Dystopia Now

The Looting Machine by Tom Burgis

 New York : PublicAffairs,  c2015.     

 xi, 321 p. : ill., map ; 24 cm.     

This is a powerful book that examines the power and endurance of the entrenched systems that pillage the resources of Africa. It is an indictment of the many legal (and illegal), but grossly unethical networks of banking rules, corporate laws, governments, militaries and paramilitaries that vacuum up the untold wealth fuel and mineral wealth of the African continent and keep it in the hands of a tiny minority of wealthy and well-connected people (while immiserating the vast majority of citizens in those countries where the wealth is found.)

This is not exactly the kind of book most students would pick up and read cover-to-cover, but it would be VERY useful to students doing any research on globalization, world poverty, corruption, mining, economics, especially in relation to the nations of Nigeria, Angola, South Africa, etc. It is a great resource for understanding how even when liberation governments come to power, they are often overtaken by the global systems of off-shoring, international finance/loans, and powerhouse nations like the US and China that seek to control profits gained from extractive industries.

The author Tom Burgis deserves great deal of credit for doing dogged (and intrepid) research as he visits both the glittering high-rises of corporate/financial power (e.g. Hong Kong, New York, and Harare)  conflict-torn sites (e.g. Nigeria, Congo, Zimbabwe) of mining and extraction.

It's a complicated and painful book to read, but one that anyone who lives in more wealthy countries should read since the wealth of Africa is deeply entwined with the wealth of those better-off countries.

A Terrible History

The African Slave Trade by Basil Davidson
Boston : Little, Brown, c1980.
A rev. and expanded ed.
304 p. : ill., maps ; 22 cm.   

I've seen this book on the shelves many times.  Often when weeding, it comes up as one of our collection's oldest and "outdated" items.  However, the book is often cited as belonging to any non-fiction "Core Collection," and so I have kept it and finally decided to read it.

In many ways it is a really old book. It was first published in 1961 and then this revised version came out in 1980.  I looked for reviews critiquing it as out of date, or recommending a newer treatment of the subject, but did not find anything.

The book is powerful and apparently was a real ground-shifter when it came out.  It provides a very interesting treatment of the European relationships with African states and governments and notes how many of the initial trade relationships were established as between equals, but that the major European states maintained heavy-weapons advantages and eventually assumed a supremacy/colonial attitude toward the African states.  Also the trade in enslaved peoples was initially only part of other trade, but quickly assumed an exclusionary status.  States that resisted had little chance of survival and would face decimation and enslavement if they persisted.

The author emphasizes that the trade relationships brought nothing of real value to the African states while enriching and empowering the European states that shipped and sold the African captives.