Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles [Hardcover]

'A wise, compassionate and understanding account of Africa, written by a man who has glimpsed deeper truths about the continent' --The Times

'A remarkable, ground-breaking achievement, capturing the complex texture of a rapidly changing continent. It is also terribly moving'

'Few journalists have travelled in Africa so widely for so long and few can match his indefatigable quest for knowledge'

'Dowden maintains the reader's interest by skilfully interviewing his research into stories of myriad encounters with Africans rich and poor'

'This book is an inspiring gift of hope about a continent that never ceases to surprise'

The finest living Africa correspondent delivers, after a lifetime's close observation of the miraculous continent, a landmark book on life and death in modern Africa.Dowden has now, after 35 years on the continent, written a memoiristic history of its peoples' experiences in the wake of the European withdrawal and the superpowers' arrival. He has been present at each of the continent's major crises and writes illuminatingly about them, but he is as passionate about the warmth, wisdom and joy he has encountered in peacetime, and the diversity of habits, attitudes and purposes to which he has been Britain's best witness. His book is no less than a benchmark publication on this most misunderstood and mishandled of continents.

RICHARD DOWDEN is director of the Royal African Society. Dowden spent a decade as Africa Editor of the Independent, and then another decade as Africa Editor of The Economist. Few writing in English now have had more experience of life as it is lived in a wider variety of African communities. He has made three television documentaries on Africa, for the BBC and Channel 4.