Adekeye Adebajo's The Curse of Berlin is a book whose final product is less than the sum of its parts. The deficiency is not due to any lack of ability or scholarship on the part of the author. As an Africanist, Adebajo is first-rate. A former Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, he is currently the Executive Director of the Center for Conflict Resolution in Cape Town; his knowledge of the continent's policy and history is both deep and wide. His qualifications to write such an ambitious book cannot be questioned.

Rather, the book's flaws come from a lack of organization and a myopic fixation on policy issues and political figures. Were each chapter published as a stand-alone essay in a journal, there'd be no problem. But as they are united in a book - and a book with a subtitle as expansive as "Africa after the Cold War" - they must be judged by a more extensive criteria. The final product taken from the synthesis of all the chapters ought to give us a comprehensive picture of contemporary Africa, not a picture whose focus is limited to policies and the people who make them. It is here that Adebajo's treatment falls short.

The book begins with a chapter discussing the infamous Conference of Berlin, held in 1885 thanks to the work of Belgian King Leopold II and Germany's Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Adebajo begins by highlighting the many problems with the conference - its lack of African representation, the entitlement and superiority complex of the Europeans present, and the shocking ignorance about Africa shared by the delegates. He then introduces the book's core thesis: The events of Berlin cursed Africa to almost a century and a half of poverty, theft, and foreign rule. As arguments go, it's hard to contest. Yet Adebajo develops his argument in a curiously limited way, turning to a sometimes-haphazard selection of events and policies concerning post-colonial Africa.

Here, to be sure, his credentials as an Africanist are on full display. Adebajo explores a variety of different issues, such as expanding the UN Security Council, French policy in Africa, Nigeria and South Africa's role as regional hegemons, American policy in Africa, and the diplomatic and economic relationship between South Africa and China. Indeed, it's quite difficult to nail down any single area as Adebajo's particular field of expertise. He writes well about economics, foreign policy, domestic policy, and a host of other issues - and he does so while making connections that would escape most scholars, such as his comparison of former Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah and former South African President Thabo Mbeki.

His treatment of the legacy of Nkrumah and his discussion of the UN's role in Africa are especially useful and enjoyable. In his study of Nkrumah, Adebajo highlights the Ghanaian leader's many strengths - his contributions to African political theory, his foreign policy vision, and his ability to combine great charisma with innovative thinking. Further, he does all this while not ignoring the other side of Nkrumah that became dominant later in his life, that of the paranoid reactionary. Most treatments of Nkrumah and the other first-generation African emancipators fall into the realm either of hagiography or character assassination. Adebajo's more rounded presentation is thus a welcome departure.

He closes with a look at two foreign politicians bearing the fingerprints of Africa: American President Barack Obama and Indian revolutionary Mahatma Gandhi. His treatment of each frequently feels less like biography and more like a courtly introduction of a great hero, almost exclusively referring to Obama by his first name and adopting messianic language in his description of Gandhi. Yet, the section is not without its merits. Notably, he offers a more grounded and well-researched picture of Africa's relationship with Obama than those offered by other writers, such as Dinesh D'Souza.

Unfortunately, the book suffers from a few significant shortcomings. Adebajo's slippery use of language has already been alluded to above in his discussion of Obama and Gandhi, but that is not the only instance of his questionable use of language. Adebajo seems to have never met a biblical metaphor that he didn't like or believe should be applied to Africa. One can lose track of the number of African leaders that he christens "prophets" at one point or another. Gandhi is hailed as "the greatest moral and political figure of the twentieth century," "saintly," "Jesus-like," and is routinely referred to as "the Mahatma." From a scholarly perspective, such language is problematic because it stacks the deck in how different characters are introduced.

