Fortunes of Africa: A 5,000 Year History of Wealth, Greed and Endeavour

Really fascinating account of African history from Egypt to the start of the 21st century. 675 pages excluding notes, index etc divided into chapters averaging 7 or 8 pages each to deal with different events in different countries. Sufficient depth to make the accounts interesting without the book having to spill over into a dozen volumes. A really interesting read, it achieves the task of providing an overview of the history of a continent in an engaging narrative. Highly recommended.

I bought this book thinking that it is a 5000 year history of Africa. There are some chapters of this large book devoted to the internal history of Africa, particularly ancient Egypt and medieval/modern Ethiopia. But the great bulk of the book deals with invasions of Africa, mostly by Arabs and Europeans. I found this a little bit disappointing. I already know something about the history of Europe and the Islamic world, and their interactions with sub-Saharan Africa. I was hoping to learn a bit more about the story of Africa itself. It's not quite clear why the author doesn't tell us more about ancient and medieval sub-Saharan Africa. It may be that historians just don't know very much about it. But it would have been helpful at least outline what is known and what is not known. From chapter to chapter the book jumps around different locations in Africa rather than trying to present a general outline of the history of Africa. Most the the book deals with the modern period, with a particular focus on European explorers and invaders. The chapters on southern Africa, especially the Dutch and English invasions, are excellent. These chapters give an excellent account of the Boer invasions, the structure and politics of their societies, and their interactions with the much more powerful English. Unfortunately, we don't learn all that much about the African people of southern Africa who were subject to slavery and dispossession at the hands of the Europeans. Overall, this book absolutely fails to provide a coherent 5000 year history of Africa. Nonetheless, it provides an engaging account of various invasions of Africa by Europeans in modern times and to a lesser extent by Arabs in medieval and modern times. It's a big book with over 700 pages, but it is always interesting and difficult to put down.

This book is well written and aimed at the general reader. (Meredith writes with the style of a good journalist rather than a specialist academic.) It attempts to give an overview of the whole history of the whole continent Africa. Inevitably it treats different periods and places with different levels of detail. Although sub-Saharan Africa is very different from the northern coast of Africa, which is part of the Mediterranean world, looking at both in the same book is interesting, particularly to see the impact which North Africa had on sub-Saharan Africa via overland trade routes. The book is more detailed on the history of English-speaking southern Africa, but is also a useful introduction to the history of Portuguese and French activity in Africa, which is probably less familiar to English-speaking readers. For example, it is very interesting to understand that the North African peoples were acquiring gold and slaves in sub-Saharan Africa before the Europeans got there, and that the Portuguese were active in West Africa quite some time before Columbus made it to the West Indies. Although this book is not aimed at an academic audience, if you are interested in finding out more about specific aspects, it does have useful references to further reading at the end of the book. This provides a guide to more detailed and more academic works. For example, on the subject of African slavery it points to Paul Lovejoy's authoritative and well written academic work, Transformations in Slavery - A History of Slavery in Africa.

5000 years seems like a long time. But this book is well researched. If you have the time and want to be better informed about how every major super power across the known world including within Africa, used & abused Africa, through the ages, then read it.

It's the best book written on African continent. Martin Meredith had written this book so good and had researched a lot . Explosive content huge amount of information on how this continent is exploited by Europeans .The different regions and their different groups of people has a great role in the Historical Saga . Bought it for Rs 599 and it's worth.

Libro splendido

pouco aberto

Review - The Fortunes of Africa: A 5,000 Year History of Wealth, Greed and Endeavor by Martin Meredith "The Fortunes of Africa" is a rather large survey of the long, complicated history of Africa. As such it picks out highlights of the history. The book gives the reader a brief taste of the various parts of Africa in turn as it's focus shifts round and round the huge geography of the continent and through the 5000 years. The huge amount of material this book surveys limits it's ability to do any location or era true justice. Yet, Martin Meredith, who has written other books on Africa, succeeds in giving the reader a creditable taste of the huge table. The book is well written and enjoyable to read. There are almost no pictures, only two or three maps in my Kindle edition. The maps on my iphone were too small to be of use. The selection of the material is by necessity eclectic. The coverage of the various selections Martin Mededith choose is adequate to understand and appreciate the breadth of the history and to come away better informed than before reading the book. I found the book enlightening and informative on a continent and a history of which I have seldom been exposed. I would recommend "The Fortunes of Africa" to persons wanting to know more of an important part of human history that is all to often passed by.