Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #273455 in Books
• Published on: 1992-11-19
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 334 pages

Synopsis
Journalist Blaine Harden reveals the darker, unsightly picture of Africa which is beginning to emerge in the media. Each of the eight chapters focuses on a single country and a single story, using examples and anecdotes to give context and comprehensibility to problems usually clouded by sociological jargon. He has two principal themes: the battle between modernity, with its double-edged benefits, and the tribal way of life; and the way that Western governments seek to appease their sense of duty, or salve their imperial consciences by providing "aid" which in fact often makes problems worse than they were before. Harden was once thrown out of Kenya for his attack on the corruption endemic even in that romanticized country. This book is controversial, and provokes thought about where Africa is going and what it is becoming.

Customer Reviews

A very well written book
This is an amazing book. Having been a teenager in Kenya at the time that Harden focuses on, it was very interesting to read Harden's analyis of the S M Otieno case and the plight of International Aid in Turkana. He has alluded to intervention by the Kenya government at various points in the book, this appears to be somewhat unsubstantiated. I would have liked to read more discussion of why he says what he has. That would have given, what currently appear to be conspiration theories, some concrete basis.

Africa: Dispatches from a Fragile Continent
One of the best books on Africa I have read - really tells it like it is and gives a wonderful insight into how Africa works - or doesn't, as is often the case. A book to be read and re-read

Colourful, shocking, often humourous: a must-read on Africa!
Read this and you will feel as though you have lived in Africa. Blaine Harden's commentary manages to combine the complexity of the competing African political, economic, social, and tribal influences; Harden never generalises or simplifies, yet his journalistic style manages to convey the most complex of issues in accessible and seemingly simple terms. Moreover, despite often bleak subject matter, Harden's humour made me laugh out loud many times while reading. Best of all, Harden leaves one to draw one's own conclusions, raising issues but not forcing judgement or conclusion. One of the best books, of any genre, that I have ever read. I cannot recommend this highly enough.