonization of Algeria in the 1830s to 1870s
21. *Bibles, Ploughs, and Bullets: In the 1840s to 1880s, British and French vie for control in West Africa
Part VI: 1806 to 1870s in South Africa
22. Masters and Servants: 1806 to 1840 – British Administration begins in South Africa
23. *The People of the Heavens: 1810s to 1830s Zulus expand control in modern NE South Africa
24. Republics on the Highveld: 1830s to 1850s – Boers move into modern NE South Africa
25. The Missionaries’ Road: 1840s to 1870s – South African settler expansion continues along with Missionary Activity
Part VII: 1820s to 1880 in Eastern, Central and Western Africa
26. *The Tunes of Zanzibar: Activities in and around Zanzibar from the 1820s to 1870s
27. Unlocking the Congo: 1870s to 1880s Exploring the Great Lakes and Congo River.
28. *The Pearl of Africa: 1860s-1880s in the African Great Lakes Region
29. A Game of Thrones: Stories of Emperors of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) from 1855 to early 1880s
Part VIII 1860s to 1880s in Northeastern Africa
30. The Khedive: 1860s to late 1870s in Egypt
31. Equatoria: Events in the Upper Nile region in the 1850s-1870s
32. Delegate of the People: Early 1880s in Egypt with disputes over European financial control
33. The Expected One: Sudan takes Control of Itself in the early 1880s
Part IX: 1850s to early 1890s in South Africa
34. Diamond Fever: In the 1870s, diamonds are found in South Africa causing a diamond rush.
35. The Fellowship of Afrikaners: After seeking British military help, the Boer republic of Transvaal is annexed.
36. The Washing of Spears: In the 1850s and 1860s, the British fight the Zulus and annex most of their lands.
37. A Chosen People: Transvaal regain independence in early 1880s
38. The Most Powerful Company in the World: 1880s to 1890s - Diamond mining in South Africa is consolidated under DeBeers (under Cecil Rhodes).
Part X: 1870s to early 1900s in western, southwestern, eastern and Saharan Africa
39. This Magnificent Cake: in the 1870s-80s, French and Belgium explore and make claims in the Congo basin.
40. *Spheres of Interest: During the 1880s, European powers agree on rules for dividing the wide sections of unclaimed Africa.
41. The Eagle and the Lion: The German (Eagle) and British (Lion) split up areas of East Africa in mid 1880s to early 1890s.
42. Carving up the Niger: from the 1880s to early 1900s, British and French agree on a division of territory in the Congo and the Sahara.
43. By Right of Conquest: In the late 1800s to 1900: the British conquer Ashanti/Asanti people around modern Ghana.
Part XI: 1880s to early 1900s in northeastern and Saharan Africa
44. *New Flower: 1884 to 1906 - Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia) consolidates under an empire independent of Europeans in spite of Italian attempts to annex it.
45. Omdurman: in the mid-1890s, British extend control southward all the way to Lake Victoria, including Sudan.
46. *A Desert Fraternity: mid 1800s to 1930s: The Senussi people carry out trans-Saharan trade from modern Libya to modern Cameroon.
Part XII: 1880s to 1908 in Congo “Free” State (western Africa)
47. *Bula Matari: (the Breaker of Rocks) In the 1880s and 1890s: using brutal methods, natives are forced to collect ivory for Belgian authorities.
48. **The Rubber Regime: From the mid-1890s until 1908, rubber in Congo is obtained in large quantities through brutal coercion of inhabitants, resulting in the death of millions.
Part XIII: 1880s to early 1900s in southern, southwestern and southeastern Africa
49. A Tale of Two Towns: In the late 1880s to 1890s, mainly English miners pour into Johannesburg to exploit gold mining in Transvaal.
50. The Road to Ophir: In the 1880s and 1890s, the British South Africa Company expands north and gains sovereign territory in what becomes Rhodesia.
51. Marching to Pretoria: Tensions between the Cape Colony and the Boer Republic break out in the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 and the eventual Union of South Africa in 1910.
52. **The Extermination Order: German rule in southwest Africa and Eastern African turns brutal in the first years of 1900s.
Part XIV: 1900 to 1940s – Continental View plus specific northeastern and southern Africa content
53. *Interregnum: Continental overview from early 1900s until 1918 as Europeans rule starts for their recent acquisitions.
54. A Veiled Protectorate: British rule in Egypt from the early 1900s to 1930s.
55. Elect of God: Abyssinian events with focus on the 1930s.
56. The Goal of Mastery: South Africa and its relations between English, Afrikaners and Blacks from the early 1900s to 1939.
57. *The Turn of the Tide: Wider African view from 1920s to late 1940s.
Part XV: 1939 to Early 1960s Across Most of the Continent
58. *Before the Deluge: An overview of post-WWII colonial administration of the British, French, Belgians and Portuguese holdings.
59. *Revolution on the Nile: 1939 to late 1950s in Egypt and Sudan
60. *The Nationalist Urge: Post WWII to 1960 Leads to Independence for The Gold Coast and Nigeria.
61. *Gone with the Wind: Independence for several British Colonies in the 1960s
62. *An Honorable Exit: French rule ends in many former colonies: 1950s to early 1960s
63. *The Congo Bet: Belgium Grants Independence to Congo, Rwanda and Burundi in the early 1960s
64. *In the Name of Apartheid: 1940s to 1960s – Ongoing White Rule in the southern Africa region
Part XVI: 1960s to 2014: Developments across the Continent
65. **The First Dance of Freedom: Governing Newly Independent Countries in the 1960s
66. Coups and Dictators: 1960s and later – Coups and Attempted Coups Across Africa
67. **Lost Decades: Africa in the 1980s, with 1960s and 1970s background content
68. Liberation Wars: Early 1970s to 1994 – Minority white rule in southern Africa ends
69. In Search of Democracy: Events across Africa from 1990 to early 2000s
70. Soldiers of God: 1970s to 2010s - Radicial Islamism and other Events in North Africa
71. Platinum Life: Developments from 2000 to early the 2010s with a Focus on Corruption
March 13, 2018
I hope one day to find a history book with a solid overview of the broad sweeps of African history across millenia, with a workable compromise between competing aspects such as the social, cultural, economic, theological and military. Martin Meredith's The Fortunes of Africa goes some way to achieving it, but in all fairness is not trying to be that book for which I hope.
This is a synthesis of other works that aims more at regurgitating information in piecemeal manner rather than offering any cohesive or new insight, which is fair enough. Its 71 chapters average 10 densely packed pages each, giving bite-sized chunks of times and places without particular emphasis on broad trends interconnecting and contextualising them.
Another book I read recently, Edwin Williamson's The Penguin History of Latin America (2nd ed.) covered a comparable scale and scope of history and did balance those aspects. A clue is in the full title, though, that Meredith has a different focus. 'The Fortunes of Africa: A 5,000 Year History of Wealth, Greed and Endeavour' lends itself to a Euro-centric work more about what was done to Africa than one truly about the Africans themselves.
Hence this places the book in largely the same territory as others such as Empires in the Sun, The Looting Machine and The Scramble for Africa. As others have alluded to, it's also more like a history of five hundred-ish years than five thousand. A handful of early chapters gloss over ancient Egypt, Carthage and Rome, which is understandable given that those are massive subjects on their own.
However, more than a handful of pages about what was happening in the rest of Africa in those millennia would have been welcome. I understand sources may be severely limited, but surely more could have been offered in the way of summarising anthropogical and archeological evidence, at least to the extent of pointing in the direction of further reading. Again, Williamson tackled this well with his genuine attempt to explain what little was known about the ancient South and Central Americans.
I'm often dubious about statements in this book, which have the sound of being regurgitated from the source (usually something like a journal or letter from a European) without any critical enquiry as to their truthfulness. To the extent that Meredith talks about African cultures and customs, he frequently emphasises violent traditions of executions, ritual sacrifice and cannibalism, again without any discussion as to their veracity. The phrasing is usually such that he appears to be stating these as facts rather than recountings of limited European perspectives, and little effort is made to consider cultures in a holistic manner.
In a work of this length, the writer's tics often reveal themselves and Meredith has a few. He's partial to saying 'month after month' or 'year after year', which feels lazy compared to a more specific phrasing on the timing of events.
He's also awfully fond of the word 'acephalous'. Literally it can be taken to mean 'without a chief', though I have trouble believing large parts of Africa were without chiefs at all at various times. Hence, within context, I presume he means more decentralised government wherein local chiefs - perhaps even as low as the village level - had little involvement with or fealty to an overarching power. I should be curious to know what the accepted usage of the term is among historians and anthropologists.
If nothing else, the bibliography and chapter notes open up a wealth of hundreds of suggestions for further reading, so that in itself is a resource. In total though, I found the book disappointing and feel that another author could tackle a general history of the continent in quite a different way.
