Overview

This masterful synthesis explains how Africa has come to be a land torn by incessant conflict among its impoverished peoples and countries, a continent living through the gravest social revolution of its history, experiencing the world's fastest demographic growth. Weaving together four major themes-population, political power, the peasantry, and the new growth of the cities-Coquery-Vidrovitch demonstrates the need to recognize the extremely complex heritage of African societies if one is to understand the present or act upon the future of the continent.

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9780520078819

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Reviews

A first-rate study on the forces and developments that have shaped contemporary Africa. . . . Though voluminous literature exists on the origins of Africa's problems and the reasons for the failure of previous solutions applied to them, few scholars have come as close to analyzing all this in one book as CatherineCoquery-Vidrovitch has done. --Julius Amin, International Journal of Af rican Historical Studies

""A first-rate study on the forces and developments that have shaped contemporary Africa. . . . Though voluminous literature exists on the origins of Africa's problems and the reasons for the failure of previous solutions applied to them, few scholars have come as close to analyzing all this in one book as CatherineCoquery-Vidrovitch has done.""--Julius Amin, ""International Journal of Af rican Historical Studies

Author Information

Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch is Professor of History at the University of Paris. She is the author and editor of numerous books on historical and contemporary Africa.

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