A radical reassessment of one of the most pervading myths of our time: that the African continent is uniquely ill-suited to economic development

In a groundbreaking new study of Africa's developmental history, economist Joe Studwell debunks long-held views about the continent's presumed resistance to growth, charting monumental changes in government, demography and asset management.

Considering everything from settler colonialism to soil conditions, mineral extractivism to disease development and eradication, and across case studies from Rwanda to Botswana, Studwell persuasively argues that the seizing back of land, people and states across Africa, has also been the seizure of mass economic development.

From slavery to independence and beyond, this is the definitive account of the world's second largest continent - and an optimistic look to its future.