This is a synthesis of other works that aims more at regurgitating information in piecemeal manner rather than offering any cohesive or new insight, which is fair enough. Its 71 chapters average 10 densely packed pages each, giving bite-sized chunks of times and places without particular emphasis on broad trends interconnecting and contextualising them.
Another book I read recently, Edwin Williamson's The Penguin History of Latin America (2nd ed.) covered a comparable scale and scope of history and did balance those aspects. A clue is in the full title, though, that Meredith has a different focus. 'The Fortunes of Africa: A 5,000 Year History of Wealth, Greed and Endeavour' lends itself to a Euro-centric work more about what was done to Africa than one truly about the Africans themselves.
Hence this places the book in largely the same territory as others such as Empires in the Sun, The Looting Machine and The Scramble for Africa. As others have alluded to, it's also more like a history of five hundred-ish years than five thousand. A handful of early chapters gloss over ancient Egypt, Carthage and Rome, which is understandable given that those are massive subjects on their own.
However, more than a handful of pages about what was happening in the rest of Africa in those millennia would have been welcome. I understand sources may be severely limited, but surely more could have been offered in the way of summarising anthropogical and archeological evidence, at least to the extent of pointing in the direction of further reading. Again, Williamson tackled this well with his genuine attempt to explain what little was known about the ancient South and Central Americans.
I'm often dubious about statements in this book, which have the sound of being regurgitated from the source (usually something like a journal or letter from a European) without any critical enquiry as to their truthfulness. To the extent that Meredith talks about African cultures and customs, he frequently emphasises violent traditions of executions, ritual sacrifice and cannibalism, again without any discussion as to their veracity. The phrasing is usually such that he appears to be stating these as facts rather than recountings of limited European perspectives, and little effort is made to consider cultures in a holistic manner.
In a work of this length, the writer's tics often reveal themselves and Meredith has a few. He's partial to saying 'month after month' or 'year after year', which feels lazy compared to a more specific phrasing on the timing of events.
He's also awfully fond of the word 'acephalous'. Literally it can be taken to mean 'without a chief', though I have trouble believing large parts of Africa were without chiefs at all at various times. Hence, within context, I presume he means more decentralised government wherein local chiefs - perhaps even as low as the village level - had little involvement with or fealty to an overarching power. I should be curious to know what the accepted usage of the term is among historians and anthropologists.
If nothing else, the bibliography and chapter notes open up a wealth of hundreds of suggestions for further reading, so that in itself is a resource. In total though, I found the book disappointing and feel that another author could tackle a general history of the continent in quite a different way.
January 18, 2021
This book is extremely ambitious. It seeks to cover the millennia-long, seemingly unceasing rape and pillage of the continent of Africa. The best part of this book is its shear wealth of information. It is absolutely jam-packed with information on the different civilizations and empires that plundered Africa. The author makes clear that Africa--with an abundancy of natural resources and the perpetual availability of trade in slaves--has always been at risk of foreign domination.
While the book discusses the complicity and willingness of indigenous Black African rulers to engage in the slave trade with Arabs and Europeans, it did not give nearly enough attention to the widespread and persistent resistance to the slave trade by African people. No mention of the hundreds of mutinies / rebellions on slave trips making the Middle Passage, and very little discussion of the many African Kings & Queens who organized mass rebellions and wars against Euro-colonial powers. Because the book essentially tells the story of the domination of Africa by foreigners, it pretty quickly removes Africans from the history of Africa. While the book does briefly discuss some of the African empires in existence during the Middle Ages and early colonial period, it doesn't spend much time detailing the structure of any of the prominent African states, nor does it depict these empires / states in a very good light.
Also interesting is how critical the author is of Africa's independence / post-independence leaders. Some of the heroes that are venerated in Africa (Nkrumah, Nyerere, etc.) are reduced to mere "authoritarians" or "dictators." Not much is said about their underlying ideologies, nor the challenges that they faced. Further, while the author rightfully discusses the role that corrupt and selfish African leaders played during the failure of the post-colonial period, the author does not analyze the continued involvement of Western Imperialism at all. He does not mention the word "neo-colonialism" once, and only provides a surface level account of the financial indebtedness of newly independent states to Europe and America (largely blaming the indebtedness on African mismanagement and corruption, rather than the predatory nature of Western Imperialism). Also, I found it interesting that the author--who clearly has a distaste for the socialist statecraft that many African nations sought to build in the post-colonial world--focused on the "failures" of these projects, but made no mention of the successes (i.e. Thomas Sankara and Burkina Faso). Thomas Sankara was not mentioned at all.
While I would recommend this book simply for its breadth of information, don't expect any real analysis of the “why." At most, this book details the plunder of Africa and at times comes closer to blaming Africans for the plunder than it does the actual plunderers (Arabs and Europeans).
While the book discusses the complicity and willingness of indigenous Black African rulers to engage in the slave trade with Arabs and Europeans, it did not give nearly enough attention to the widespread and persistent resistance to the slave trade by African people. No mention of the hundreds of mutinies / rebellions on slave trips making the Middle Passage, and very little discussion of the many African Kings & Queens who organized mass rebellions and wars against Euro-colonial powers. Because the book essentially tells the story of the domination of Africa by foreigners, it pretty quickly removes Africans from the history of Africa. While the book does briefly discuss some of the African empires in existence during the Middle Ages and early colonial period, it doesn't spend much time detailing the structure of any of the prominent African states, nor does it depict these empires / states in a very good light.
Also interesting is how critical the author is of Africa's independence / post-independence leaders. Some of the heroes that are venerated in Africa (Nkrumah, Nyerere, etc.) are reduced to mere "authoritarians" or "dictators." Not much is said about their underlying ideologies, nor the challenges that they faced. Further, while the author rightfully discusses the role that corrupt and selfish African leaders played during the failure of the post-colonial period, the author does not analyze the continued involvement of Western Imperialism at all. He does not mention the word "neo-colonialism" once, and only provides a surface level account of the financial indebtedness of newly independent states to Europe and America (largely blaming the indebtedness on African mismanagement and corruption, rather than the predatory nature of Western Imperialism). Also, I found it interesting that the author--who clearly has a distaste for the socialist statecraft that many African nations sought to build in the post-colonial world--focused on the "failures" of these projects, but made no mention of the successes (i.e. Thomas Sankara and Burkina Faso). Thomas Sankara was not mentioned at all.
While I would recommend this book simply for its breadth of information, don't expect any real analysis of the “why." At most, this book details the plunder of Africa and at times comes closer to blaming Africans for the plunder than it does the actual plunderers (Arabs and Europeans).
February 7, 2020
A very informative, expansive book. However, I have to knock one (if not two) stars off because this book was also very disappointing. I was hoping for a book on the Africans of Africa- their politics, culture, and societies, especially before Europeans and after the Independence movement of the 1950's. Disappointingly, this book seemed to feature primarily a European outlook, with the Africans not as individual societies, cultures, and places but instead as a single large mass that was oppressed/ taken advantage of for quite some time. While that is true, it still annoyed me that the author hardly touched on the cultures themselves. Instead, we were given countless political debates in Britain and various other Western places on culture. Like, very interesting, but I knew that already and have studied that.
There was also a big focus on South Africa, to the exclusion of other countries that I had more interest in.
I have heard this authors other book, the Fate of Africa, is better, as it deals with Africa post independence, so I will probably give that one a shot.
In all, very informative and well written, just not really what I wanted to learn about/ the way the book marketed itself.
There was also a big focus on South Africa, to the exclusion of other countries that I had more interest in.
I have heard this authors other book, the Fate of Africa, is better, as it deals with Africa post independence, so I will probably give that one a shot.
In all, very informative and well written, just not really what I wanted to learn about/ the way the book marketed itself.
January 14, 2015
Africa is larger in size than the US, China, India, Japan and most of Europe combined. At 700 pages, this one volume history of Africa is no short book, but it’s subject is vast. Africa’s early history is of warring kingdoms with two trades: slavery and ivory. Know that ivory was the plastic of it’s era. Sadly, those trying to stop the slave trade had to travel with members of the ivory trade; those trying to stop ivory poaching travelled with slavers. If you could go back in time anywhere in Africa, good luck choosing a safe time or location to visit; use of force rather than cooperation has been the standard for rulers there for most of its recorded history. Forced to choose in this book, I’d go for Alexandria during Ptolemy I or Timbuktu during the pre-Moroccan Sudanese Songhay rule. Meredith does not attempt to portray Africa (aside from Egypt) before colonization so it’s hard to know how much of the control through violence was taught by European invaders and how much was indigenous to African culture. But when the Europeans were done, some 10,000 kingdoms had been shoehorned into 58 African states, many filled with seething ethic tensions encouraged by prior occupiers. Britain forced the occupants of two of its protectorates together in 1914, to create Nigeria with its 300 languages; so its not surprising that Nigeria and other countries forced by Britain like Iraq have such fractious problems today. This book also confirms the violent “steal the land and move the people” technique the Europeans perfected in Africa (discussed in depth in the outstanding Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz’s “An Indigenous People’s History” and Sven Lindqvist’s “Terra Nullius” and “Exterminate All the Brutes”). British intent through Shepstone’s 1877 dispatches was clear: civilization wasn’t benign; native hope had to be destroyed in order to make it submit to the rule of “civilization”. The British develop their template for “indirect rule” in Buganda (Uganda) and they then “sold” this form of rule throughout the globe. The Germans, not to be outdone by Belgium and Britain, exterminated the Herero People in 1904 with lovely “cleansing patrols”. The German pre-holocaust notion was that such peoples respond only to force and in fact their leader General Trotha wrote that he wanted a campaign of “absolute terrorism and even cruelty”. Charming… Time and time again, Western Civilization causes more problems that it purports to solve for those occupied or under it’s will.
