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Howard W. French. A Continent for the Taking: The Tragedy and Hope of Africa. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004. xvii +280 pp. Photographs. Notes. Index. No price reported. Cloth.
The former bureau chief of the New York Times in West and central Africa, Howard French has written a stirring account of his experiences reporting on African issues during the nineties. Moving from Bamako to Monrovia to Kinshasa, A Continent fa?' the Taking: The Tragedy and Hope of Africa attempts to give a human face to the tragedies and coups d'etat-and to go beyond ' the themes of "crisis reporting" that contribute to the very limited view Americans have of Africa.
French's work belongs to several genres at once: journalism, travel writing, autobiography, and history. His chapters are organized geographically, and his hard-hitting reports are interwoven with brief cultural commentaries. The result is a book that provides an excellent introduction to contemporary African issues: politics, colonialism, neocolonialism, health, and culture. He touches upon historical achievements but spends much of his time exposing the machinations of governments, uncovering the complicity of Western foreign policy and capitalist intervention in Africa's many corrupt regimes.
A general New York Times readership and students can benefit greatly from French's insights, but what about African intellectuals and Africanist scholars? The latter, familiar with the political, social, and historical issues French explores, may be more interested in his personal engagement with Africa. As an experienced journalist and an African American, he has a point of view that unites the personal with the political. This aspect of his narrative is pithy and subtle, although in the end it is the journalist that prevails over the autobiographer or cultural critic.
French emphasizes the volatility and tragic history of Africa by focusing on the "hot spots," from Ebola in Congo to civil war in Liberia;...