Season of Rains

 "[Ellis] succeeds brilliantly in showing that the need to find a new way of understanding African politics is neither a merely academic question, nor a reason for the rest of the world to disengage with Africa. For while African states since the ending of empire may not be exemplars of sovereign virtue and while some may remain seemingly bottomless pits for the rich world’s largesse, they are, nonetheless, integral parts of the planet’s social, political, economic, and natural environment. What happens in Africa matters for everyone, not just Africans. . . .The author engages the subject from a decidedly African perspective, based on a deep knowledge and commitment to the continent and its people.”

“An outstanding, original and provocative work. . . . The breadth of Season of Rains is extremely impressive. . . . its greatest strength is the way it manages to convey a sense of both continuity and change. . . .  a considerable achievement.”

“The notion, still popular in the west, that Africa is a lost continent, somehow cut adrift from global moorings, is given short shrift in this provocative assessment, which manages to combine a deep understanding of the way in which history informs the present with an appreciation of the enormous change that globalization is bringing.”

“Stephen Ellis has produced a masterpiece. Season of Rains is the product of Ellis’s innovative and imaginative analysis of the mainsprings of Africa’s contemporary political and economic trajectories.  This book takes the reader over the horizon to peek at Africa’s place in a new world that is just coming into being and a clear-headed view of where it really has been. Ellis stands out as a pioneer analyst and scholar of a post-post-colonial Africa; an Africa that acts for itself in a world that cannot take this continent for granted.  Ellis writes in a manner that is equally accessible to professional scholars, policy experts, and the broad learned public. In this masterful book, he provides readers with the analytical framework for understanding the game-changing developments such as the aftermath of devastating wars, collapsing bureaucracies, the emergence of dynamic economies, and the arrival of China and other countries on the African stage that are affecting Africans and the rest of the world today.  It will be this book that will set the terms of debate for years to come.”