Fun harmless facts learned: Khufu’s Great Pyramid was the tallest building in the world for 38 centuries. Geometry comes from Euclid in Alexandria, home of the great library, as does the Archimedes’s screw. Finally I learned why Bob Marley talked about Abyssinia. It was Africa’s sole connection to Christianity when Islam took over elsewhere and it was hard to invade and so left alone. It’s leaders declared they were the King of Zion to the sound of trumpets and drums hundreds of years before Ziggy Marley was a zygote. Haile Selassie’s title was Ras Tafari so there you go - Rastafarian, man…
Great book…
Fun harmless facts learned: Khufu’s Great Pyramid was the tallest building in the world for 38 centuries. Geometry comes from Euclid in Alexandria, home of the great library, as does the Archimedes’s screw. Finally I learned why Bob Marley talked about Abyssinia. It was Africa’s sole connection to Christianity when Islam took over elsewhere and it was hard to invade and so left alone. It’s leaders declared they were the King of Zion to the sound of trumpets and drums hundreds of years before Ziggy Marley was a zygote. Haile Selassie’s title was Ras Tafari so there you go - Rastafarian, man…
Great book…
June 12, 2019
The ambition of this book is astounding. The kind of detail and narrative history that Meredith is trying to write was simply beyond his ability - the balance between excruciating detail and larger movements requires an endless stream of judgements that ultimately only allow you to glimpse a concise version of Meredith's view of Africa, partially.
Significant parts of history are simply not given the import they were due - others, again to appeal to a narrative style, are given undue space in an attempt at microhistory. But you cannot write a 5000 year narrative history of a continent like Africa with microhistory without seriously compromising the view. How can an historian balance social, cultural, pre- and post-colonial, economic, political, diplomatic, micro- and macro, environmental and other histories? Imagine a biography of 5000 years of Europe (in comparison to Africa: a significantly smaller continent, inhabited for a shorter time, only recently highly populated, less linguistically and ethnically diverse etc.)
Meredith really tries, but this simply cannot be done.
Significant parts of history are simply not given the import they were due - others, again to appeal to a narrative style, are given undue space in an attempt at microhistory. But you cannot write a 5000 year narrative history of a continent like Africa with microhistory without seriously compromising the view. How can an historian balance social, cultural, pre- and post-colonial, economic, political, diplomatic, micro- and macro, environmental and other histories? Imagine a biography of 5000 years of Europe (in comparison to Africa: a significantly smaller continent, inhabited for a shorter time, only recently highly populated, less linguistically and ethnically diverse etc.)
Meredith really tries, but this simply cannot be done.
April 28, 2022
The (sub)title is a bit misleading, as this is not a 5,000 year history book of Africa, but rather a book on the (European) plunder and destruction of Africa's material and cultural riches. Hence the first part on early African history is rather disappointing and a big part of the book deals with how outsiders have looked upon at and dealt with the African continent throughout history.
Despite this eurocentric approach, I did enjoy reading it and learned a lot from this massive overview of European involvement in Africa. I think I already knew many bits of African history and this book really helped in connecting the dots and putting historical episodes, events and trends in a much wider framework.
It is a negative book though, and the scale of violence, destruction, pillage and corruption does not make one optimist about the future, but it does help to situate and understand the current state of many African countries.
Despite this eurocentric approach, I did enjoy reading it and learned a lot from this massive overview of European involvement in Africa. I think I already knew many bits of African history and this book really helped in connecting the dots and putting historical episodes, events and trends in a much wider framework.
It is a negative book though, and the scale of violence, destruction, pillage and corruption does not make one optimist about the future, but it does help to situate and understand the current state of many African countries.
January 7, 2018
In about 700 pages, "The Fortunes of Africa" is a well written narrative of African history. It describes in good detail a lot of events that occurred over a span of 5 millennia and provides the reader with a good context within which to situate the current state of affairs on the continent.
I found the material well referenced and as an African I learnt many things about our history that I didn't know prior to reading this book. The book provides an impressive breath of historical narrative at the expense depth. I thought that the author skimmed over the details of many historic events, understandably so as that would be unachievable in one book. For this reason, I consider this work an "abstract" of the history of Africa that will motivate an interested reader to delve more into the history of this fascinating continent.
I found the material well referenced and as an African I learnt many things about our history that I didn't know prior to reading this book. The book provides an impressive breath of historical narrative at the expense depth. I thought that the author skimmed over the details of many historic events, understandably so as that would be unachievable in one book. For this reason, I consider this work an "abstract" of the history of Africa that will motivate an interested reader to delve more into the history of this fascinating continent.
February 5, 2017
This is a meaty and fascinating overview of Africa's history, from the earliest civilizations to the aftermath of colonization. The problem of any overview, of course, is that there are always parts that I'd want to read more about, but given my meager knowledge about the history of Africa, this was a great place to start. It's a reminder of how rich and complex Africa's many societies are, and that there is hope for the future of the continent despite the horrific suffering of the past and sometimes the present.
December 2, 2022
Excellent. Comprehensive and well-written. Note that the author does not claim that this is a 'history of Africa', and many might have wished; rather, as the title makes clear, it a history of the fortunes of Africa, a history of wealth, greed and endeavor shown by all who were involved, for better or worse.
February 25, 2022
I expected a solid political history of Africa before reading this book, but it didn't deliver. While the content was never bad, it never reached my expectations. While disappointing, I'm still glad I read it. "The Fortunes of Africa" provided me with good context on the social unrest of 20th and 21st century Africa.
The book claims to be a 5,000-year history of Africa's exploitation. That's a bold claim, and it doesn't live up to it. It summarizes the first 3,500 years of African history in a few short chapters. Ancient Egypt flows abruptly into the Roman Empire, which jumps abruptly to the Islamic conquests of the 8th and 9th centuries. I wanted more than brief summaries of widely studied events and civilizations, but that's not where Meredith put his focus.
The middle section of the book covers the 1800s and heavily focuses on Europe's exploitation of Africa. There is a massive amount of information to cover here, so it makes sense that the book takes a long time to cover it. Britain, France, Belgium, Portugal, and Germany each get their time in the spotlight. But the most damning language is reserved for France and Belgium. Britain gets a light tap on the wrist, which felt like white-washing. The 20th century gets about a quarter of the book and the 21st century is mentioned in passing in a chapter or two. That either means that African exploitation doesn't exist anymore (unlikely), or the author felt like ignoring some of the more recent examples.
Overall, this book is alright. It's not groundbreaking and I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. There are probably better, more myopic, texts out there that could provide a better understanding of Africa.
The book claims to be a 5,000-year history of Africa's exploitation. That's a bold claim, and it doesn't live up to it. It summarizes the first 3,500 years of African history in a few short chapters. Ancient Egypt flows abruptly into the Roman Empire, which jumps abruptly to the Islamic conquests of the 8th and 9th centuries. I wanted more than brief summaries of widely studied events and civilizations, but that's not where Meredith put his focus.
The middle section of the book covers the 1800s and heavily focuses on Europe's exploitation of Africa. There is a massive amount of information to cover here, so it makes sense that the book takes a long time to cover it. Britain, France, Belgium, Portugal, and Germany each get their time in the spotlight. But the most damning language is reserved for France and Belgium. Britain gets a light tap on the wrist, which felt like white-washing. The 20th century gets about a quarter of the book and the 21st century is mentioned in passing in a chapter or two. That either means that African exploitation doesn't exist anymore (unlikely), or the author felt like ignoring some of the more recent examples.
Overall, this book is alright. It's not groundbreaking and I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. There are probably better, more myopic, texts out there that could provide a better understanding of Africa.
December 22, 2021
If you're going to read this book, PLEASE look out for the thinly veiled Western imperialism weaved into it. Remember that this book teaches AFRICAN HISTORY through a BRITISH perspective.
The only reason this book didn't get 1 star is because I don't know enough about ancient Africa to be able to correct it and I thought that a lot of that was interesting. The rest, however, is a picture of Africa painted by a British imperialist. His attitude was basically "The Europeans took over Africa, which was bad, but it did need to be civilized soooo...". He ends by painting the West as the ultimate good guys, most Africans the sad victims, and African leaders and China as the villains. The SAPs were generally helpful and altruistic according to Meredith. But the SAPs only subjected to these new African states to a lot more debt, a nonexistent public sector, and the continued resentment towards the West. I am so genuinely lucky to have been taught about Africa by Africans.
