The Failure of Leadership in Africaâs Development examines the dominant scholarly theories about the cause of Africaâs underdevelopment and argues that none of the traditionally invoked causesâan alleged black racial inferiority, the colonial and neo-colonial expropriation of Africa, purported natural defects in Africaâs geographyâis plausible as the explanation of the main cause of the continentâs underdevelopment. Rather, the book argues that the chief cause of the continentâs lag is the failure of leadership of Africaâs ruling classes. This failure of leadership, the book shows, is most evident in the historically traceable indifference of a long succession of Africaâs ruling classes to the scientific and technological advances that were emerging from Europe and Asia during the most critical periods of Africaâs history. It was this indifference, the book argues, that set the stage for the subsequent conquest, expropriation, and technological stagnation of Africa. The book recommends a blueprint for the continentâs future development.
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