The Shackled Continent
Africa's Past, Present and Future
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Africa is the only continent to have grown poorer over the past three decades. Why? Robert Guest's fascinating book seeks to diagnose the sickness that continues to hobble Africa's development. Using reportage, first-hand experience and economic insight, Robert Guest takes us to the roots of the problems. Two fifths of African nations are at war, AIDS has lowered life expectancy to as young as forty and investment is almost impossible as houses that could be used as collateral do not formally belong to their owners. Most shocking of all is the evidence that the billions of dollars of aid, given to Africa has had little perceptible effect on the poor. The Shackled Continent offers insightful, and occassionally controversial, explanations for this state of affairs. In this magnificent and engaging book, Robert Guest provides an invigorating history and an inspired commentary on the enigma of modern Africa and this paperback edition includes a new chapter.
'I doubt whether there is a better brief introduction to the travails of modern Africa and their causes' Anthony Daniels, Sunday Telegraph
'He is a lively and observant reporter who can describe, in a breezy no-nonsense style, the horrors and miseries of Africans in the interior. . .The reader can learn much from this lively and outspoken book' Anthony Sampson, Guardian
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Guest, African editor of Economist, tackles the vexing issue of Africa's continuing poverty, and offers a surprising blunt answer. Africa is a shackled continent because of the abuse of power by "vampire states": authoritarian governments that have failed their people comprehensively. Guest details their abuses thoroughly. An emphasis on exploiting mineral resources neglects other aspects of economic development. Property rights are rarely secure in law or practice. AIDS ravages entire populations. Tribal loyalties overshadow state identities. Western aid is siphoned off by thugs and bureaucrats, or displaces the private investment that is the only basis for long-term economic growth. Comprehensive corruption discourages the mutual trust required for complex systems to function effectively. Technological innovation is discouraged by government micromanagement. A particularly scathing chapter focusing on Zimbabwe and South Africa describes how post-liberation governments and their supporting elites take the short cut of expropriating assets instead of developing their own. As a cure, Guest recommends "simple ideas, rigorously applied." Governments must concentrate on providing basics: primary education, essential health care, piped water. Elites must stop spending other people's money on limousines, mansions and first-class flights to conferences. Finally, Africans must stop arguing that Africa's problems are someone else's fault. Guest recognizes that the economic modernization he advocates comes with a price, but he is nonetheless optimistic. Readers may be moved enough to find ways of being so, too.
