Customer Reviews

The Black Man's Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is one of my favorite histories of Africa because of the sensitivity and knowledge with which the author devotes himself to the topic of the post-colonial nation state in the world's most maligned continent. This is a good book for non-specialists, which explains with good writing and apt analogies to other troubled nation-projects (namely in Eastern Europe) how Africa did in fact have many indigenous nationalisms prior to colonial rule, which were thwarted and distorted by the imposed shackle of the national boundaries drawn by outsiders who knew nothing of Africa's own traditions, people, or nations.

Many I've spoken to who do not have even the most rudimentary knowledge of Africa (most people that is!) are shocked when I tell them that the boundaries of all modern African nations were drawn at a conference in 1884 in Berlin with no Africans present, based on the geo-strategic concerns of the imperial powers, NOT on any linguistic/cultural unity in the territories created. But this basic fact, so crucial to understanding the fundamental problems facing 20th and 21st century Africa, deserves repeating, and nowhere have I seen any author treat it with as much concern and care as Davidson.

Davidson's contribution to African history cannot be overstated; he has over the years earned the affection and trust of many Africans, who trust him perhaps more than they do any other European to write their history. More than most Europeans, Davidson emphatically and repeatedly asserts that Africa has the history and tools to build successful political entities based on their own values, not those imposed on them from outside. They did so prior to colonial rule, and they can in the future. Davidson is a treasure and this book is as well.

Is this Basil Davidson's summation of his career? If it is, he can be proud that he brought to life aspects of history that, for generations, was left either buried, or unsaid. This book is an excellent analysis of post colonial Africa that is accessable to the main stream reader and to the person who is also already versed in aspects of African history.

As a student in African Studies, I read Black Man's Burden as a way to expand my background in Africa's history. I found Davidson's book to be quite informative, filled with interesting facts and right-on analyses of many African issues Though there was a slow period around the middle, Davidson provides a source of knowledge on Africa that couls be useful for anyone interested in the continent, its challenges and hopes for the future.

This book really struck me as well-presented and fairly neutral. It pans over the cause-effect relationships and fallacies surrounding the African continent, delving into the problems of certain regions with meticulous insight and attention to the the status quo of Africa in light of its torn, wonderful, scattered, awe-ful past. Excellent read for anyone interested in Africa, though you may want to equip yourself with basic knowledge of the continent and it's peoples beforehand, for better understanding of some of the more intermediate topics presented.

Maybe like the Israelites of old who had to wander for forty years before entering the promised land to shake off the servitude to Pharaoh mentality, African's will need many years after "independence" to shake off the colonized minds. Great book and should be read along with Franzt Fanons "The wretched of the Earth" to get a better understanding. As Albayruni said "The colonized trys to immitate the colonizer". Dashed hopes, disappointing "leaders" and continued interference has been the fate of Africa and Davidson gets to the very root of the crisis. It is one of confidence and will, resulting in Africans reviving the colonial state in indeginous garb.

While I am certain that this book's author knows what he's talking about when it comes to African history, I still found a lot missing from this book. Every page seems to say the same basic statement (just with different words): Africa was told it had to deny its history if it wanted to be "civilized." I certainly agree with this statement, but I didn't have to see it written on virtually EVERY page. I think that an account of the African people and their personal struggles would have been a much better read. C+

According to the list at the beginning of this book, Basil Davidson has written almost 30 books on African politics and society, and he has studied these topics for decades, so he definitely knows what he's talking about. Unfortunately he knows even more about Eastern Europe, which he can't stop talking about (much to this book's detriment); and he gets himself into trouble by approaching areas that he's clearly not strong in, like cultural anthropology. Hence, Davidson takes a subject in which he could have written an authoritative masterpiece, and delivers a rambling, unfocused mess instead.

Davidson tries to present past events and their influence on the current world, which requires distinct and chronological history writing, but this is a failure as he keeps jumping around from ancient to modern times with no rhyme or reason. He also tries to tie the ancient beliefs and customs of African peoples to their success, or lack thereof, in modern nation building, but he doesn't know enough about cultural anthropology to do much more than frustratingly skirt this interesting concept. And the biggest blunder in this book is Davidson's refusal to directly address the most commonly accepted theory that political scientists use to describe Africa's current problems. This would be the stipulation that the national borders in Africa don't make any sense, and are leftovers from old colonial partitions. Many ethnic groups are spread across multiple "nations," peoples within the same national borders often hate each other, and people are often more closely allied to their kinsmen in other countries instead of other peoples in their own nation. This explains why most African nations are a mess, because these "countries" are only accepted as entities by the outside world, and not by the people living in them. Davidson states early in the book that this phenomenon is irrelevant to discussions of current African politics. But he still can't help coming back to this theory again and again, such as in his discussions of social processes in Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, and Liberia. Instead, he dwells on the unconvincing argument that the problem is caused by Europe-inspired political models used in the nation-building process.

