Has anyone else read this? It's a comprehensive account of the African countries post-independence

Has anyone else read this? It's a comprehensive account of the African countries post-independence.

Spoilers: It's depressing as fuck

Recommended especially to this forum, god knows that you need the perspective

I've read the first 50 pages, my copy is about 10 feet away from me, it's pretty good stuff. What's Meredith's background, beyond living in Africa?

>2016
>needing a book to tell you that Africa is a shitty place

>forum
where the fuck do you people come from

Go shill your nigger """"""history"""""" somewhere else. It isn't interesting and no one takes it seriously.

...

>no one takes it seriously

Except, you know, historians. People who actually know shit tend to take it seriously.

>triggered

Research fellow at Oxford, foreign correspondent in Africa for The Observer and Sunday Times

History degree I think as well

I support this. The book is a great read.

It honestly makes you doubt any faith you've ever had in the African continent, but it's a very in-depth perspective.

Anyone who's already read it should check out the recommendations it offers in the back. There are some very good ones.

Could we have a teasing of the book?

Is it as biased and filled with fallacious pseudo-science as Guns, Germs and Steel?

>forum

Seriously, where do you people come from?

a forum is a place where people talk. Veeky Forums is a forum. deal with it

>newfag

The word "forum" is not a part of Veeky Forums jargon, even if it is right. By using the word "forum" you give yourself out as a newfriend.

>forum
you mean
>image board?

This so much

We're an imageboard. The only people who use forum are people that have been here less than a week.

So what? It's a fact that doesn't deserve any attention, but you make a big deal of it like this is a fucking fraternity house.

And yet you still look like a faggot for calling this place a forum

Go back to wherever you came from, please.

I've been here for years, and for years I've been seeing people whine about the word "forum", and for years I've been telling them to shut up.

So yes, I recognize that dipshits like you have, for years believed that "forum" means vbulletin template.

So let me get this straight:

>you refuse to use Veeky Forums jargon
>make a snide comment towards Veeky Forums racism, vaguely implying you are against it
>expect the thread to go well
>expecting that people who would have been interested in the topic won't just shitpost.
Oh ok.

Veeky Forums is a forum just like /r/circlebroke, can't we all just see past our differences and agree that white people are the devil?

I have no clue what you're talking about. I don't call Veeky Forums a "forum" generally, but when I see shitheads like you bitch about it, I tell you to shut up.

>Recommended especially to this forum, god knows that you need the perspective
That's a surefire way to sway an audience; talk down to them and be smug about it.

Why would I read a book that tells me Africa is an irredeemable shithole? I already know that

Jared Diamond is not a historian

Yeah I read it a few years ago. Looking on my Goodreads I gave it 5/5 which I very rarely give to books.

...I'd also recommend King Leopold's Ghost, but not so much these other ones.

Any other recommendations for Africa reads?

>WE

Collective Violence and the Agrarian Origins of South African Apartheid, 1900–1948, John Higginson
Just took a class with the author, he's pretty based, one of the best professors I've had. I haven't read the book but it's gotten good reviews.

Africa's World War.

Come on people, give us some of the knowledge that those books give.

Have been meaning to read this. Assume it'll make my head spin with the complexity.

Oh yeah. But it also has 11/10 bants.

is 5 years new still?
also does anyone have a link for a pdf of the book?

>PDF
epubs of all the books mentioned in this thread are easy to find. Try #BOOKZ

Im curious what the writer's opinion on the colonial times are.

I personally support colonialism. My family owned large swaths of land in Rhodesia and South Africa, so I'm a bit biased.
However, the English (proud and eternally Anglo) treated the Africans with a great deal of respect. When they went to Africa, they expected the populace to be more receptive to the stability they would have, however they made the work of the English and the Africans that wanted stability incredibly hard, promoting harsh reactions to certain situations.

I am not condoning the heinous actions of immoral individuals. Keep in mind, the post and pre-colonial state of affairs was horrifically more barbaric than anything the British ever committed.

I am condoning the actions of your average conquest in order to better one's own nation. This is made especially true with the fact that the African nations were only to benefit from European intervention. These benefits would never have been reaped without the advancement of the European people. It started out rocky, but would have made Africa a powerhouse of progress if we stayed in the region.

If the politics at the time were not so "feeling-based" and didn't already look down at the "poor and helpless Africans who deserve the Western definition of independence!" the region wouldn't be plagued in the genocides and mass warfare and plagues the land and the people.

>PDF
buy the book you cocksucker, folks like you are the reason bookstores are always empty.

It's only one of many view points though.
Taking this book as a sole representative of Africa's future is pretty silly.

>he still goes to physical bookstores

What is this the 90s?

nice Apologism

>forum
Hello shill.

nice argument