The only reason this book didn't get 1 star is because I don't know enough about ancient Africa to be able to correct it and I thought that a lot of that was interesting. The rest, however, is a picture of Africa painted by a British imperialist. His attitude was basically "The Europeans took over Africa, which was bad, but it did need to be civilized soooo...". He ends by painting the West as the ultimate good guys, most Africans the sad victims, and African leaders and China as the villains. The SAPs were generally helpful and altruistic according to Meredith. But the SAPs only subjected to these new African states to a lot more debt, a nonexistent public sector, and the continued resentment towards the West. I am so genuinely lucky to have been taught about Africa by Africans.
April 10, 2023
Telling the entire recorded history of the world's second largest continent in a single book is simply an impossible task. Martin Meredith did as fine a job as anyone could hope for, but the reader is left utterly overwhelmed by the mind-breakingly sprawling and multifaceted history of hundreds of peoples and countries and clashes and intersections all coming and going and coming again. The book is at once fascinating but also numbing. I don't fault the author for this. At the sentence level, "Fortunes" is well-written and accessible, and the chapters are organized by both region/country and chronology. The best remedy here is for readers not to treat this book as a one-stop primer on African history, but to familiarize themselves a little bit with the subject matter beforehand. African history is such a big subject — and one that so few Westerners are ever taught — that one needs a primer *for* the primer. 4/5
September 26, 2017
I found this to be a very interesting and fascinating history of Africa. I learned a lot about the various countries that were involved in trying to control the various tribes. If one reads this book it will help you to understand the plight and frustration of all the peoples of Africa and why it bleeds out into the rest of the world. For a people to always be treated as subservient and never given an opportunity to either continue with their religions and traditions it makes sense why there is so much anger in Africa. As a reader you become aware of the incredible amount of slave trade that was going on between all sides. This includes both white and colored.
I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to understand not just Africa but all the other countries that were involved in the history of this continent.
I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to understand not just Africa but all the other countries that were involved in the history of this continent.
March 1, 2019
If this were clickbait, it ought to read "Europeans act like dicks over an entire continent for several hundred years. You'll never guess what happened next."
This year I decided I wanted to read the history of places that are not often told in the west (but should be). I was more or less familiar with the Europeans acting like dicks in Africa narrative from European history classes. (I wasn't aware the Belgians had been as incredibly awful as they were.) I was hoping for more nuance. In reality, that isn't fair: 680 pages or so for an entire continent and 5000 years isn't really doable.
It has given me a scaffolding I can use in studying different regions, and the evolving maps tell a story by themselves.
This year I decided I wanted to read the history of places that are not often told in the west (but should be). I was more or less familiar with the Europeans acting like dicks in Africa narrative from European history classes. (I wasn't aware the Belgians had been as incredibly awful as they were.) I was hoping for more nuance. In reality, that isn't fair: 680 pages or so for an entire continent and 5000 years isn't really doable.
It has given me a scaffolding I can use in studying different regions, and the evolving maps tell a story by themselves.
September 4, 2020
Utterly fascinating.
This was my bathroom book, so it took me over a year to complete it, but that doesn't mean it was boring. Quite the opposite: it was fascinating and informative. I will say that there were times when I wanted more detail about certain events, people, or time periods. Likewise, there were other times when the sheer amount of details that Meredith included felt entirely unnecessary.
Nevertheless, the book flows quite well and is a much easier and enjoyable read than you would anticipate for a 5,000 year history of Africa.
This was my bathroom book, so it took me over a year to complete it, but that doesn't mean it was boring. Quite the opposite: it was fascinating and informative. I will say that there were times when I wanted more detail about certain events, people, or time periods. Likewise, there were other times when the sheer amount of details that Meredith included felt entirely unnecessary.
Nevertheless, the book flows quite well and is a much easier and enjoyable read than you would anticipate for a 5,000 year history of Africa.
August 2, 2019
Abrangente história do continente africano, mostra que os problemas da África vão muito além das dificuldades criadas pelo colonialismo.
August 31, 2021
This book will help you better understand Africa from the perspective of Europe with an impressive level of detail.
March 21, 2023
Khi nhắc đến Châu Phi bạn nghĩ đến điều gì đầu tiên?
Người yêu thích lịch sử văn hóa thì nghĩ nơi này có nền văn minh Ai Cập cổ đại với các kim tự tháp và đã từng tồn tại thư viện nổi tiếng. Người tìm hiểu về nhân chủng học thì biết rằng Châu Phi được xem nguồn cội của loài người hiện đại (thuyết một nguồn gốc). Người ghiền cà phê còn biết đến Châu Phi được vì nơi này được cho là nơi tìm ra cà phê đầu tiên (Ethiopia - quốc gia đông Phi).
Nhưng phần lớn thời điểm hiện tại khi nói đến Châu Phi người ta nghĩ đến một lục địa đói nghèo, chiến tranh và lạc hậu. Ấy vậy mà thật ra châu Phi lại được gọi là lục địa thịnh vượng tài nguyên. Có gì mâu thuẫn ở đây chăng?
Một số đặc điểm địa lý của Châu Phi.
Châu Phi lớn vô cùng, nó lớn đến mức bạn có thể đặt cả Hoa Kỳ và lục địa Úc vào trong Châu Phi nhưng vẫn còn trống một khoảng.Châu Phi kéo dài từ 37 độ Bắc đến 35 độ Nam và có dải cao độ từ vùng đất trũng dưới mực nước biển lên đến đỉnh núi cao hơn 5000 mét. Do đó châu Phi có sự đa dạng về môi trường đến mức không thể tin nổi. Châu Phi có một số hoang mạc thuộc loại khô nhất nhưng cũng có 3 con sông lớn trên thế giới: sông Nile, sông Niger và sông Zaire (Congo). Một số nơi nóng nhất trên thế giới đều nằm ở Châu Phi và nơi đây cũng có nhiều sông băng nằm trên các đỉnh núi cao nhất.
Điều này tạo ra một bức tranh thật ấn tượng với rất nhiều môi trường cũng như các loại tài nguyên khác biệt nhau được tìm thấy ở Châu Phi.
"Phi Châu thịnh vượng" nhưng....
Dài hơn 800 trang cuốn sách "Phi châu thịnh vượng, lịch sử 5000 năm của sự giàu có, tham vọng và nỗ lực" tác giả Martin Meredith cung cấp cho độc giả không chỉ những vấn đề xoay quanh lịch sử mà còn phân tích về kinh tế, tập quán, cách hành xử của các tộc người bản địa và cả những kẻ ngoại bang xâm lược "da trắng" đã tạo ra những tác động để lại những hậu quả mà hậu quả ấy vì sao lại kéo dài đến tận thời hiện đại chưa có hồi kết trên "lục địa đen" này.
Lịch sử ban đầu của Châu Phi là chiến tranh giữa các vương quốc nhằm tranh giành lãnh thổ và "thị trường" với hai ngành nghề: nô lệ và ngà voi.
Biết rằng ngà voi được xem như là chất dẻo của thời đại đó. Đáng buồn thay, những người cố gắng ngăn chặn buôn bán nô lệ phải đi cùng với các thành viên buôn bán ngà voi; những người cố gắng ngăn chặn nạn săn trộm ngà voi lại phải cần đi cùng với những kẻ nô lệ.
Nếu bạn có thể quay về giai đoạn cổ đại ở bất kỳ nơi nào của Châu Phi, chúc bạn may mắn chọn được thời gian hoặc địa điểm an toàn để ghé thăm; sử dụng vũ lực hơn là hợp tác đã là tiêu chuẩn cho những người cai trị ở đó trong hầu hết những vấn đề được lịch sử ghi nhận. Riêng tôi nếu bị buộc phải đến Châu Phi vào thời cổ đại, tôi sẽ đến Alexandria trong thời Ptolemy I đang trị vì Ai Cập. Vì đây là thời điểm thư viện nổi tiếng nhất thời cổ đại - thư viện Alexandria được thành lập". Đọc một đoạn được trích trong sách mà những độc giả đam mê học thuật không khỏi phấn khích: "Plotemy I quyết tâm biến Alexandria thành trung tâm cấp học bổng và nghiên cứu khoa học hàng đầu...Ông bỏ ra rất nhiều tiền xây dựng viện nghiên cứu nằm trong khuôn viên hoàng cung và lập ra một thư viện chẳng mấy chốc đã nổi tiếng khắp thế giới."
