Continental Shift
A Journey Into Africa's Changing Fortunes
Published on 7. April 2016
Book
Paperback/Softback
448 pages
978-1-84627-374-2 (ISBN)
Description
AFRICA IS FAILING. AFRICA IS SUCCEEDING. Africa is betraying its citizens. Africa is a place of starvation, corruption, disease. African economies are soaring faster than any on earth. Africa is squandering its bountiful resources. Africa is a roadmap for global development. Africa is turbulent. Africa is stabilising. Africa is doomed. Africa is the future.
All of these pronouncements prove equally true and false, as South African journalists Richard Poplak and Kevin Bloom discover on their 9-year roadtrip through the paradoxical continent they call home. From pillaged mines in Zimbabwe to the creation of an economic marketplace in Ethiopia; from Namibia's middle class to the technological challenges facing Nollywood in the 21st Century; from China's investment in Botswana to the rush for resources in the Congo; and from the birth of Africa's newest country, South Sudan, to the worsening conflict in CAR, here are eight adventures on the trail of a new Africa.
Part detective story, part report from this economic frontier, Continental Shift follows the money as it flows through Chinese coffers to international conglomerates, to heads of state, to ordinary African citizens, all of whom are intent on defining a metamorphosing continent.
All of these pronouncements prove equally true and false, as South African journalists Richard Poplak and Kevin Bloom discover on their 9-year roadtrip through the paradoxical continent they call home. From pillaged mines in Zimbabwe to the creation of an economic marketplace in Ethiopia; from Namibia's middle class to the technological challenges facing Nollywood in the 21st Century; from China's investment in Botswana to the rush for resources in the Congo; and from the birth of Africa's newest country, South Sudan, to the worsening conflict in CAR, here are eight adventures on the trail of a new Africa.
Part detective story, part report from this economic frontier, Continental Shift follows the money as it flows through Chinese coffers to international conglomerates, to heads of state, to ordinary African citizens, all of whom are intent on defining a metamorphosing continent.
Reviews / Votes
[Continental Shift] offers a colourful, sprawling and picaresque insight into "Africa's twenty-first century binaries". Part road trip, part serious analysis, the book presents interlocking stories about a continent in flux. [With] the odd delicious phrase [...] this book is more about the journey than the destination. And in those terms, it succeeds -- Phillip Dilling * Financial Times *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 153 mm
Thickness: 31 mm
Weight
565 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-84627-374-2 (9781846273742)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
KEVIN BLOOM is an award-winning journalist, editor and author, whose first book, Ways of Staying (Portobello, 2010) won the 2010 South African Literary Award for Literary Journalism and was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award.
RICHARD POPLAK is a film-maker, pop-cultural commentator and author of several books, including Ja, No, Man: Growing Up White in Apartheid-era South Africa, which was longlisted for the Alan Paton Non-Fiction Prize and shortlisted for the University of Johannesburg Literary Award.
RICHARD POPLAK is a film-maker, pop-cultural commentator and author of several books, including Ja, No, Man: Growing Up White in Apartheid-era South Africa, which was longlisted for the Alan Paton Non-Fiction Prize and shortlisted for the University of Johannesburg Literary Award.