The Fate of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence

The Fate of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence
Name
University
Date
Book review
Introduction
Martin Meredith’s book The Fate of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence is a reliable book on contemporary Africa. Meredith gave a chronological proceeding of the events from the misdeeds during the colonial era to the independence optimism. Different authors have attempted to give their full accounts of both pre and post-colonial regimes in African countries, and Meredith is one such author. He reveals errors committed between 1960 and 1970, as well as the consequential decay and current drift. Meredith covered a wide context of African history. Even though his book appears non-discursive, he has pointed out that post independence Africa is a victim of political elites’ poor leadership and their interest to fill their pockets. This paper seeks to give a critical review of Martin Meredith’s book The Fate of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence.
Meredith did a good write on the colonial period in Africa. I like the way he points out political elites in Africa as the source of challenges facing African people. He portrays them as people who have failed to promote economic development. He has also extensively covered African episodes that reveal the continent’s ills. Most of these ills are known to African people. However, the ill-informed account does not trade in sensationalism, and does not fall prey to the glib pessimism in the majority of African coverage. In his work, Meredith appears to be forthright concerning his experiences and the things he considers failures of most African leaders. On my own critical analysis, Meredith’s book is a damning story (Meredith, 2011).
The book provides a stupendous survey of the frequent wars and the African brutal dictators that have weighed down Africa since independence. He has given a critical African history for the past fifty years. On Meredith’s account of African history, most of the countries in Africa got their independence in the wake of 1950s from their colonizers. However, he argues that the past fifty years has only illustrated a meaningless independence concept for a better part of the continent. He adds that African continent has continually faced more challenges from the North to the South more than it did before their period of independence (Meredith, 2011). I disagree, I think Meredith still views the problems and challenges from the mentality of the colonizer, and is an alien to Africa continent. According to my review, Martin Meredith has done a great job in critically analyzing and explaining exploration of African economy after the 50s. He still utilizes mechanisms of blaming regimes of African dictatorships for the challenges brought about by colonization. I think Meredith missed a point. He failed to understand the people whom these militaristic and dictatorial regimes support...