Meredith không cố gắng khắc họa Châu Phi (ngoài Ai Cập) trước khi châu lục này trở thành thuộc địa của các thế lực khác nhau theo suốt chiều dài lịch sử. Vì vậy thật khó cho những độc giả muốn tìm hiểu nhiều quốc gia khác ở Châu Phi không chỉ là Ai Cập vì nền văn minh này ��ã có rất nhiều sách, tài liệu nói đến. Lý do cho vấn đề trên đến từ khách quan mà theo tôi sẽ rất khó để tìm một cuốn sách viết tường tận về châu Phi cổ đại. Đặc điểm của lục địa này là bao gồm hàng trăm bộ tộc lớn nhỏ và việc hình thành nhà nước rất chậm chạp nên tài liệu lịch sử duy nhất mà các nhà nghiên cứu có thể có được chỉ là bằng chứng khảo cổ học dựa trên các mẫu vật manh mún của các tộc người khác nhau. Một bức tranh ghép thiếu nhiều mảnh ghép. Bất lợi của chứng cứ khảo cổ học là nó rời rạc chỉ phản ánh được một phần hoạt động của con người trong quá khứ. Meredith cũng không thể tránh khỏi những hạn chế này khi nghiên cứu về Châu Phi. Điều này dẫn đến độc giả muốn nghiên cứu sâu sẽ khó để biết bao nhiêu phần trăm những sự kiện diễn ra "được dạy bởi" những kẻ xâm lược châu Âu và bao nhiêu là xuất phát từ văn hóa bản địa của châu lục.
Và vì tài liệu lịch sử đã bị thất lạc, bị lãng quên hoặc không bao giờ được viết ra, nên phần lớn câu chuyện về Châu Phi là về việc người ngoài khai thác lục địa này. Tài liệu theo dõi về sự trao đổi văn hóa giữa các nhóm dân tộc ngôn ngữ khác nhau ở Châu Phi và giữa người Châu Phi với người bên ngoài chỉ đơn giản là rất khó tìm kiếm và nếu có lại không dễ hiểu do sự đa dạng ngôn ngữ bản địa.
Tuy nhiên, bạn đừng vội nghĩ rằng quyển sách này kém hấp dẫn. Hãy nhìn Châu Phi dưới góc độ bị người khác tác động như thế nào mà thật ra thì đây lại là đặc điểm chính của nó, kể cả quốc gia Ai Cập hùng mạnh và "bắt kịp thời đại" nhất cũng bị các quốc gia láng giềng đến từ Châu Âu gây ảnh hưởng. Meredith đã cung cấp một cuốn sách rất tốt được viết theo hướng này.
Ông đảm bảo phạm vi "phủ sóng rộng rãi" và nhất quán là chia lục địa thành ba phần địa lý rồi sử dụng điều này trong suốt quá trình sắp xếp trình tự thời gian trong hầu hết nội dung sách, bắt đầu với các quốc gia phía bắc Địa Trung Hải vì nền văn minh cổ đại của họ, sau đó di chuyển đến cực nam của lục địa, nơi những nhà thám hiểm ven biển và sau đó là những người thuộc địa châu Âu ban đầu thực hiện cuộc xâm nhập vào sâu lục địa, rồi cuối cùng là 1/3 giữa của "châu Phi đen tối nhất", nơi được khám phá cuối cùng và bị bóc lột mạnh mẽ nhất để làm nô lệ, ngà voi và cao su.
Một chút về lịch sử ban đầu của lục địa này mà tôi rất ngạc nhiên khi biết rằng Hồi giáo đã đến châu Phi rất sớm và xâm nhập khá xa, di chuyển về phía tây ngay từ đầu quanh vành đai Địa Trung Hải và về phía nam dọc theo bờ biển Đại Tây Dương tiến xa hơn và vượt qua sa mạc Sahara.
Meredith đưa ra thông tin về các nền văn minh, bộ lạc và vương quốc trước khi bị người Âu khai phá - một nổ lực của tác giả, chẳng hạn như quốc gia phía đông Abyssinia (sau này là Ethiopia), là quốc gia đầu tiên tiếp nhận Cơ đốc giáo với một lịch sử lâu đời và thường bị lãng quên, bao gồm truyền thống sở hữu Hòm bia Khế ước.
Khi người châu Âu hoàn thành cuộc chinh phục Châu Phi thì khoảng 10.000 vương quốc ở lục địa này đã được chuyển thành 58 quốc gia châu Phi. Tuy nhiên những quốc gia này luôn trong tình trạng tràn ngập căng thẳng sôi sục bạo lực và điều này lại luôn được khuyến khích bởi những người cai trị bản xứ và những ngoại bang chiếm đóng .
Anh buộc những người cai trị bản xứ ở Nigeria quốc gia mà Anh bảo hộ thành lập một Nigeria với 300 ng��n ngữ riêng lẽ; vì vậy không có gì ngạc nhiên khi Nigeria và các quốc gia khác bị Anh đô hộ lại gặp phải những vấn đề nan giải như hiện nay (tình trạng không thể thống nhất). Cuốn sách này cũng cho biết một thủ thuật đô hộ đó là “cướp đất và di chuyển dân cư” mà thực dân châu Âu đã hoàn thiện thủ thuật này ở châu Phi.
Ý định của người Anh thông qua các công văn năm 1877 của Shepstone rất rõ ràng: "nền văn minh" không thể mềm yếu vì vậy cái gì thuộc về bản địa phải bị phá hủy để khiến nó tuân theo quy luật của “nền văn minh”. Người Anh phát triển khuôn mẫu này của họ với cái gọi là “quy tắc gián tiếp” ở Buganda (Uganda) và sau đó họ đã “bán” hình thức quy tắc này trên toàn cầu.
Người Đức, không chịu thua kém Anh, đã tiêu diệt người Herero v��o năm 1904 bằng những “cuộc tuần tra thanh lọc". Quan niệm trước những cuộc tàn sát của người Đức là những dân tộc ở lục địa này phải được "dạy dỗ" bằng vũ lực và thực tế tướng Lothar von Trotha của Đức đã có một chiến dịch “khủng bố tuyệt đối và thậm chí là tàn ác”.
Từ ngà voi rồi đến khám phá ra vàng, kim cương, cao su, dầu mỏ đã biến Châu Phi là nơi khai thác của các công ty tư bản phương tây. Kỹ thuật khai thác đi từ thô sơ đến hiện đại từng chút một. Những "chiến dịch" đại khai thác này gây hại cho người dân, bộ lạc, khu vực và hệ sinh thái xung quanh lục địa.
Vua Leopold của Bỉ đã điều hành, khai thác một cách tàn nhẫn vùng Congo với tư cách là đồn điền cao su của cá nhân nhà vua -được tiểu thuyết gia Joseph Conrad mô tả một cách không thể quên trong tác phẩm "Trái tim của bóng tối".
Lịch sử hiện đại của châu Phi bắt đầu từ việc chiếm đất thuộc địa vào thế kỷ 19, và sau đó là việc vẽ ra các đường biên giới nhân tạo mà không tính đến ranh giới lịch sử, văn hóa và ngôn ngữ, vốn dĩ như đã mặc định và hiếm khi được xác nhận bằng văn bản ở lục địa mà các bộ lạc đã quen sống "du cư".
Nạn buôn bán nô lệ giữa các bộ lạc địa phương và với các quốc gia khác vẫn là động cơ mạnh mẽ cho chiến tranh và kiếm lợi trong một thiên niên kỷ chỉ kết thúc vào thế kỷ 20.
Khi các cuộc chiến tranh thế giới nổ ra trong thế kỷ 20 đã tạo ra động lực quyền tự quyết dân tộc và phong trào cách mạng giải phóng mong muốn có quốc gia độc lập, chấm dứt chủ nghĩa đế quốc cai trị của người dân Châu Phi diễn ra nóng bỏng. Tuy nhiên các thuộc địa ở châu lục này trở thành những quốc gia gặp khó khăn với cơ sở hạ tầng ít ỏi, kinh tế kiệt quệ lại ít kinh nghiệm trong việc tự quản vì đã bị thực dân khai thác, bốc lột trong một thời gian quá lâu dài.
Sau khi thoát khỏi "thân phận" thuộc địa, các quốc gia ở Châu phi lại rơi vào thời kỳ cai trị độc tài của "��ng lớn" người bản địa. Cùng lúc đó họ gánh chịu tác động của chiến tranh lạnh và sau đó là thời kỳ nổi dậy của các nhóm Hồi giáo cực đoan, các nhóm vũ trang tự xưng cũng mộc lên như nấm. Những điều trên đã khiến nhiều người dân lục địa này rơi vào cảnh đói nghèo, không được giáo dục, chăm sóc sức khỏe, và tiếp cận các nhu cầu sống cơ bản nhất như điện và nước sạch kéo dài suốt hàng thập kỷ qua.
Đây là mớ hỗn độn mà các nước phương Tây cần chịu trách nhiệm. Tuy nhiên mớ hỗn độn này không những không thể giải quyết mà càng trở nên phức tạp và lục địa đen thì vẫn tiếp tục là nơi của đói nghèo, lạc hậu.
