Afrasia

A Tale of Two Continents

By (author) Seifudein Adem associate director, Insti, Ali A. Mazrui director, Institute of Global Cultural Studies, SUNY Binghamton

Paperback - £47.00

Publication date:

02 May 2013

Length of book:

436 pages

Publisher

University Press of America

Dimensions:

226x153mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9780761847717

Is there a new scramble for Africa involving China, Japan, and India in competition with each other and with the Western world? In the second half of the twentieth century, Mao’s China and Jawaharlal Nehru’s India were political players in Africa, while Japan limited itself to trade and investment in Africa. Africa and Asia have historically been allies against Western exploitation and have also been rivals as producers of raw materials. India and West Asia have led the way in the soft power of culture and religion in Africa while Japan and China have engaged in the harder disciplines of the economy and the construction of infrastructure. This book explores the historical and unfolding dynamic interactions among China, India, Japan, and Africa and their ramifications.
This is not, strictly speaking, a ‘Tale of Two Continents’ so much as a number of eclectic offerings about parts of Africa and parts of Asia, crossing time, space, races, and cultures. Indeed, it is rewarding precisely for this reason, and for trying to move scholarship forward in ways that, building on broad historical foundations, endeavour to be fresh, critical, and self-reflexive.The book offers a colourfully presented and decidedly mixed, wide-ranging menu, rather than a sustained argument. . . .Afrasia: A Tale of Two Continents will likely benefit those with some familiarity with its subject areas more than those new to, or starting to engage, its core themes. Overall, it offers an enlivening and unconventional contribution, with the potential to catalyse further work in positive ways. Its critical invocation of the need for a discourse about discourse on Africa’s relations with China, Japan, or India points the way to promising scholarly directions, including, as Ngugi wa Thiong’o would like to see, ways that go beyond the age of European empires and post-colonial influence. This can only be a good thing, especially if it catalyses further such insightful works by leading African scholars that properly enrich and advance these avenues of enquiry.