The Search for Africa: History, Culture, Politics by Basil Davidson

From the Publisher

Following the success of his highly acclaimed The Black Man's Burden, Davidson offers a timely collection of essays which are essential to the understanding of the passionate spirit of modern African studies.

Publishers Weekly

A prolific scholar and journalist, Davidson has written more than 20 books on Africa, including The Black Man's Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State . His latest is a mixed bag of some 20 essays and reports published during the past 40 years. Readers who are familiar with the author's work will glean the most from this collection, but others will be aided by Davidson's occasional introductions, which not only contextualize his role in the once-infant area of African history but also allow him to describe his anticolonial activism and socialist convictions. Certain important entries are specialized--like his reflections on the ideas of his friend Amilcar Cabral, the assassinated leader of the independence movement in Portuguese Guinea and Cape Verde--and some seem dated, e.g., reports from South Africa in the 1950s. Other essays, among them Davidson's excavation of how racism was born in the Atlantic slave trade and his observations on the past as a source of solutions for Africa's current problems, have great contemporary resonance. (Feb.)

Library Journal

For 40 years, Davidson's writings ( Black Man's Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation State , LJ 4/15/92; Africa in History , LJ 9/15/91) have been the windows through which many Africanists have viewed and interpreted historical and contemporary processes in Africa. Davidson celebrates his 80th year with this compilation of his own essays, written between the 1950s and the early 1990s. The essays deal with the corruption of racist colonialism, the liberation movements across the continent, the struggle against apartheid, and the failures of contemporary African political states. As these essays make clear throughout, Davidson has remained hopeful for Africa. The introductions to the book's several sections set the context of Davidson's own career and of the essays he presents. Recommended for academic and larger public libraries.-- Bill Rau, Takoma Park, Md.

Product Details