Khi Meredith đưa lịch sử cập nhật vào thời điểm viết sách của mình là cuối năm 2013, tác giả đề cập đến"Mùa xuân Ả Rập" hứa hẹn mang lại nền dân chủ cho Ai Cập và các quốc gia ở phía bắc Châu Phi. Nhưng ông cũng đã nhanh chóng đưa ra viễn cảnh không mấy gì làm vui rằng trong vòng một năm, hầu hết những lợi ích giành được như tự do khỏi áp bức bên trong và bên ngoài đã lại biến thành chế độ đàn áp và độc tài mới. Không có một kết thúc có hậu ở đây.
Kết:
Đọc về lịch sử Châu Phi chúng ta không thể thoát khỏi một cảm xúc khó chịu khi mà châu lục này liên tiếp phải gánh chịu những bi kịch từ những cuộc tranh giành chính trị của các cường quốc, của những người giàu có nhưng mang trong mình "trái tim bóng tối". Tuy vậy, đọc lịch sử Châu Phi không phải để chúng ta mất niềm hy vọng về một thế giới ấm no, hòa bình mà nó nên là bài học kinh nghiệm cho nhân loại. Chúng ta cần có kiến thức, từ kiến thức và kinh nghiệm có thể trở thành sự khôn ngoan. Để trở thành những công dân toàn cầu được giáo dục và hiểu biết về thế giới, chúng ta cần biết thêm về lục địa rộng lớn này ở bản đồ thế giới của chúng ta.
Người yêu thích lịch sử văn hóa thì nghĩ nơi này có nền văn minh Ai Cập cổ đại với các kim tự tháp và đã từng tồn tại thư viện nổi tiếng. Người tìm hiểu về nhân chủng học thì biết rằng Châu Phi được xem nguồn cội của loài người hiện đại (thuyết một nguồn gốc). Người ghiền cà phê còn biết đến Châu Phi được vì nơi này được cho là nơi tìm ra cà phê đầu tiên (Ethiopia - quốc gia đông Phi).
Nhưng phần lớn thời điểm hiện tại khi nói đến Châu Phi người ta nghĩ đến một lục địa đói nghèo, chiến tranh và lạc hậu. Ấy vậy mà thật ra châu Phi lại được gọi là lục địa thịnh vượng tài nguyên. Có gì mâu thuẫn ở đây chăng?
Một số đặc điểm địa lý của Châu Phi.
Châu Phi lớn vô cùng, nó lớn đến mức bạn có thể đặt cả Hoa Kỳ và lục địa Úc vào trong Châu Phi nhưng vẫn còn trống một khoảng.Châu Phi kéo dài từ 37 độ Bắc đến 35 độ Nam và có dải cao độ từ vùng đất trũng dưới mực nước biển lên đến đỉnh núi cao hơn 5000 mét. Do đó châu Phi có sự đa dạng về môi trường đến mức không thể tin nổi. Châu Phi có một số hoang mạc thuộc loại khô nhất nhưng cũng có 3 con sông lớn trên thế giới: sông Nile, sông Niger và sông Zaire (Congo). Một số nơi nóng nhất trên thế giới đều nằm ở Châu Phi và nơi đây cũng có nhiều sông băng nằm trên các đỉnh núi cao nhất.
Điều này tạo ra một bức tranh thật ấn tượng với rất nhiều môi trường cũng như các loại tài nguyên khác biệt nhau được tìm thấy ở Châu Phi.
"Phi Châu thịnh vượng" nhưng....
Dài hơn 800 trang cuốn sách "Phi châu thịnh vượng, lịch sử 5000 năm của sự giàu có, tham vọng và nỗ lực" tác giả Martin Meredith cung cấp cho độc giả không chỉ những vấn đề xoay quanh lịch sử mà còn phân tích về kinh tế, tập quán, cách hành xử của các tộc người bản địa và cả những kẻ ngoại bang xâm lược "da trắng" đã tạo ra những tác động để lại những hậu quả mà hậu quả ấy vì sao lại kéo dài đến tận thời hiện đại chưa có hồi kết trên "lục địa đen" này.
Lịch sử ban đầu của Châu Phi là chiến tranh giữa các vương quốc nhằm tranh giành lãnh thổ và "thị trường" với hai ngành nghề: nô lệ và ngà voi.
Biết rằng ngà voi được xem như là chất dẻo của thời đại đó. Đáng buồn thay, những người cố gắng ngăn chặn buôn bán nô lệ phải đi cùng với các thành viên buôn bán ngà voi; những người cố gắng ngăn chặn nạn săn trộm ngà voi lại phải cần đi cùng với những kẻ nô lệ.
Nếu bạn có thể quay về giai đoạn cổ đại ở bất kỳ nơi nào của Châu Phi, chúc bạn may mắn chọn được thời gian hoặc địa điểm an toàn để ghé thăm; sử dụng vũ lực hơn là hợp tác đã là tiêu chuẩn cho những người cai trị ở đó trong hầu hết những vấn đề được lịch sử ghi nhận. Riêng tôi nếu bị buộc phải đến Châu Phi vào thời cổ đại, tôi sẽ đến Alexandria trong thời Ptolemy I đang trị vì Ai Cập. Vì đây là thời điểm thư viện nổi tiếng nhất thời cổ đại - thư viện Alexandria được thành lập". Đọc một đoạn được trích trong sách mà những độc giả đam mê học thuật không khỏi phấn khích: "Plotemy I quyết tâm biến Alexandria thành trung tâm cấp học bổng và nghiên cứu khoa học hàng đầu...Ông bỏ ra rất nhiều tiền xây dựng viện nghiên cứu nằm trong khuôn viên hoàng cung và lập ra một thư viện chẳng mấy chốc đã nổi tiếng khắp thế giới."
Meredith không cố gắng khắc họa Châu Phi (ngoài Ai Cập) trước khi châu lục này trở thành thuộc địa của các thế lực khác nhau theo suốt chiều dài lịch sử. Vì vậy thật khó cho những độc giả muốn tìm hiểu nhiều quốc gia khác ở Châu Phi không chỉ là Ai Cập vì nền văn minh này ��ã có rất nhiều sách, tài liệu nói đến. Lý do cho vấn đề trên đến từ khách quan mà theo tôi sẽ rất khó để tìm một cuốn sách viết tường tận về châu Phi cổ đại. Đặc điểm của lục địa này là bao gồm hàng trăm bộ tộc lớn nhỏ và việc hình thành nhà nước rất chậm chạp nên tài liệu lịch sử duy nhất mà các nhà nghiên cứu có thể có được chỉ là bằng chứng khảo cổ học dựa trên các mẫu vật manh mún của các tộc người khác nhau. Một bức tranh ghép thiếu nhiều mảnh ghép. Bất lợi của chứng cứ khảo cổ học là nó rời rạc chỉ phản ánh được một phần hoạt động của con người trong quá khứ. Meredith cũng không thể tránh khỏi những hạn chế này khi nghiên cứu về Châu Phi. Điều này dẫn đến độc giả muốn nghiên cứu sâu sẽ khó để biết bao nhiêu phần trăm những sự kiện diễn ra "được dạy bởi" những kẻ xâm lược châu Âu và bao nhiêu là xuất phát từ văn hóa bản địa của châu lục.
Và vì tài liệu lịch sử đã bị thất lạc, bị lãng quên hoặc không bao giờ được viết ra, nên phần lớn câu chuyện về Châu Phi là về việc người ngoài khai thác lục địa này. Tài liệu theo dõi về sự trao đổi văn hóa giữa các nhóm dân tộc ngôn ngữ khác nhau ở Châu Phi và giữa người Châu Phi với người bên ngoài chỉ đơn giản là rất khó tìm kiếm và nếu có lại không dễ hiểu do sự đa dạng ngôn ngữ bản địa.
Tuy nhiên, bạn đừng vội nghĩ rằng quyển sách này kém hấp dẫn. Hãy nhìn Châu Phi dưới góc độ bị người khác tác động như thế nào mà thật ra thì đây lại là đặc điểm chính của nó, kể cả quốc gia Ai Cập hùng mạnh và "bắt kịp thời đại" nhất cũng bị các quốc gia láng giềng đến từ Châu Âu gây ảnh hưởng. Meredith đã cung cấp một cuốn sách rất tốt được viết theo hướng này.
Ông đảm bảo phạm vi "phủ sóng rộng rãi" và nhất quán là chia lục địa thành ba phần địa lý rồi sử dụng điều này trong suốt quá trình sắp xếp trình tự thời gian trong hầu hết nội dung sách, bắt đầu với các quốc gia phía bắc Địa Trung Hải vì nền văn minh cổ đại của họ, sau đó di chuyển đến cực nam của lục địa, nơi những nhà thám hiểm ven biển và sau đó là những người thuộc địa châu Âu ban đầu thực hiện cuộc xâm nhập vào sâu lục địa, rồi cuối cùng là 1/3 giữa của "châu Phi đen tối nhất", nơi được khám phá cuối cùng và bị bóc lột mạnh mẽ nhất để làm nô lệ, ngà voi và cao su.
