Basil Davidson’s Modern Africa: A Social and Political History. First published in 1983, is a social and political review of Africa’s history from the early years of the twentieth century through to the present. The book opens with Africa still the property of the colonial powers. Davidson traces the origins and growth of African resurgence in the early dream of independence, and its gradual embodiment in the development of liberation movements. He examines the impact of the Second Imperialist War on the people of the continent, and reviews the varied fortunes of African nationalism in changing from colonies into independent states. Modern Africa tells of the personalities and organizations involved in the independence process, as well as the polices and reactions of the colonial powers.
What has happened to Africa since independence is the subject of the rest of the book. Written in the shadows of the gathering crises that hover over Africa’s institutions and society today, it faces squarely the many disappointments and breakdowns – social, economic and political – that have dulled the hopes of the early successes of the so-called post–colonial period. Not merely concerned with recording these problems, Davidson seeks to explore these problems. He shows how the fragility of many of Africa’s nation states is linked to the arbitrariness of their creation by the departing European powers; how the political vulnerability of her political institutions is inextricably tied in with her economic weakness; and how that weakness is cruelly intensified by the “north-south” inequalities of the international economic system.
Yet, for all the sorrows of Africa in the 1990’s, Davidson shows how much has been achieved since decolonization. As independent Africa becomes more truly African with the passing years, away from the inappropriate systems and alien structures of her former masters, many of the long-term solutions to her present problem are developing organically within her. So, however uncertain the future, the mood of the new final chapter—the most substantial of the many revisions and additions offered by the Third Edition, which has been entirely reset—is hopeful and buoyant.
