The Fortunes of Africa

A 5000-Year History of Wealth, Greed, and Endeavor

By: Martin Meredith

Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell

Length: 26 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

A sweeping history of the fortune seekers, adventurers, despots, and thieves who have ruthlessly endeavored to extract gold, diamonds, and other treasures from Africa and its people.

Africa has been coveted for its rich natural resources ever since the era of the pharaohs. In past centuries, it was the lure of gold, ivory, and slaves that drew merchant-adventurers and conquerors from afar. In modern times, the focus of attention is on oil, diamonds, and other rare earth minerals.

In this vast and vivid panorama of history, Martin Meredith follows the fortunes of Africa over a period of 5,000 years. With compelling narrative, he traces the rise and fall of ancient kingdoms and empires; the spread of Christianity and Islam; the enduring quest for gold and other riches; the exploits of explorers and missionaries; and the impact of European colonization. He examines, too, the fate of modern African states and concludes with a glimpse of their future.

His cast of characters includes religious leaders, mining magnates, warlords, dictators, and many other legendary figures - among them Mansa Musa, ruler of the medieval Mali empire, said to be the richest man the world has ever known.

©2014 Martin Meredith (P)2019 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"Mr. Meredith artfully weaves together exploration, trade, and geography in a narrative that is both detailed and arresting.... [He] leaves the reader bursting with a wealth of facts."—The Economist

"Even the longtime specialist is likely to learn lots of things because of the extraordinary amount of ground the author covers."—Howard French, Wall Street Journal

"This is the new standard against which future histories will be considered."—Publishers Weekly, starred review

Informative

Piecing together the mired history of Africa-has been informative and valued. Many things I thought I understood were described in depth

The perfidy of human nature

One tribe, gang, military elite, or royal family after another fight for power and riches over the vast continent of Africa. The reader seems happy to pronounce all the local language names with such speed and pride that it brings attention to him rather than the text. The story is one of waste, greed and terror, so horrifying it is not a place a gentlewoman would care to visit.

comprehensive

Excellent tome on Africa. All you ever wanted to know and more. Lots of detail. Covers the broad gamut.

Fascinating, though terrible

This audio book was very difficult to understand. Not because it is confusing, but because I lacked even the basic knowledge of Africa's geography and history. The author cites locations, such as cities, regions and even countries that I simply never heard before, so I had to pause and check it out several times. Get at least one map before starting it.

The content is pretty fascinating. It seems like hearing a story about a fictional world, because of the many many completely new history info I never had before. I can't say I will remember names, dates, faces and places, but at least now I have a sense to what I see in the news. At least... Africa isn't just pictures of hungry children and dictators for me anymore.

#historyspoiler
But it is rough to listen. When the author says that Egypt would not be ruled by an Egyptian until the 20th century, things get soured. And it keeps get worse literally until the last paragraph. Be prepared to feel frustrated, angry, humiliated and useless.

