Africa Reimagined is a passionately argued appeal for a rediscovery of our African identity. Going beyond the problems of a single country, Hlumelo Biko calls for a reorientation of values, on a continental scale, to suit the needs and priorities of Africans. Building on the premise that slavery, colonialism, imperialism and apartheid fundamentally unbalanced the values and indeed the very self-concept of Africans, he offers realistic steps to return to a more balanced Afro-centric identity.

Historically, African values were shaped by a sense of abundance, in material and mental terms, and by strong ties of community. The intrusion of religious, economic and legal systems imposed by conquerors, traders and missionaries upset this balance, and the African identity was subsumed by the values of the newcomers. Biko shows how a reimagining of Africa can restore the sense of abundance and possibility, and what a rebirth of the continent on Pan-African lines might look like. This is not about the churn of the news cycle or party politics – although he identifies the political party as one of the most pernicious legacies of colonialism. Instead, drawing on latest research, he offers a practical, pragmatic vision anchored in the here and now.

By looking beyond identities and values imposed from outside, and transcending the divisions and frontiers imposed under colonialism, it should be possible for Africans to develop fully their skills, values and ingenuity, to build institutions that reflect African values, and to create wealth for the benefit of the continent as a whole.

In 1968, two young medical students, Steve Biko and Mamphela Ramphele, fell in love while dreaming of a life free from oppression and racial discrimination. Their love story is also the story of the founding of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) by a group of 15 principled and ambitious students at the University of Natal in Durban in the early 1970s.

In this deeply personal book, Hlumelo Biko, who was born of Steve and Mamphela’s union, movingly recounts his parents’ love story and how the BCM’s message of black self-love and self-reliance helped to change the course of South African history.

Based on interviews with some of the BCM’s founding members, Black Consciousness describes the early years of the movement in vivid detail and sets out its guiding principles around a positive black identity, black theology and the practice of Ubuntu through community-based programmes.

In spiritual conversation with his father, Hlumelo re-examines what it takes to live a Black Consciousness life in today’s South Africa. He also explains why he believes his father – who was brutally murdered by the apartheid police in 1977 – would have supported true radical economic transformation if he were alive today.

Only a dramatic, imaginatively crafted intervention - a massive redistribution programme managed by the private sector, far-reaching policy changes in schooling, housing and health, and better, disciplined governance - will deliver the genuine liberation South Africa's still-poor millions expected from the 1994 settlement. Without it, without the real promise of a free, meritocratic society, South Africa will flounder and fail as corruption, crime, social decay, hopelessness and anger engulf society. This is the compelling thesis of Hlumelo Biko's hard-hitting, thoughtful analysis of South Africa's past, present and future, a sobering assessment of where we stand today, and where we need to go.

At once unnervingly candid and inspiring, The Great African Society demolishes the complacent optimism that underpins much soft thinking about South Africa's future and places at the service of public debate practical, achievable objectives for business, government and civil society. South Africa's challenge, the book argues, is to act now to avoid the mounting threat of revolt and decline that would devalue every political and economic achievement of the past decade-and-a-half and leave Nelson Mandela's feted rainbow nation staring decrepitude in the face.

Biko, the son of two great South Africans, Steve Biko and Mamphela Ramphele, is generous in acknowledging achievements to date, but unsparing in judging the flaws and failures of the ANC-led government, of business, unions and civil society. He offers a comprehensive survey of the profound and continuing devastation visited on the country by its unjust history, and plain, rational proposals for repairing the damage. No debate from here on about the South African future can be taken seriously without weighing Biko's insights and his warnings.

The Great African Society is vividly moral in its intentions, but sober and unsentimental in examining political and economic imperatives. It is guaranteed to make the reader sit up and take stock afresh.

Under chapter headings such as 'Sources of Africa's cultural fragility', 'Thinking differently about African institutions', and 'Liberating human capital', Hlumelo Biko shows how, twenty years in, this century could yet become Africa's century, as many believe and some hope. Africa Reimagined is a thoughtful analysis of Africa's past, present and future, a sobering assessment of where it stands today, and where it needs to go, at once unnervingly candid and inspiring. Imagine if in the year 2040, forty of Africa's fifty-five nations have chosen to join together in a Pan-African government structure modelled on Swiss decentralised federalism. A merger between Ethiopian Airways, Air Mauritius, Air Kenya, Nigerian carrier Air Peace and South African Airways has transformed air travel. Africa is now home to the world's largest mining company in the form of a rejuvenated Anglo American, the company having returned to its African home base powered by a massive investment from Africa's new sovereign wealth fund. Africa rolls out the world's largest solar plants in the Sahara and Kalahari deserts. These projects are underwritten by a new insurance network based in Mauritius and modelled on Lloyd's of London. Rural employment has risen thanks to a focus on subsistence farmers, who have a shared service model that allows them world-class access to price-sensitive information, equipment financing, reasonably priced input costs and training techniques. A pipedream? Hlumelo Biko says no.