Table of Contents

Preface to the U.S. Edition

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. Why Africa Must Get on Board the Modernity Express

2. The Sticky Problem of Individualism

3. The Knowledge Society and Its Rewards

4. Count, Measure, and Count Again

5. Process, not Outcome: Why Trusting Your Leader, Godfather, Ethnic Group or Chief May
Not Best Secure Your Advantage

6. Against the Philosophy of Limits: Installing a Culture of Hope

Index

About the Author

Olúfémi Táíwò is Professor of Africana Studies at the Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University. He is author of How Colonialism Preempted Modernity in Africa (IUP, 2010).

Reviews

"This is a little book with very big and controversial ideas. It draws a bold, clear line in the sand. African scholars everywhere on the continent will acutely recognize themselves and their condition of work in this. They cannot disagree with the truth of this book, but only with how too fearfully truthful it is." - Tejumola Olaniyan, author of Arrest the Music: Fela and His Rebel Art and Politics "At a time when many informed and highly placed economists, political scientists, historians, and other professionals (most of them foreigners) with stakes and expertise in African affairs appear to be locked in a futile game of breast-beating about what is wrong with the African continent, it is both a relief and a matter of gratitude to hear an African make a remorseless case such as the one in this book." - Akin Adesokan, author of Postcolonial Artists of Global Aesthetics