The Fortunes of Africa: A 5000-Year History of Wealth, Greed, and Endeavor

I didn’t dislike anything written in this book it gave me so much information that I had never read before and all my readings on history, which still are minuscule compared to those who study yet this is the kind of thing that should be taught in high school. Children and adults need to know more about colonialism and how devastating it is but also to realize that it wasn’t just that period of history that countries went in and took over other countries, created mass genocide and dictated what religion or philosophy, the conquered people had to adjust to. The brutality of certain cultures is staggering! Being of European an English dissent hi was devastated by the brutality of the English. Imagine the British killing all of a royal African family and taking the H your old prince back to England! My heart broke at that! The prince died at the age of 18.Just one story out of 1 million I’m sure. The hateful brutality of the Belgians will no bounds. Your crimes should stand out in history.

In about 700 pages, "The Fortunes of Africa" is a well written narrative of African history. It describes in good detail a lot of events that occurred over a span of 5 millennia and provides the reader with a good context within which to situate the current state of affairs on the continent.I found the material well referenced and as an African I learnt many things about our history that I didn't know prior to reading this book. The book provides an impressive breath of historical narrative at the expense depth. I thought that the author skimmed over the details of many historic events, understandably so as that would be unachievable in one book. For this reason, I consider this work an "abstract" of the history of Africa that will motivate an interested reader to delve more into the history of this fascinating continent.

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.

A great book, well; researched, organised, and an honest history of Africa for the last 5,000 years. It reflects how very rich Africa failed to excel due to greed of the: Roman Empire, Arab invasion, Western world, and its westernised greedy African leaders.Worst of all was the damage done by the Western Powers particularly: Roman Empire, Portuguese, British, France, Belgium, Germany, USA and the Boers. As they would cheat the world that they were civilising Africa, in fact they were armed robbers who massacred kingdoms and its people, looted their wealth and land, imposed themselves as protection rulers when in fact Africa had its unique civilization and governance systems, strong economy, rich culture and lots of mineral rich land. I now understand where the perennial African problems started which all were brought from outside.Today Africa has never been successful in reconciling itself to its former hundreds years glory due the great; massacre of its people, looting, disorganization of its social-economic-political systems which span for hundreds of years . In fact today the Western world may not have the resources to compensate and restore Africa to its former glory for it is immeasurable.

Excellent book.

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.

It is a very condensed history of Africa. It is really interesting read, since it is condensed it does not get boring.

This is an all-encompassing view of African history since times immemorial up to nowadays. Very well reserched and convincingly exposed. I liked it very much, read it like a romance! Strongly recommended.

Libro splendido