History is actually a Hurtstory

King Leopold's Ghost - Adam Hochschild

Slavery by Another Name - Douglas A Blackmon

News for All the People - Juan Gonzalez & Joseph Torres

They call themselves the KKK - Susan C. Bartoletti

Black Ops Advertising - Mara Einstein

Death of a King - Tavis Smiley & David Ritz

High Price - Dr Carl Hart

Propaganda and the Public Mind - Damian Barsamian & Noam Chomsky

Behold A Pale Horse - Milton William Cooper

Where Do We Go From Here - MLK Jr

White Trash - Nancy Isenberg

The Man-Not - Tommy J. Curry

They Were Her Property - Stephanie Jones-Rogers

White Fragility - Robin DiAngelo

White Rage - Carol Anderson Ph.D

Stamped From The Beginning - Ibram X Kendi

The Half Has Never Been Told - Edward E Baptist

The Great Stain - Noel Rae

The Reckoning - Randall Robinson

The Accident of Color - Daniel Brook

Henry Ford And The Jews - Albert Lee

Beyond These Walls - Anthony M Platt

Sugar - James Walvin

Toussaint L'Ouverture - Phillip Girard

The Destruction of Black Civilization - Chancellor Williams

The Stolen Legacy - George G M James

Media Control - Noam Chomsky

To Be A Slave In Brazil - Katia M de Queiros Mattoso

Superior - Angela Saini

The Color of Law - Richard Rothstein

Red Summer - Cameron McWhirter

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa - Walter Rodney

The Crowd - Gustave Le Bon

The Condemnation of Blackness - Khalil Gibran Muhammad

The Empire of Necessity - Greg Grandin

They Came Before Columbus - Ivan Van Sertima

Germany's Black Holocaust - Firpo W Carr Ph.D

The Isis Papers - Dr Frances Cress Welsing

African Origin of Civilization - Cheikh Anta Diop

The Color of Compromise - Jemar Tisby

Christopher Columbus and the Afrikan Holocaust - John Henrik Clarke

Christianity Before Christ - John G Jackson

Our African Unconscious - Edward Bruce Bynum

Blacked Out Through Whitewash - Dr Suzar Epps

War Against All Puerto Ricans - Nelson A Denis

War Is A Racket - Gen Smedley D Butler

The Delectable Negro - Vincent Woodard

Inhuman Bondage - David Brion Davis

Why Darkness Matters - Edward Bruce Bynum

The Iceman Inheritance - Michael Bradley

Unsettling Truths - Matt Charles & Soong-Chan Rah

Soul On Ice - Eldridge Cleaver

Black Like Me - John Howard Griffin

The Culture of Terrorism - Noam Chomsky

Silencing The Past - Michel-Rolph Trouillot

Faces At The Bottom Of The Well - Derrick Bell

Polaria - W H Muller

A Narco History - Carmen Boullosa & Mike Wallace

Dumbing Us Down - John Taylor Gatto

Across The Tracks - Alverne Bell & Stacey Robinson

The Burning - Tim Madigan

The Age ot Surveillance Capitalism , Shoshana Zuboff

Dirt - Terence P McLaughlin

Wilmington's Lie - David Zucchino

White Malice - Susan Williams

Shout out to....
Bro Panic
Dr Phil Valentine
Bro C. Freeman El
Dr Josef Ben-Jochannan
Amen Ra KamKam
Dr Khallid Muhammad
Dr Ann Brown
Dr Delbert Blair
Dr Timothy Owens Moore
Dr Malachi Z York
Dr Chancellor Williams
Jordan Maxwell
Dr Ivan Van Sertima
Richard D King MD
Rev Ray Hagins
Zoe Williams
Young Pharaoh
PapaDuck
Runoko Rashidi
Dr Walter Williams
Grand Sheik Taj Tarik Bey
Bill Donahue
Bobby Hemmitt
Cheikh Anta Diop
Shahrazad Ali

Fascinating if kind of depressing....

This is the kind of book you need to read (or listen to) just to really, really appreciate the difficulties of Africans and Africa. I had to stop and take a few weeks off during the West Africa slavery sections, because it's just so difficult to go through it in one run. The author starts at the beginning of modern humans in Africa and presents the development of civilizations over the course of time. He will swing from Egypt to North Africa to West Africa and so forth, trying to piece together what humanity was doing in different parts of a large continent with geographic boundaries and infectious diseases that limited the ability to move and mix until much later in time. I would have liked more ancient history of Africa, as it was difficulty to assess how it compared to say the MIddle East, China or even the Americas. But once he starts moving and updating the reader of what is occurring in different regions of Africa, you can't help but see a major trend: Exploitation. This includes both goods and human capital. The degree to which slavery played a portion in the societies of Africans, and the way that fed the need for slaves from the societies in the West (Americas), North (Africa) and East (Arabia) is perhaps an aspect of the slave trade that is underappreciated. In the end, even to Africans, human capital was just another form of capital. Once slavery was formally outlawed, then it became the exploitation of natural resources. And once colonialism was ended and external exploitation was removed, then the exploitation came from within, from corrupt leaders and warlords, through wars of extermination in the context of weak states with no sense of togetherness and with no training in how to run a state. Unlike most other portions of the world, where there is a natural history of state formation, West and Southern Africa in particular were never allowed to develop their own institutions, and therefore are "making it up as they go along" leading to tenuous societies and governments. It is difficult to be successful when everything is working against you, and this book reminds you that the history of Africa is what has set this up .

Full of information, sometimes disorganized

Great book for someone seeking a better understanding of colonialism, African history, early modern history and modern African instability and corruption.

Author often skips randomly from one topic to another though, which can be at times perplexing and unusual.

Overall though, impressive piece of literature spanning a long period. Happy to have had the fortune to purchase and listen to this.

The narrator is excellent.

Intense, informative, and brutal

I deeply enjoyed this book. This book acts as a table of contents to 5,000 years of events in Africa. Im in awe that each chapter has a depth of history and nuance that they could be their own individual books. Im glad that I have a honest informed view of the brutal history of Africa.

VAST & WELL RESEARCHED

I kept listening and sometimes I repeated chapters just to make sure I heard right.
As an individual who hails from somewhere within the "boundaries of Nigeria" and who has interacted with individuals from other "distinctive appellations within AFRICA", I am pained by the enlightenment this book has bestowed upon me.
It is quite a book and I hope many will dare to turn its covers.
it tells the truth.

A MUST READ

This is not an easy book to evaluate. There is so much information, spanning a fast area over many years.
Africa being brutally exploited by European countries, claiming to be “Christians”.
Millions were captured as slaves, transported in deplorable conditions and millions died in the process thereof.
Africa was plundered of it’s natural riches
In this case, Europe has NOTHING to be proud of.
We now have to be aware of China, who has it’s dirty hands on the riches of Africa.
I HIGHLY recommend listening to this book.
It is a long story, expertly done by the author Martin Meredith and the narrator mr. Kevin Stillwell.
My thanks to all involved for making this amazing book available to us, JK.