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The Political Economy of Economic Growth in Africa 1960–2000, Volume 1, and: The Political Economy of Economic Growth in Africa 1960–2000, Volume 2 (review)

the grand sweep of the two volumes lends itself to repetition, and a lack of definition of what, precisely, is being examined. A sharper conceptual focus and more robust editorial guidance and/or intervention would have improved the collection greatly, because in the end we are presented with lots of conflicts and not much sense of what it all means. ‘Conflict’ is defined in the broadest possible sense: this has the advantage of allowing the inclusion of a wider range of socio-political violence than might otherwise be the case, but has the drawback of effectively removing the possibility of making any larger point. Certainly, the two volumes might have been arranged differently, perhaps into ‘types’ of conflict: as it is, the first volume provides some examples of how certain wars start, and the second volume offers instances of how other types of conflict have been – or might be – resolved. In the study of African conflict, moreover, there is a trend toward tedious jargon: not only is African conflict and its resolution ‘complex’ – and we are told this so often that this reviewer wished someone would argue, just for once, that the causes of such-and-such a conflict are actually quite simple – but so too are the means by which some analysts lay out their theses.