But more important than the specific critiques leveled above, Adebajo never leaves the realm of policy debate. This focus on policy creates two problems: First, several of his proposals are dreadfully naïve. For example, in his chapter on the UN he proposes that Africa be given two permanent seats on the Security Council. On paper, it sounds like an excellent proposal. But who would fill those seats? The most likely candidates are Nigeria and South Africa, but Adebajo himself highlights why they may not be good choices in his chapters on both nations. In the epigraph to his chapter on Nigeria, he quotes Nigerian statesmen Adebayo Adedeji: "No country that is confronted with a long period of political instability, economic stagnation, and regression, and is reputed to be one of the most corrupt societies in the world, has a moral basis to lead others." And South Africa, still living in the shadow of apartheid, would certainly be a less-than-ideal option. So if these two regional hegemons are not to be the permanent members, to whom will the UN (and Africa) turn? Ghana? Egypt? Kenya? Adebajo is unable to answer the question satisfactorily.

But the second problem with his policy focus is the most significant problem with the book. In The Sacrifice of Africa, Ugandan priest and Duke scholar Emmanuel Katongole offers an incisive and, so far, unanswered critique of books like Adebajo's. Katongole rightly diagnoses the core problem facing postcolonial Africa: The African social imagination is broken. Africa's way of understanding itself and its place in the world has been shattered by colonialism and the unrest, poverty, and war that has followed. As Katongole explains, contemporary Africa is an Africa still finding itself, trying to place itself in a story distinct from that of colonialism. Colonialism destroyed Africa's social identity. Policy change is desperately needed, of course, but enacting the necessary changes will prove impossible until the colonialist story is finally buried.

Adebajo would, of course, agree wholeheartedly that Africa is still haunted by colonialism. Where the two thinkers differ is in how to address the legacy of colonialism or, as Adebajo dubs it, the curse of Berlin. To Katongole, colonialism is primarily understood as a story. Stories feature a setting, a plot, and characters. The characters of modern Africa live their lives within the confines created by the colonialist story, a story best summed up as how the few became wealthy through the institutionalized abuse of the many. In his assessment, Katongole is not alone. British historian Basil Davidson, hailed by many in Africa as the "white African," made the same argument in The Black Man's Burden. Nkrumah himself also spoke often of the less tangible aspects of colonialism that went beyond European political and economic domination. Indeed, that insight sat at the center of his pan-Africanism, a legacy that Adebajo seeks to uphold.

Yet in a book about "Africa after the Cold War" Adebajo never moves beyond discussions of politicians and policy. To be sure, political and economic control is assumed in the colonialism story, but the problem is far larger and defies simple policy fixes. This is why Adebajo's particular policy proposals - the establishment of common markets in Africa, the remodeled Security Council, and so forth - are so problematic. They are excellent proposals, but the story in which those policy changes are being proposed is broken. Consequently, the policy changes are left suspended in midair without a grounding narrative, theoretically detached from the history of colonialism, but devoid of an alternative story in which to function. Would he push aggressively for a United States of Africa, as did Nkrumah? If so, how will Africa get there when the sole contemporary head-of-state favoring that view is Libyan pariah Mouammar Gaddafi? Would he argue for Katongole's solution of locating Africa within the Christian story? Or would he suggest another solution? We never find out; Adebajo's fascination with individual trees has caused him to neglect the forest.

The result is a book filled with a remarkable and accessible array of raw information about Africa after political emancipation and, particularly, after the Cold War. For its expansiveness, the book deserves strong consideration for first-year graduate students in the social sciences who haven't yet decided on a more narrow focus of study. They won't find a better introductory book for intelligent discussion of policy disputes in postcolonial Africa. But for all its expansiveness in terms of topics discussed and depth of knowledge of those topics, it is also characterized by an ironic limitation of vision, neglecting anything existing outside public policy and public figures. For that reason, The Curse of Berlin should be read only after Katongole's superior The Sacrifice of Africa.

Jake Meador is a writer and editor living in St. Paul, Minnesota. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with an emphasis in African history. He blogs about African politics, history, religion, and other topics at Notes from a Small Place.

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