Africa in Flux

...I would expect his book to remain of primary value in this regard...

...But journalism of this sort—and Hatch is a journalist, and a rather good one at that—is not history...

...Rather than confront these contradictions head-on, admitting their lack of managerial and technical skills (including the related ethos or world-view) required for modernizing their societies and behaving accordingly, these elites conjure up phony theories of "African Socialism" as development guideposts for societies where the basic prerequisites of any form of industrialization have yet to be laid...

...Although Hapgood made no attempt to forecast the recent flourish of military coups in places like Ghana, Nigeria, Dahomey, and Upper Volta, it is clear that his account of the failure of the post-colonial African elites to confront reality is relevant to understanding these coups...

...This, in turn, has led the elites down the deadend road of authoritarian single-party rule, which they naively hoped could contain mass grievances by a combination of political propaganda and sheer suppression...

...It is here where David Hapgood's Africa—From Independence to Tomorrow succeeds quite well...

...As Hapgood rightly saw, the result of this phony acting-out of leadership roles (which was combined, incidentally, with large-scale corruption in states like Nigeria as well as in "socialist" Ghana) has been the alienation of the masses from their new rulers...

...It is little more than a collection of impressionistically conceived essays on the general political tendencies in different regions of Africa since the end of World War II...

...None of this, of course, has worked, and today the military has ntervened to clear up the mess created by civil authorities...

...This leads me to modify my original declaration that the most valuable books on Africa emanate from the academies...

...This gives a freshness to his accounts and a perspective which helps the reader obtain a certain "feel" for the events discussed...

...No doubt because of my own professional bias as a social scientist, I am convinced that the best books written on Africa emanate from the academies...

...His perception is at its best when dissecting the contradictions faced by African elites—the arriviste—who have much of the formal attributes of a modern ruling class but little of the substance...

...I would, however, have preferred that he give more emphasis to social forces rather than to political personalities...

...Illusion and reality soon become confused —and the former inevitably replaces the latter...

...Most of the political events and personalities he writes about so well were experienced by him at first hand...

...For some African leaders like the now-deposed Kwame Nkrumah, this acting-out takes the form of spending enormous energy and resources in pursuit of unobtainable goals like the immediate unification of African states...

...Hapgood concentrates on a specific set of social forces shaping post-colonial African societies: the ruling elites, their educational backgrounds, their patterns— including psychological ones—of acculturation to Western institutions, and their uses—and misuse—of power...

...Unlike a lot of journalists writing on Africa, Hatch is admirably careful about getting his facts straight, and he has a keen eye for those which are relevant...

...At any rate, A History of Postwar Africa by John Hatch does little to shake my conviction...

...As a historical work, Hatch's book is rather formless, having neither a chronological structure nor an historically meaningful topical arrangement...

...By 1963 the Ghana Airways accumulated losses at more than five million pounds, and these are no doubt much greater today...

...Reference to "traditional power," "elites," and "masses" is no substitute for describing the essential characteristics of these social realities and the relations they have to other social forces that have generated political developments in postwar Africa...

...Most do, but not quite all...

...Reviewed by Martin Kilson The pace and jagged contours of Af-rican political change cannot help but attract chroniclers, but it is relevant to ask whether everything written on Africa today should find its way into print...

...Hapgood's book is a notable exception...

...Yet what Hatch has put together is not without value...

...The purpose of this ludicrous act was, as the chairman of the Airways told Hapgood, "to bring closer to Ghana all independent African countries, and to show that the African, when given the chance, can be on his own...

...One of the many pathetic—indeed, tragic—results of this policy was Nkru-mah's decision in 1961 to purchase full control of Ghana Airways from the BOAG, which originally established the airlines as joint owner...