The Shackled Continent: Africa's Past, Present and Future - Softcover

Guest, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0330419722 ISBN 13: 9780330419727

Publisher: Pan, 2005

Synopsis

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 occasionally 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".

About this title

Review:

'An excellent book. Timely, provocative, written throughout with a passion for Africa and Africans.' -- Bob Geldof

Astute and clever . . . The Shackled Continent is a lively and provocative read -- R. W. Johnson, Sunday Times

I doubt whether there is a better brief introduction to the travails of modern Africa and their causes -- Anthony Daniels, Sunday Telegraph

The best book I’ve ever read on Africa -- Finance and Development (The International Monetary Fund's Quaterly Magazine)

The reader can learn much from this lively and outspoken book -- Anthony Sampson, Guardian

From the Author:

I once hitched a ride on a beer truck in Cameroon. The journey, to deliver 30,000 bottles of Guinness to a thirsty town in the heart of the rain forest, was supposed to take less than a day, but it took four.

Swampy roads and a collapsed bridge were partly to blame, but the worst delays were caused by police road blocks, of which we met 47. Every few miles, we’d see a couple of oil drums in the middle of the road, and a plump gendarme would pick over our papers, hoping to find a fault he could demand a bribe to overlook.

One policeman invented a new rule about not carrying passengers in beer trucks. When I put it to him that the law he was citing did not, in fact, exist, he patted his holster and asked me if I had a gun. "I have a gun," he pointed out, "So I know the rules."

Africa is poor today largely because it has been so badly governed for the last 30 or 40 years. Too few of its rulers are competent; too many are predatory. Those Cameroonian road blocks are not a bad illustration of how power is wielded on the continent. What Africans need is not more aid, but smaller and better government.

The reviewers don’t all agree with me, but they do agree that the book is a cracking read.

"I doubt whether there is a better brief introduction to the travails of modern Africa and their causes." Anthony Daniels, Sunday Telegraph.

"astute and clever...Guest asks all the right questions" RW Johnson, Sunday Times.

"[Guest] is a lively and observant reporter. He portrays, with humour and some compassion, how nothing really works in most African countries..." Anthony Sampson, The Guardian.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pan
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0330419722
• ISBN 13: 9780330419727
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304