A History of Post-Colonial Lusophone Africa

Yesterday I finished reading A History of Post-Colonial Lusophone Africa, a book that was as informative as it was entertaining to watch people's expressions when they saw its title.

Yes, I chose to read this because I wanted to, not because I had some pressing reason to do so. Africa is a mess. The five former Portuguese (which is what Lusophone means, don't ask me why) colonies in Africa are particularly messy. Here is a book that purports to frame their particular messiness in terms of the colonial legacy and the post-colonial mistakes of their leaders. Lusophone African history is a microcosm of overall African history, and there just aren't many (any?) good African histories. Plus, having been rather smitten with Portugal on my sole trip to that country, I've become keenly interested in Portugal and its legacy.

The rest of the review is after the jump.


The book is divided into two sections and written by a team of six. The first section is written by Patrick Chabal, who has written a number of books on Angola. Angola thus figures fairly prominently in this section, which is a general overview of the history of the Portuguese colonies as a group--what they faced in common, what separated them, and why some succeeded while others failed. Of course, in a very real sense all of them have failed, so this degenerated into a discussion of why they each failed in different ways and at different speeds. Chabal is not a terribly exciting writer, but one needn't know very much about these countries or their history to understand what he's written.

The second section includes pieces on each of the five countries individually, each written by specialists on those countries (and edited by Mr. Chabal). The chapters on Angola and Mozambique--by far the most important and interesting of the five colonies--include much information already discussed in the earlier section, but both contain plenty of new information and are for the most part fairly easy to read, particularly the section on Mozambique.

By far the worst part of the book is the chapter on Guinea-Bissau. This is a shame since I've always felt that if I could become a third-world dictator, Guinea-Bissau is the country I should like to rule. The author, Joshua Forrest, is clearly of this group the one most tainted by academe; his writing is particularly illucid and much that might have been informative and interesting is buried under a layer of jargon. Additionally, the chapter's layout fails to use any even remotely chronological order, which makes it difficult to follow.

The two final chapters are somewhat shorter, being about particularly small and unimportant places (Cape Verde and Sao Tome e Principe). Both chapters are chock full of information you never knew existed about countries you may not have known existed. They are also among the best written parts of the book; I suppose specializing in a place like Sao Tome e Principe presents you with few enough opportunities to publish that you make sure what you do publish is very good.

Sadly, AHOPCLA was published in early 2002, and thus misses out on several frightfully important developments, notably the 2004 coup d'etat in Guinea-Bissau that brought former prime minister Kumba Yalla into the presidency, and the death lat er in 2002 of Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi; Savimbi's death finally put an end to near 30 straight years of civil war.

Overall, however, there is no better book on the subject. There is essentially no other book on the subject, either. Should you ever have a yen to know more about obscure and destitute places, this is all the information you'd ever want to have.

Turners and Burners

I've finally finished reading a book! It's been, what, about three, four weeks? I've been trying to whittle down a backlog of Economist magazines and it's cut into my regular reading time. Oh well.

So the book I finished was Turners & Burners, by Charles Zug. I had to finish it because it was due back to the library today. Yes! I actually have a library card, and I use it! Amazing, no?

But anyway, this book is about the folk pottery tradition in North Carolina. Sort of an esoteric subject. I'd write an honest review of it, but I think the odds of anyone reading this blog, at any time in the future, really needing this book, are pretty slim. It is, at least, a wealth of knowledge, and has a lot of good pictures in it. Zug has written the definitive book on the subject, such that he is referenced in almost every significant American pottery book that has been written since. And, I learned a lot of good techniques in this book--capping pots, ways to do lids and handles, that sort of thing.

This is the sort of book I'll have to check out again in the future. It has everything you'd need to be a North Carolina folk potter--glaze recipes, notes on where the clay came from, how to build a treadle wheel and a kiln, how to fire. Turners and Burners may not be a book for everyone, but if it's a great resource if you want to know anything about the life of the folk potter.