Davidson spends at least half of this book trying to define the term "nation-state," as opposed to "country" or "nation." There are some important nuances between these terms, especially for political science, but taking so much time to cover them is unnecessary. In his discussion of the historical development of African nation-states, Davidson inexplicably forgets to mention Ethiopia and their King Haile Selassie. This nation was the only African state within thousands of miles to remain intact and non-European during the colonial period. Ethiopia would be enormously relevant to this discussion. Most irritatingly, chapters 5 and 9 (one-fifth of the book) are entirely about Europe. Here Davidson tries to amaze us with his knowledge of European history to endlessly draw weak comparisons to nation-state processes in Africa. These two chapters only contain a few useless non-sequiturs to remind you that you're reading a book about Africa. A much more useful comparison would be with independence movements in Latin America, but apparently Davidson only avoids that area so he doesn't have to do more research into it.

In "The Black Man's Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State" Basil Davidson argues that indigenous African societies were developing into nation-states much as Europe had during the last few centuries, and that colonialism -- far from being necessary for people who could not govern themselves -- actually fouled up everything. This book focuses mostly on Africa in the 20th century, which, for most of the continent saw the last decades of colonialism and first decades of independence. Davidson draws on lessons learned over a lifetime to describe the nation-state both in Africa and Europe (a surprising amount of the book describes the advent of the European nation-state). He also describes many personal experiences from decades spent studying Africa. This is one of many fine books by one of the 20th century's best historians.

Davidson's starting point is that colonialism caused a profoundly negative impact on African societies, and this impact is evident in the dysfunctional African states of the modern era, wherein governments struggle for legitimacy while civil unrest and low living standards are commonplace. Overall, the writing style is very agreeable, the volume is a little more than it needs to be to impart his message, and the conclusion is poorly supported by the main body.

Davidson's ambition is to describe an elegant model wherein the colonial importation of the nation-state model for political organization so distorted African societies that they became structurally locked into a path towards failed statehood. The explanation is that the colonials uprooted traditional institutions that had governed societal behavior. European bureaucracy took their place and created a situation whereby Africans competed with each other for government jobs and the attendant elevated social status and revenue stream. A gap between urban elites and rural peasants developed. Independence only exacerbated the divide and the environment of opportunism. African nations were thus predatory states, as elites jousted for political power while ignoring, at best, or exploiting the rural majority. The response to the lack of state security was creation of "kinship corporations" that became patron/client networks. Western excuses often (incorrectly) blame this and the associated corruption on primitive practices of "tribalism."

Ultimately Davidson is unsuccessful in his broad explanatory goal; the various regions of Africa had sufficiently different colonial experiences to resist a unifying explanation for modern Africa's malaise. His argument focuses on West Africa but largely sidesteps northern and southern regions. He spends a good deal of effort trying to show (eastern) European parallels to African difficulties in making the nation-state work. On one hand he decries the nation-state as alien to Africa and untenable, yet he acknowledges the existence of African states before colonialism and external factors after independence that would be difficult for ANY developing people to deal with, nation-state or not.

The conclusion section comes across as dated and rather illogical. It seems to be tinged with the post-Cold War spirit of democracy ascendant, most famously expounded by Fukiyama's "End of History." The solution to the alien imposition of nation-state is an equally alien commodity: Western democracy (with an emphasis on federation, as in Germany). Never mind that Western democracies are ensconced as nation-states to begin with. However, Davidson's attempt is worthy in that it provides the serious reader on Africa many quite valuable insights about the colonial-African experience, including the slave trade from West Africa, the trajectory of early African intellectuals, lasting European efforts at neo-colonialism, tribalism as a manufactured tool of Western "divide and rule" strategy, and a close look at the die hard end of colonialism with the Portuguese. He deserves particular credit for at least mentioning intertwined ecological problems ahead of the greater Homer-Dixon wave.

A final caution: Davidson was an elder statesman of African studies by the time he published this book in 1992. He provides little in the way of academic references in the text; basically he tells the reader that he's studied Africa for 40-plus years, and take his word for it. Perhaps this is suited to a former British military officer who served during WWII and has "been there and done that."

Truly,one of the greatest historians in living memory.This is an analogy of where the african continent has been and is going.