In this compelling history of the men and ideas that radically
changed the course of world history, Lawrence James investigates
and analyses how, within a hundred years, Europeans persuaded and
coerced Africa into becoming a subordinate part of the modern
world. His narrative is laced with the experiences of participants
and onlookers and introduces the men and women who, for better or
worse, stamped their wills on Africa. The continent was a magnet
for the high-minded, the philanthropic, the unscrupulous and the
insane. Visionary pro-consuls rubbed shoulders with missionaries,
explorers, soldiers, adventurers, engineers, big-game hunters,
entrepreneurs and physicians. Between 1830 and 1945, Britain,
France, Belgium, Germany, Portugal, Italy and the United States
exported their languages, laws, culture, religions, scientific and
technical knowledge and economic systems to Africa. The colonial
powers imposed administrations designed to bring stability and
peace to a continent that seemed to lack both. The justification
for occupation was emancipation from slavery - and the common
assumption that late nineteenth-century Europe was the summit of
civilisation. By 1945 a transformed continent was preparing to take
charge of its own affairs, a process of decolonisation that took a
mere twenty or so years. There remained areas where European
influence was limited (Liberia, Abyssinia) - through inertia and a
desire for a quiet time, Africa's new masters left much
undisturbed. This magnificent history also pauses to ask: what did
not happen and why?
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