The Fate of Africa

A History of the Continent Since Independence

By: Martin Meredith

Narrated by: Fleet Cooper

Length: 29 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

Martin Meredith has revised this classic history to incorporate important recent developments, including the Darfur crisis in Sudan, Robert Mugabe’s continued destructive rule in Zimbabwe, controversies over Western aid and exploitation of Africa’s resources, the growing importance and influence of China, and the democratic movement roiling the North African countries of Tunisia, Egypt, and Jordan.

©2005 Martin Meredith (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Fantastic

I'm in awe of the breadth and scope of this book. The only title I've come across that truly does justice to the subject and tells the whole story in all its detail, he honestly and without compromise.

Through And Enlightening

I found The Fate of Africa quite thorough and very effective at describing the various transitions of leadership in the years following independence in Africa. The book takes a very dark approach to the issues of the continent and the details can sometimes be hard to stomach. All in all, a great listen. I’d recommend this book to all Africans who have a desire to see the continent prosper and overcomes the demons of the past.

Good overview of African History

The Fate of Africa provides a nice overview of modern African history.
Pros:
Good start to understanding and incredible complex Continent.
Handles dense subject matter in a fairly entertaining fashion.
Covers most modern countries of Africa.

Cons:
A western perspective and all that it entails.
The narration leaves much to be desired

This book will not make anyone an expert in any aspect of Africa but will allow readers to have basic understanding of the events that have shaped africa and hopefully lead to further studying in areas that interest them.

Deserves to be heard

Any additional comments?

Having always had a general idea about the history of this continent, I decided to check the validity of my beliefs with this book. The book is both detailed and well written, though at times the unfamiliar names and similarity of sad fates makes it monotonous. That being said, it is a book that is easy to listen to - provided one takes breaks - and hard to listen to, because it is at times horrific.

It is a story that is painful, well written and performed, and that deserves to be heard.

Great overview of Africa

Really enjoyed it. Provided a good idea of how African history evolved. Different liberation movements. The big men. Through to today.

Excellent

Excellent. There could be some digital maps as reading aids for various chapters on my device. Inspired me to study Africa more in depth, especially DR Congo. Wow.

The book for which I've been waiting

Here we have decades of important information wonderfully reduced to a brief volume. The narration is good when it's not venturing into character quotes. Then, instead of ever sounding like either North Africans or Subsaharans, it always sounds like Johnny Carson, which does not work well.

Great overview of recent African history.

Incredibly informative and easy to follow. Good narration and fact filled overview. Great overview of recent African history.

Chapter titles are missing

It's a helpful companion to the hardcopy, however when I don't have the hardcopy it's difficult to find the exact chapter that I need.

Africa: Land of Hope and Horror

If you could sum up The Fate of Africa in three words, what would they be?

Hope, dissapointment, horror

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Fate of Africa?

The Chapters on the events in Rwanda and how they were misconstrued internationally was informative and incredibly disturbing. The level of cooperation with the genocidaires displayed by Rwandan church leaders was disgusting... an affront to religion itself. On top of all that we sent the belligerents billions of dollars in aid money.

What three words best describe Fleet Cooper’s performance?

Professional but forced

What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?

Learning about the religious and demographic makeup of Nikgeria and the former Sudan makes it much easier to understand the violent conficlt that has been ravaging those countries for years. In many African states, an ethnically and culturally diverse group of people were forced to coexist within borders drawn by European imperialists. These countries were simply time bombs waiting to go off.

Any additional comments?

This is a great work of epic proportions. Meredith divides his history of the continent into periods beginning with the initial euphoria and hope of independence to the power plays of the Cold War era all the way up to the modern day. He focusses mostly on the personality of the leaders_Nkrumah, Haile Selasie, Nasser, Mobutu, Mugabe and Mandela to name just a few are covered extensively in the work. Meredith succeds in making The Fate of Africa into a story about human nature. The lesson that absolute power corrupts absolutely is one that many African states have learned the hard way. Because of this era/personality based approached (rather than a traditional geographical approach to history), I do think it can get confusing with all the jumping around from country to country, but one will eventually start to connect the dots and begin to see how events in one state led to changes in another. This is probably one of those books that would be easier to follow in print. One thing that helped me follow the events of the book was looking up most of these leaders online and connecting faces and maps with the story. The narrator must be commended for his comptency, Meredith's work is packed with words and phrases in various Romance languages as well as a plethora of difficult to pronounce African propper nouns. I would not have been able to even pronounce most of those words. However, I think most listeners will agree with me that many quotes in the books are read with a bit too much sarcasm. The narrator also ocassionaly slips into a lackluster imitation of an African accent when quoting African leaders. Unfortunately the prevalence of quotes in this book made this presentation annoying to listen to initially. However the story itself quickly sucked me in.