Today I finally finished John Reader's “A Biography of the Continent: Africa” [1]. This 800+ pages book is one of the best histories I’ve read about Africa; starting several hundreds of millions of years ago with the creation of the Atlas and the Cape Fold Belt mountains at the continent’s northern and southern extremities, and ending with the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the 1994 South African elections. The latter shows how Africa is host to humanity’s extremes: on the one hand the potential to hate and kill with such intensity to kill hundreds of thousands, and on the other hand the potential for peace and reconciliation under Nelson Mandela.
It is maybe because these two extremes are so clearly present in Africa that I am so attracted to the continent. Anyhow, especially John Reader’s very last paragraph is great:
SPEAKING IN MAY 1995, a Catholic theologian in Rwanda, Laurien Ntenzimana, confessed to having been shocked by the genocide in his country, but not astonished. People live behind a mask, he said, which the winds of history occasionally blow aside. The genocide was shocking, but only those who were naive about human nature could be astonished. He told an inquiring reporter: “I have the impression that you have not yet discovered man, either in his grandeur or in his misery; he can always surprise us”.
People live behind a mask, which the winds of history occasionally blow aside. Wow!
[1] John Reader. 2007. A Biography of the Continent: Africa. New York: Vintage Books.
Sounds like and interesting read. Thanks for the recommendation.
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