The Fortunes of Africa (Hardcover)

Legends of Africa's wealth--it's gold, ivory, diamonds and slaves--have endured for millennia, drawing in pillaging explorers and conquerors to its shores from afar. In this magisterial prequel to "The Fate of Africa," Martin Meredith lavishly recounts the history of a continent whose richness in natural resources has made it a victim of ruthless plunderers--both foreign and domestic.
Meredith's Africa radiates mystery from every cliff. The fertile soils now marked by the borders of the Sierra Leone promised diamonds to Western colonizers in the nineteenth century. So did the ivory, used in everything from piano keys to billiard balls and jewelry, which led to the emergence of powerful crime syndicates across the continent and the relentless poaching of the African elephant. The slave trade has likewise been active for hundreds of years, from the ninth century onwards, when slaves from black Africa would be marched across the Sahara desert, shipped over the Red Sea, and sold into market in the Levant, Mesopotamia, the Arabian Peninsula, the Persian Gulf--and finally to North and South America by Portuguese, British, French, Spanish, and Dutch traders.
"The Fortunes of Africa" is the definitive history of the African continent, beginning with the emergence of the first nation state on the banks of the Nile River and covering everything from the fall of the Thebes to the Scramble for Africa and the extraordinary and ruthless exploits of key personalities like Cecil Rhodes. Martin Meredith, once again, weaves together a fascinating tapestry of the cultures and histories that defined the African continent for over 5,000 years--the millennia preceding the tumultuous independence movements of the 20th century when African countries, one by one, finally started to break free from colonial rule.