One Book, Two Takes: It’s a Continent - Astrid Madimba and Chinny Ukata’s impressive African history book by non-historians
The book It’s a Continent: Unravelling Africa’s History One Country at a Time is the debut of “non-historians” Astrid Madimba and Chinny Ukata. With their note at the beginning telling readers “this isn’t a classic history book, nor is it a textbook”, the writers circumvent some of the conventions associated with the subject.
However, the chapter on Tanzania’s founding father Julius Nyerere reveals a major flaw of the book — the overuse of parentheses. These feel instructional, as if the reader is being taught a history lesson, presumably one they never learnt at school. The chapters on Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso and Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah are two of the must-reads in this compilation. The former was a revolutionary leader from Burkina Faso and the latter the first president of independent Ghana in the late 1950s.
If anything, this book should inspire a more extensive project on the desperately needed new and decolonised African narrative for our times. — Lehlohonolo Shale Balance also needs to be restored to the perception of Africa as victim. Uncomfortable truths, such as the Orungu Kingdom’s enrichment from the slave trade, need to be brought to contemporary light, to remind us expansionism and its concomitant barbarism were not the sole preserve of Europeans.
Their playful candour puts a progressive agenda into African affairs, while questioning inherited institutions such as democracy, artificial borders and made-up ethnicities. It’s all good: Authors of It’s a continent Astrid Madimba and Chinny Ukata are all smiles on the release of their debut book on Africa. Photo: Joseph Osayandeis a debut book by two “non-historians”, Astrid Madimba and Chinny Ukata.
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