The Fortunes of Africa

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

De: Martin Meredith

Narrado por: Kevin Stillwell

A "gripping" (Booklist) and "richly detailed" (Kirkus Reviews) 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.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"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

"A gripping tale of insatiable greed-personal and collective."
—Booklist, starred review

"[A] broad-ranging history of Africa from the age of the pharaohs to the present, with a solid emphasis on economics...richly detailed...a useful study."
—Kirkus Reviews

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.

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.