Expanding the reading list

I didn't want to have to drop some of the books off the end of my "Recent Reads" list, so I've expanded it to ten. I put Frankenstein and the Martian Chronicles down at the bottom even though I read them after numbers 7 and 8. But since I've already mentioned them on the blog, I figure it will be no great loss if they drop off the list first.

But maybe you're curious about some of the other things on the list.

Number 8 there is Life of Pi, by Yann Martel. I read this on my last deployment, and I loved it. It is a terrific story, entertaining and sometimes funny, and it always makes you think. Martel is a lyrical writer, almost as good as Michael Chabon, and it's a pleasure to read his words. The story, of course, is somewhat fanciful--at least, it might be. The ambiguity of its reality is part of the fun. Of the fiction books on this list, I would give this my top recommendation for all my readers.

Number 7 is Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein. It's the first Heinlein book I've read; this is the "uncut original version" and I'm not sure how the abridged version would read. This is certainly an interesting book. Heinlein's views on sexuality and religion are...different. But certainly of some interest. This is an absolute classic of the genre so any sci-fi fans who haven't read it would be encouraged to do so... but bear in mind that the subject matter is a bit out of the ordinary.

Number 6 is A Court Divided, by Mark Tushnet. Tushnet is a law professor and Supreme Court scholar. His book is about the Rehnquist Court, and the various factions thereon and how they've affected the conservative legal agenda--namely, it's been variously thwarted in some circumstances (property rights) and moved forward in others (religion in the public sector). This is an interesting study, especially combined with the fourth book on the list, but would be of interest mostly to people already interested in legal issues.

Number 5 is Age and Guile beat Youth, Innocence, and Bad Haircut, by P.J. O'Rourke. O'Rourke is one of my very favorite writers; he practices what you could call gonzo journalism," though he's not quite so ridiculous about it as Hunter Thompson was (though Thompson is fun to read anyway). This is a book of some of his older pieces, the type of thing that you publish after you've published a lot of other books, which O'Rourke has. It's not his best, but it is entertaining.

Number 4 is The Supreme Court, by Chief Justice William Rehnquist. This is one of the classic popular studies of the Court's history and function, and is far and away the most strongly recommended book on this list for every reader.

Number 3 is O'Rourke's All the Trouble in the World. This is one of his best, maybe his very best, but it's hard to say. Chapters include Plague, Poverty, the Environment, Famine, Overpopulation, and the various other of the world's ills, and O'Rourke travels to countries around the world to report on what causes those ills, what they look like first-hand, and what is and can be done about them. I love this book; this was probably my fourth reading of it. It would be really cool to follow in O'Rourke's footsteps but, oh well, guess that ship has sailed.

Number 2 is poo. But book number 2 on this list is the Count of Monte Cristo, which I've already discussed. Read it, it's good.

Number 1 I just finished last night, O'Rourke's Eat the Rich. This was his next book after Trouble and, if you read them in order, you can see how he gets from one to the next. After visiting Haiti (Plague) in the previous book and discovering that the plague there was secondary to the crippling poverty and governmental mismanagement, he wrote that the real solution to Haiti's plague was to make the Haitians rich. In Eat the Rich, O'Rourke travels to such places as Wall Street, Sweden, Cuba, and 1997 Albania (after the pyramid schemes collapsed) to look at what makes wealth, what wrecks it, and how to go about making everybody in the world rich.

P.J. O'Rourke was once a self-described conservative, but in the last 5 years he's been working as a fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute and preaching some degree of the libertarian gospel. What would make him unusual as a conservative Republican is the desire to see everybody in the world get rich. A lot of conservatives (casting aspersions here, but conservatives do it to liberals all the time) seem not to be terribly concerned about getting the rest of the world--or even the poorer parts of our country--rich. Of course, a lot of traditional lefties feel the same way. Wanting everybody to get rich is definitely a libertarian ethic, and O'Rourke sells that gospel very well.

So there you have it, my recent reading list. I'll discuss the other books as I finish them.