Một chút về lịch sử ban đầu của lục địa này mà tôi rất ngạc nhiên khi biết rằng Hồi giáo đã đến châu Phi rất sớm và xâm nhập khá xa, di chuyển về phía tây ngay từ đầu quanh vành đai Địa Trung Hải và về phía nam dọc theo bờ biển Đại Tây Dương tiến xa hơn và vượt qua sa mạc Sahara.
Meredith đưa ra thông tin về các nền văn minh, bộ lạc và vương quốc trước khi bị người Âu khai phá - một nổ lực của tác giả, chẳng hạn như quốc gia phía đông Abyssinia (sau này là Ethiopia), là quốc gia đầu tiên tiếp nhận Cơ đốc giáo với một lịch sử lâu đời và thường bị lãng quên, bao gồm truyền thống sở hữu Hòm bia Khế ước.
Khi người châu Âu hoàn thành cuộc chinh phục Châu Phi thì khoảng 10.000 vương quốc ở lục địa này đã được chuyển thành 58 quốc gia châu Phi. Tuy nhiên những quốc gia này luôn trong tình trạng tràn ngập căng thẳng sôi sục bạo lực và điều này lại luôn được khuyến khích bởi những người cai trị bản xứ và những ngoại bang chiếm đóng .
Anh buộc những người cai trị bản xứ ở Nigeria quốc gia mà Anh bảo hộ thành lập một Nigeria với 300 ng��n ngữ riêng lẽ; vì vậy không có gì ngạc nhiên khi Nigeria và các quốc gia khác bị Anh đô hộ lại gặp phải những vấn đề nan giải như hiện nay (tình trạng không thể thống nhất). Cuốn sách này cũng cho biết một thủ thuật đô hộ đó là “cướp đất và di chuyển dân cư” mà thực dân châu Âu đã hoàn thiện thủ thuật này ở châu Phi.
Ý định của người Anh thông qua các công văn năm 1877 của Shepstone rất rõ ràng: "nền văn minh" không thể mềm yếu vì vậy cái gì thuộc về bản địa phải bị phá hủy để khiến nó tuân theo quy luật của “nền văn minh”. Người Anh phát triển khuôn mẫu này của họ với cái gọi là “quy tắc gián tiếp” ở Buganda (Uganda) và sau đó họ đã “bán” hình thức quy tắc này trên toàn cầu.
Người Đức, không chịu thua kém Anh, đã tiêu diệt người Herero v��o năm 1904 bằng những “cuộc tuần tra thanh lọc". Quan niệm trước những cuộc tàn sát của người Đức là những dân tộc ở lục địa này phải được "dạy dỗ" bằng vũ lực và thực tế tướng Lothar von Trotha của Đức đã có một chiến dịch “khủng bố tuyệt đối và thậm chí là tàn ác”.
Từ ngà voi rồi đến khám phá ra vàng, kim cương, cao su, dầu mỏ đã biến Châu Phi là nơi khai thác của các công ty tư bản phương tây. Kỹ thuật khai thác đi từ thô sơ đến hiện đại từng chút một. Những "chiến dịch" đại khai thác này gây hại cho người dân, bộ lạc, khu vực và hệ sinh thái xung quanh lục địa.
Vua Leopold của Bỉ đã điều hành, khai thác một cách tàn nhẫn vùng Congo với tư cách là đồn điền cao su của cá nhân nhà vua -được tiểu thuyết gia Joseph Conrad mô tả một cách không thể quên trong tác phẩm "Trái tim của bóng tối".
Lịch sử hiện đại của châu Phi bắt đầu từ việc chiếm đất thuộc địa vào thế kỷ 19, và sau đó là việc vẽ ra các đường biên giới nhân tạo mà không tính đến ranh giới lịch sử, văn hóa và ngôn ngữ, vốn dĩ như đã mặc định và hiếm khi được xác nhận bằng văn bản ở lục địa mà các bộ lạc đã quen sống "du cư".
Nạn buôn bán nô lệ giữa các bộ lạc địa phương và với các quốc gia khác vẫn là động cơ mạnh mẽ cho chiến tranh và kiếm lợi trong một thiên niên kỷ chỉ kết thúc vào thế kỷ 20.
Khi các cuộc chiến tranh thế giới nổ ra trong thế kỷ 20 đã tạo ra động lực quyền tự quyết dân tộc và phong trào cách mạng giải phóng mong muốn có quốc gia độc lập, chấm dứt chủ nghĩa đế quốc cai trị của người dân Châu Phi diễn ra nóng bỏng. Tuy nhiên các thuộc địa ở châu lục này trở thành những quốc gia gặp khó khăn với cơ sở hạ tầng ít ỏi, kinh tế kiệt quệ lại ít kinh nghiệm trong việc tự quản vì đã bị thực dân khai thác, bốc lột trong một thời gian quá lâu dài.
Sau khi thoát khỏi "thân phận" thuộc địa, các quốc gia ở Châu phi lại rơi vào thời kỳ cai trị độc tài của "��ng lớn" người bản địa. Cùng lúc đó họ gánh chịu tác động của chiến tranh lạnh và sau đó là thời kỳ nổi dậy của các nhóm Hồi giáo cực đoan, các nhóm vũ trang tự xưng cũng mộc lên như nấm. Những điều trên đã khiến nhiều người dân lục địa này rơi vào cảnh đói nghèo, không được giáo dục, chăm sóc sức khỏe, và tiếp cận các nhu cầu sống cơ bản nhất như điện và nước sạch kéo dài suốt hàng thập kỷ qua.
Đây là mớ hỗn độn mà các nước phương Tây cần chịu trách nhiệm. Tuy nhiên mớ hỗn độn này không những không thể giải quyết mà càng trở nên phức tạp và lục địa đen thì vẫn tiếp tục là nơi của đói nghèo, lạc hậu.
Khi Meredith đưa lịch sử cập nhật vào thời điểm viết sách của mình là cuối năm 2013, tác giả đề cập đến"Mùa xuân Ả Rập" hứa hẹn mang lại nền dân chủ cho Ai Cập và các quốc gia ở phía bắc Châu Phi. Nhưng ông cũng đã nhanh chóng đưa ra viễn cảnh không mấy gì làm vui rằng trong vòng một năm, hầu hết những lợi ích giành được như tự do khỏi áp bức bên trong và bên ngoài đã lại biến thành chế độ đàn áp và độc tài mới. Không có một kết thúc có hậu ở đây.
Kết:
Đọc về lịch sử Châu Phi chúng ta không thể thoát khỏi một cảm xúc khó chịu khi mà châu lục này liên tiếp phải gánh chịu những bi kịch từ những cuộc tranh giành chính trị của các cường quốc, của những người giàu có nhưng mang trong mình "trái tim bóng tối". Tuy vậy, đọc lịch sử Châu Phi không phải để chúng ta mất niềm hy vọng về một thế giới ấm no, hòa bình mà nó nên là bài học kinh nghiệm cho nhân loại. Chúng ta cần có kiến thức, từ kiến thức và kinh nghiệm có thể trở thành sự khôn ngoan. Để trở thành những công dân toàn cầu được giáo dục và hiểu biết về thế giới, chúng ta cần biết thêm về lục địa rộng lớn này ở bản đồ thế giới của chúng ta.
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June 21, 2023Come back to chapter 52: The Extermination Order
August 1, 2017
Review title: This is the mess
Meredith has written a sprawling narrative survey of the whole African continent in a book nearly as big as the topic. It is a valiant effort and a good introduction to a continent that is often given short shrift and little attention, and yet the book still feels like it has barely scratched the surface. Just like Mercator projection maps that I recently learned substantially undersize the African continent at the center to show the continents and oceans surrounding it translated from the 3 dimensional globe to paper, attempting to treat such a massive subject in a one volume history is bound to unwittingly diminish its scope.
But it is a starting point, and Meredith realizes that he must take the broad brush view while providing references for those who wish to see the finer brushstrokes of details in smaller panels;his bibliography lists about 500 secondary sources, and brief chapter notes point to the major sources for each topic. Another way he ensures consistent broad coverage is breaking the continent into three geographic sections which he uses throughout the chronological arrangement of the text, starting out with the northern Mediterranean-facing countries because of their ancient civilizations, then moving to the southern tip of the continent where coastal explorers and then early European colonists made the next inroads into the continent, then finally the middle third of "darkest Africa", the last explored and most aggressively exploited for slaves, ivory, and rubber. One bit of the early history of the continent that I was surprised to learn was how early and how far into Africa Islam had come, moving westward from its beginning in southwestern Asia and the Middle East around the Mediterranean rim and south along the Atlantic Coast through and beyond the Sahara.
