Offers an authoritative comparative overview of fifty years of African independence, drawing on decades of research and first-hand experience. Young identifies three cycles of hope and disappointment common to many of the African states: initial euphoria at independence in the 1960s followed by disillusionment and a lapse into single-party autocracies and military rule; a period of renewed confidence, radicalization, and state expansion in the 1970s preceding state crisis and even failure in the 1980s; and a phase of reborn optimism during the continental wave of democratization beginning around 1990.

Crawford Young is the Rupert Emerson Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His many books include The Rise and Decline of the Zairian State, Ideology and Development in Africa, The Politics of Cultural Pluralism, and The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective.