Customer Reviews

Kwame Nkrumah: The Father of African Nationalism

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This is a good book on one of Africa's greatest sons who had a clear vision of the direction that the continent should follow. Nkrumah led Ghana to its independence but as far as he was concerned, Ghana could not be fully independent until the whole continent was free. He also believed in economic emancipation of the African continent as well as African unity.

Nkrumah's pan-African credentials are second to none. His ideas were too far ahead of most other African leaders who were taking advantage of their newly found status to amass wealth for themselses and not to be interested on ideas about African unity or economic well being for their people. His ideas put him on collision course with the strong and developed Western powers. His doom was, therefore, sealed as he was ultimately overthrown in a military coup.

However, Nkrumah's ideas have lived on. The African continent is now completely decolonised. However, the dream of African unity is still to be realised as well as the need to see economic empowerment of the African people. Nkrumah's vision will continue to inspire people towards the realisation of unity and prosperity for the continent and its people.

I was underwhelmed with this book. It provides a shallow overview of Nkrumah's political career. There is very little information regarding Nkrumah's life, motivations or philosophy. There is very little analysis of the significant events of his career, such as the independence of Ghana or his removal from office.

I felt that the book read like an extended encyclopedia article. I learned some relevant facts but did not come away with more than a cursory understanding of who Kwame Nkrumah was, what he stood for, how we hoped to achieve his goals, etc.

I hope to find a more in-depth biography of him at some point.

This book is excellent! It provided a wonderful insight into an icon's hopes, dreams and aspirations for his country.

This provides great insight to the rise and departure of Africa's once great leaders.Very ambitious and forward looking man. A great quote from the book "... one of the biggest challenges of de-colonozation is de-colonization of the mind...". You can easily knock the book out in a day or two and read it over and over. A great and easy read!

Kwame Nkrumah, whose shadow looms over all of Africa in terms of his importance for de-colonization and African nationalism is one of the most important leaders of the 20th century in this respect. He symbolized much of Africa. Educated in England he used what he learned from his colonial masters to bring down colonialism. He also refused to leave power and was ejected in a coup. He was not exactly a model democrat. This book devles into these issues and is a nice concise biography of this all important statesman.

Seth J. Frantzman