African Socialism or Socialist Africa?

by Abdulrahman Mohamed Babu

Analyzes Africa's political conditions and dependence on capitalism and recommends methods for Africa to overcome its economic problems through a socialist revolutionary movement

Genres: Africa, Nonfiction, History, Theory

174 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1981

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was fantastic—comprehensive, nuanced, reasoned, rich, and yet digestible and simply put, with few rhetorical flourishes added that do not benefit the thrust of the book’s arguments. Babu avoids saccharine appeals to emotion, but it is clear that he has deep convictions that guide his analysis and writing to prioritize the poor, colonized, working people that have suffered because of capitalism. He deeply understands Marxist-Leninist thought, and he expands its scope within the context of colonial and neo-colonial Africa.

Babu takes a multi-pronged approach to create compelling arguments, such as exploring how Judeo-Christian metaphysics have aided in bending people’s minds towards capitalist values, examining how the global capitalist market can dictate the material realities even of countries that might declare to be socialist (at least in name), along with the essential moral orientation of using a scientific socialist approach to transform economies to fulfill people’s needs. I have benefited greatly from reading this. Publishers y’all gotta bring this back in print 😤