MAGNIFICENT AND BEGGAR LAND

Ricardo Soares de Oliveira Jacana

ANGOLA Starts Now! Oxford professor Ricardo Soares de Oliveira spent three years researching what is happening in Angola and comes up with a great story… How after decades of war this country has or is being transformed – for some. A huge kleptocracy, its rich enjoy excessive consumption, its many more poor live in abject poverty. The economy, now the third largest in sub-Saharan Africa, is based on diamonds and oil… but unless the frustrated upcoming generation don’t get more of the action the “electricity in the air” could inflame much more than an economy. This book almost makes Angola a microcosm of what is happening today: consider Greece. It’s extremely well researched – 40 pages of notes augment the discussion, which is based on interviews with really highly placed people. Absorbing.

– Shirley de Kock Gueller