At the time, he was only the fourth African leader in four decades to relinquish power voluntarily. Another occurred when Abdou Diof of Senegal left office after losing an election in March of 2000. Some rare others included Nelson Mandela’s election to the South African Presidency and the end of apartheid. () This served as one of the very few positive events to take place throughout the entire narrative. The first African nation to achieve independence from a colonial power became a major event in world history. Ghana’s independence on 6 March 1957 served as the centerpiece of the book’s beginning. Meredith showed how nearly every government degenerated from high hopes into kleptocratic authoritarianism the latter of which they learned from their colonial governments. The tome began with a quote from Pliny the Elder: “Out of Africa, always something new.” On a continent with so many diverse cultures, ethnic groups and nations, the development of each country followed the same pattern. This narrative provided an historical overview of the region’s development from the end of the Second World War through 2005 at least in my version of the book. Meredith gave the expression “the dark continent” a whole new connotation in The Fate of Africa.
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