The African Inheritance

Download or read book The African Inheritance written by Ieuan Ll. Griffiths and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-09-30 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Africa is a continent gripped by civil wars and widespread famine. The causes of many of the continent's problems are deep rooted and can be traced to Africa's colonial past, when European powers divided the spoils of the continent into separate sovereign states. The African Inheritance examines the effect this "balkanization" of Africa has had, and is having, on the political and economic well-being of the continent. From a brief history of pre-colonial Africa and its subsequent European partition and inevitable decolonization, the book discusses the consequences of such an inheritance: small and weak states, destructive secessionist movements, irredentism and African imperialism. Attempts to tackle these problems and assert independent development are inhibited by the colonial inheritance.