SOAS Research Online

Abstract

It is in part because of widespread concerns about the magnitude and posited intractability of problems facing African countries that development has become such a popular strand within African Studies. A sense of disappointment, within some academic circles and the popular press more widely, has arisen from the perceived lack of progress in the African context towards standard developmental goals such as longer life expectancy, greater opportunities for economic security and stability, or a more equitable distribution of profits made from the exploitation and sale of Africa’s natural resources. That disappointment, the extent to which it is warranted, and the appropriate response to it weave the common thread running through all three of the books reviewed here.