Recent BooksNovember/December 2019 221inequality is one o the motivations for
young Africans to undertake the very
dangerous trip to Europe but suggests
that a “sense o adventure” spurs their
journeys, as well. Although he laments
the region’s poverty, he views sharp
increases in the number o African
immigrants to Europe as inevitable, even
i African economies continue their
recent acceleration. Greater access to
funds and closer links with Europe will
strengthen both the ability and the
desire o would-be immigrants to make
the trip. The book ends on a sour note,
arguing that this scramble for Europe
will only sap Africa o the energy it
needs to confront its own challenges and
will increase unemployment and under-
mine welfare states in Europe.Amílcar Cabral: A Nationalist and
Pan-Africanist Revolutionary
BY PETER KARIBE MENDY. Ohio
University Press, 2019, 238 pp.This accessible biography o Amílcar
Cabral will not satisfy readers wanting to
better understand why some consider
him one o the most thoughtful left-wing
rebels o the twentieth century, rivaling
Lenin and Mao in his analyses o state
power and revolutionary struggle. Mendy
often draws such grandiose comparisons
but fails to substantiate them. But he
does succeed in following the fascinating
arc o Cabral’s life. Cabral went from an
impoverished youth in the Portuguese
colonies o Cape Verde and Guinea-
Bissau to a university scholarship in
Lisbon. He had a brie but illustrious
career as an agricultural engineer for the
Portuguese colonial government before
he became a revolutionary advocate o
independence and the leader o anidentity through the writings and lives
o black intellectuals, ranging from the
eighteenth-century ex-slave and poet
Phillis Wheatley to later Ägures such as
the historian and activist W. E. B. Du
Bois and the author Richard Wright. A
recurring theme o the book is that
African Americans have looked to Africa
when their prospects in the United
States have seemed particularly bleak
and unpromising. Blyden also notes the
ambiguity o that longing for Africa; for
many African Americans, engagement
with the continent has sparked a recogni-
tion o their distinctly American identity
as much as it has engendered a sense o
solidarity with Africans. Over a million
Africans have immigrated to the United
States in the last 30 years, a trend that
may again remake black America.
The Scramble for Europe: Young Africa on
Its Way to the Old Continent
BY STEPHEN SMITH. Polity, 2019,
200 pp.
In this sometimes rambling but always
interesting long essay, Smith directly
tackles the issue o African immigration
to Europe only in the last couple o
chapters. The preceding sections focus
on recent socioeconomic trends in
Africa, with a particular emphasis on
the continent’s demographics. Smith
makes the familiar idea o an African
“youth bulge” (in which high fertility
results in a very young population)
more compelling by documenting a new
dividing line when it comes to inequality
in the region: age. Today, in countries
across the continent, a minority o older
people is trying to retain its political
and economic privileges at the expense
o a younger cohort. Smith argues that