Search

The Shackled Continent: Power, Corruption, and African Lives

Price: $16.61
ISBN 13: 1588342972

Available from the Following Retailers

Product Description

A former Africa editor for The Economist, Robert Guest addresses the troubled continent's thorniest problems: war, AIDS, and above all, poverty. Newly updated with a preface that considers political and economic developments of the past six years, The Shackled Continent is engrossing, highly readable, and as entertaining as it is tragic.

Guest pulls the veil off the corruption and intrigue that cripple so many African nations, posing a provocative theory that Africans have been impoverished largely by their own leaders' abuses of power. From the minefields of Angola to the barren wheat fields of Zimbabwe, Guest gathers startling evidence of the misery African leaders have inflicted on their people. But he finds elusive success stories and examples of the resilience and resourcefulness of individual Africans, too; from these, he draws hope that the continent will eventually prosper. Guest offers choices both commonsense and controversial for Africans and for those in the West who wish Africa well.

Author Information

Robert Guest
Robert Guest is a Washington correspondent for The Economist and regularly appears on CNN and the BBC. Previously, he covered Africa for seven years, based in London and Johannesburg. He has also worked as a correspondent in Tokyo and a freelance writer in South Korea. He lives in Washington, DC.

Review Quotes

Rarely does an author combine experience, common sense and humour when writing about Africa. It's even rarer when the analysis is as hard-hitting as in the writing of Robert Guest.
—Wall Street Journal
I doubt whether there is a better brief introduction to the travails of modern Africa and their causes.
—Sunday Telegraph
[Guest] is a lively and observant reporter. He portrays, with humour and some compassion, how nothing really works in most African countries. The reader can learn much from this lively and outspoken book.
—The Guardian
Anyone who wants to be reminded of the horrors of Africa, economic or otherwise, will be interested to read this intelligent but light treatise.
—Literary Review
Guest recognizes that the economic modernization he advocates comes with a price, but he is nonetheless optimistic. Readers may be moved enough to find ways of being so, too.
—Publishers Weekly

More from Anthropology / Archaeology