Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles
Richard Dowden
Thirty years of reporting distilled into portraits of a continent.
Drawing on decades as a correspondent, Dowden offers a country-by-country set of reported portraits, setting accounts of war, corruption and disease alongside the resilience and ordinary life he witnessed. He writes against both Afro-pessimism and easy optimism, insisting on the continent's complexity. Widely praised as a humane and closely observed introduction for general readers, the book countered stereotype with detail and became a frequent recommendation for those seeking to understand contemporary Africa.
Its legacy. It is frequently recommended as an entry point to the continent.
- Author
- Richard Dowden
- First published
- 2008
- Genre
- Reportage
- Theme
- The Postcolonial State and Its Discontents
More from The Postcolonial State and Its Discontents
- Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism — Mahmood Mamdani
Colonialism split Africans into citizens and subjects, and independence kept the divide.
- On the Postcolony — Achille Mbembe
Power in the postcolony rules through spectacle, excess and grotesque intimacy.
- The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly — Jean-Francois Bayart
Politics as appetite: power pursued through patronage and the belly.
- The Fate of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence — Martin Meredith
Fifty years of independence, from the hopes of 1960 to their unraveling.