Meredith gives fair coverage of pre-exploration civilizations, tribes, and kingdoms, such as the Eastern nation of Abyssinia (later Ethiopia) which was an early adopter of Christianity with a long and often forgotten history which includes the tradition of housing the Ark of the Covenant. But because much of the documentation of history has either been lost, forgotten, or never written, much of the story of Africa, as his subtitle makes clear, is of the exploitation of the continent by outsiders. The track record of cultural exchange both between African ethnic and language groups and between Africans and outsiders is simply abysmal. Slave trafficking between local tribes and with other countries remained a powerful incentive for war and profit for a millennium that only staggered to an end in the 20th century. Discoveries of gold, diamonds, rubber, and oil brought modern exploitation every bit as harmful for individuals, tribes, regions, and ecologies around the continent. King Leopold of Belgium ran the Congo region as his personal rubber plantation with the ruthless Heart of Darkness described so unforgettably by Joseph Conrad.
The modern history of Africa is little better, starting with the colonial land grabs of the 19th century, and then the drawing of artificial borders with no consideration of historical, cultural, and linguistic boundaries, which were often fluid and seldom documented. When the 20th century world wars provided impetus for national self-determination and an end to political imperialism, the former colonies became struggling countries with little infrastructure and less experience in self-governance. A period of "Big man" dictatorial rule in most countries for the first 50 years post-colonialism was followed by Cold War revolutions and then a period of Islamic insurgencies in the last 30 years that have left more of the population of the continent in poverty with no education, health care, and access to basic needs like electricity and clean water then at any time in the last 200 years. This is the mess; we need not wait for the mess to get here.
As Meredith brings the history up to date as of the time of his writing in late 2013, he covers the Arab Spring that held promise to bring democracy to Egypt and other northern tier nations. But he also concludes with less encouraging words that within the year most of those gains in freedom from internal and external oppression had turned into new regimes of suppression and dictatorship. There is no happy ending here.
But there is knowledge, and from knowledge and experience can come wisdom. To be educated and informed citizens of the world we need to know more about this vast continent at the center of our maps.
Meredith has written a sprawling narrative survey of the whole African continent in a book nearly as big as the topic. It is a valiant effort and a good introduction to a continent that is often given short shrift and little attention, and yet the book still feels like it has barely scratched the surface. Just like Mercator projection maps that I recently learned substantially undersize the African continent at the center to show the continents and oceans surrounding it translated from the 3 dimensional globe to paper, attempting to treat such a massive subject in a one volume history is bound to unwittingly diminish its scope.
But it is a starting point, and Meredith realizes that he must take the broad brush view while providing references for those who wish to see the finer brushstrokes of details in smaller panels;his bibliography lists about 500 secondary sources, and brief chapter notes point to the major sources for each topic. Another way he ensures consistent broad coverage is breaking the continent into three geographic sections which he uses throughout the chronological arrangement of the text, starting out with the northern Mediterranean-facing countries because of their ancient civilizations, then moving to the southern tip of the continent where coastal explorers and then early European colonists made the next inroads into the continent, then finally the middle third of "darkest Africa", the last explored and most aggressively exploited for slaves, ivory, and rubber. One bit of the early history of the continent that I was surprised to learn was how early and how far into Africa Islam had come, moving westward from its beginning in southwestern Asia and the Middle East around the Mediterranean rim and south along the Atlantic Coast through and beyond the Sahara.
Meredith gives fair coverage of pre-exploration civilizations, tribes, and kingdoms, such as the Eastern nation of Abyssinia (later Ethiopia) which was an early adopter of Christianity with a long and often forgotten history which includes the tradition of housing the Ark of the Covenant. But because much of the documentation of history has either been lost, forgotten, or never written, much of the story of Africa, as his subtitle makes clear, is of the exploitation of the continent by outsiders. The track record of cultural exchange both between African ethnic and language groups and between Africans and outsiders is simply abysmal. Slave trafficking between local tribes and with other countries remained a powerful incentive for war and profit for a millennium that only staggered to an end in the 20th century. Discoveries of gold, diamonds, rubber, and oil brought modern exploitation every bit as harmful for individuals, tribes, regions, and ecologies around the continent. King Leopold of Belgium ran the Congo region as his personal rubber plantation with the ruthless Heart of Darkness described so unforgettably by Joseph Conrad.
The modern history of Africa is little better, starting with the colonial land grabs of the 19th century, and then the drawing of artificial borders with no consideration of historical, cultural, and linguistic boundaries, which were often fluid and seldom documented. When the 20th century world wars provided impetus for national self-determination and an end to political imperialism, the former colonies became struggling countries with little infrastructure and less experience in self-governance. A period of "Big man" dictatorial rule in most countries for the first 50 years post-colonialism was followed by Cold War revolutions and then a period of Islamic insurgencies in the last 30 years that have left more of the population of the continent in poverty with no education, health care, and access to basic needs like electricity and clean water then at any time in the last 200 years. This is the mess; we need not wait for the mess to get here.
As Meredith brings the history up to date as of the time of his writing in late 2013, he covers the Arab Spring that held promise to bring democracy to Egypt and other northern tier nations. But he also concludes with less encouraging words that within the year most of those gains in freedom from internal and external oppression had turned into new regimes of suppression and dictatorship. There is no happy ending here.
But there is knowledge, and from knowledge and experience can come wisdom. To be educated and informed citizens of the world we need to know more about this vast continent at the center of our maps.
July 21, 2022
This was loooong, and I considered giving up about 1/3 of the way through, but I trudged on, and overall it was worth it.
Meredith does a pretty good job of covering 5000 years of one, huge, diverse continent. To be honest, I don't think it's really possible to write a book about 'all of Africa' and do it justice; it's just too big, too discontiguous, too grand...
I thought Meredith treated topics with the right balance of objectivity and sensitivity, which means that Europe and the Middle East come off rightfully looking pretty bad. The way outsiders have just carved up Africa and exploited its resources and people is shocking and heartbreaking and infuriating.
I concur with this review that there's not enough emphasis on sub Saharan Africa, and that whatever emphasis there is, it's too much on what outsiders have done to Africans, not what they themselves have been doing for the past 5000 years. I think there's enough information out there to fill a book this size.
African leaders come off looking pretty bad in this, and I think there are plenty of good reasons for that, but I'm still wary of Western narratives. I would have liked to have heard more from the supporters of those leaders. I lived in Tanzania, and Nyerere is still loved by everyone. We can find faults with him, but just about anyone would be better than the colonial overlords who ravaged the continent.
Meredith does a pretty good job of covering 5000 years of one, huge, diverse continent. To be honest, I don't think it's really possible to write a book about 'all of Africa' and do it justice; it's just too big, too discontiguous, too grand...
I thought Meredith treated topics with the right balance of objectivity and sensitivity, which means that Europe and the Middle East come off rightfully looking pretty bad. The way outsiders have just carved up Africa and exploited its resources and people is shocking and heartbreaking and infuriating.
I concur with this review that there's not enough emphasis on sub Saharan Africa, and that whatever emphasis there is, it's too much on what outsiders have done to Africans, not what they themselves have been doing for the past 5000 years. I think there's enough information out there to fill a book this size.
African leaders come off looking pretty bad in this, and I think there are plenty of good reasons for that, but I'm still wary of Western narratives. I would have liked to have heard more from the supporters of those leaders. I lived in Tanzania, and Nyerere is still loved by everyone. We can find faults with him, but just about anyone would be better than the colonial overlords who ravaged the continent.
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September 29, 2016I am that peculiar sort of person for whom a single-volume, political/military history of some fair swathe of the planet is about the most enjoyable form of literature. I LOVE these sorts of things, I could eat them up like candy. This is a very good example of the form, detailing African history from Ancient Egypt to the modern-age, with a primary focus on the exploitation of its resources, which essentially ends up being the interplay between 'foreign' and native African forces. At eight or nine hundred pages it is, of course, much too short for so vast a topic but still choc full of insight to any non-expert. The writing is skillful if not particularly memorable, but then again only a very small number of historians are capable of writing truly captivating prose in its own right (Barbara Tuchman and Simon Schama come to mind). All the same, Meredith excels in clearly ordering vast quantities of information into a coherent narrative, the most difficult and essential task in a book of this sort. Depressing, of course, as histories generally are, but you can hardly blame that on the author. Strong recommendation, if you share my affection for this sort of thing.
February 16, 2021
If you are looking for an objective book on African history free of European imperialist and colonial bias, this is definitely not a book for you. It is also nothing like an actual 5,000 year history of Africa. Most of it focuses on the periods after European exploitation of Africa and Africans, blaming much of that exploitation on Africans themselves. In that sense, it is part of a long tradition of European writings on Africa that makes you wonder as a reader how such discourse is still around in writings on Africa in the twenty-first century. But it is "up-to-date" on a certain version of African history in its own biased way, and is informative in that sense, and also in the sense that one can use the book as a limited survey of some aspects of African history, and I think it should only be read in that way. It is unfortunate that there aren't really enough truly decolonized accounts of African history available in English, though there are some, and we can hope that as time progresses, more and more become readily available to readers seeking historical frameworks that are more objective.
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