The Fortunes of Africa: A 5000-Year History of Wealth, Greed, and Endeavor Paperback – Illustrated, March 22, 2016

Martin Meredith provides an extensive history of Africa for the past 5000 years. It is a grim saga of avarice and greed and more recently of corruption and incompetence. Nevertheless, it is a book that should be read.There are cave paintings in what is believed to be the Bantu homeland in present-day Cameroon dating back 28,000 years and linguistic evidence of a later great migration of these people across southern Africa. In the rocky and now uninhabited Gilf Kebir plateau at the edge of the Sahara desert in southwestern Egypt there are prehistoric paintings of people dancing and swimming and other evidence that the great desert that stretches across Africa was once lush pastureland. The recorded history of Africa encompasses only the past 5000 years and becomes a progressively grimmer tale of the rape of the continent and its people by their own leaders in collaboration with traders and invaders from southeast Asia, then the Levant, later Europe, and since "independence" from colonial rule by native despots interested only in enriching themselves and staying in power by enriching selected others..Although rich in gold, diamonds, minerals and oil, the main product that has enriched African leaders for the past 2000 years has been slaves, a business only brought to an end in the late 19th century when the British became the major force in Africa. Between 800 and 1900, trans-Saharan slave traffic totaled 7.2 million, Red Sea traffic totaled 2.4 million, and east African trade totaled.2.9 million. Between 1450 and 1900 the trans-Atlantic slave traffic is estimated at 11.3 million. In the 19th century the slave traffic was 4 million trans-Atlantic, 1.2 million trans-Saharan, half a million Red Sea--in all about 6.1 million. The slave traders bought from local African chieftains who waged war with nearby tribes and imposed the criminal penalty of slavery on their own people in order to provide the slaves. As mentioned the slave trade external to Africa was only ended by the power of the British Royal Navy at the end of the 19th century, but within Africa it continued into the 20th century and beyond.The large-scale extraction of the wealth of the land was carried out in the 19th and 20th centuries by colonial companies--diamonds by the British in southern Africa, rubber by the Belgians in the Congo, etc.--with very little of the wealth remaining in Africa directed for the benefit of the people. Since the end of colonialism, more of the extracted wealth remains in Africa, but to enrich corrupt local despots and their cronies rather than to improve the living standards of the broader African people, and the same fate befalls the new wealth of foreign aid..

I didn’t dislike anything written in this book it gave me so much information that I had never read before and all my readings on history, which still are minuscule compared to those who study yet this is the kind of thing that should be taught in high school. Children and adults need to know more about colonialism and how devastating it is but also to realize that it wasn’t just that period of history that countries went in and took over other countries, created mass genocide and dictated what religion or philosophy, the conquered people had to adjust to. The brutality of certain cultures is staggering! Being of European an English dissent hi was devastated by the brutality of the English. Imagine the British killing all of a royal African family and taking the H your old prince back to England! My heart broke at that! The prince died at the age of 18.Just one story out of 1 million I’m sure. The hateful brutality of the Belgians will no bounds. Your crimes should stand out in history.

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.

Excellent coverage of the subject matter on Africa

I have to start being saying I knew very little about African history before reading this book. I was familiar with ancient Egyptian and Carthage history, but that's it.I liked that the author took a very clinical approach to the topic. He didn't seem to take sides but focused on what happened. He let the facts speak for themselves. The book covers such a long timeline and such a vast area that he touches on the main events of a period and moves forward. At the end of the book, though, the author spends many pages on references and points to other more in depth works.I came away from this book understanding the different groups in Africa and why the map of the continent looks like it does today. The stories got pretty depressing at times, especially reading about the slave trade and how cruel the European and African leaders were to workers to maximize their profits in the slave, ivory, and mineral trades.It is a European focused history and I wish there was more information centered more on the African nations themselves, but it is an ambition undertaking as it is already. He gave me the information I need to know where to look if I want to become more familiar with African themselves.