A REVIEW OF BOOKS I READ IN 2022… PART 3
21. Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentmentwas authored by Francis Fukuyama and published in 2018. Prof. Fukuyama is a political scientist best known for his 1989 essay “The End of History?” later expanded into the book “The End of History and the Last Man”. Identityis a foremost analysis of contemporary global events by a public intellectual. The book shows a Fukuyama who is deeply concerned about the future of liberal democracy in the “Trumpian Age”. Indeed, he writes in the preface that he wouldn’t have written this book if Trump had not become president. I would recommend this textbook to all political scientists and individuals interested in learning about the emergence (or re-emergence) of identity politics across the globe and how it portends danger for the future of our liberal democratic dispensation.
22. Notes from the Public Squareis authored by CDD-Ghana’s Democracy and Development Fellow, Dr. John Osae-Kwapong. The book draws on public opinion data from the Afrobarometer surveys to assess the presidency of the second President of Ghana’s 4th republic, John Kufour. The book provides very important insights about the reaction of the public to government policies and actions and subsequent voting choices. This is a highly recommended book for political strategists and researchers interested in public policy formulation and implementation in Ghana
23. About a Boyis a 1998 novel by British writer Nick Hornby. The novel is about two different people, Will and Marcus, with different perspectives on life. Will is in his thirties. He is rich, living off his late father’s earnings of writing a Christmas song. He can’t maintain a relationship with a girlfriend for any significant period. He spends his time doing absolutely nothing but eat, watch tv, drink beer and indulge in womanizing. He meets Marcus, a rather intelligent 12-year-old boy whose mental ability seem above his age. Marcus struggles to cope with the bullies at school, and deeply worries about his mother and her depression. After they meet, Marcus attaches himself to Will, not wanting to leave him alone. The novel is filled withthe right balance of humour, reflection on life and meditation.
24. The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wivesis a 2010 novel by Nigerian-born poet Lola Shoneyin. A perceptive novel of polygamy in modern-day African society. The novel is as entertaining as it is eye-opening. It reveals the struggles, rivalries, intricate family politics, and the clash of personalities and relationships within the complex private world of a polygamous unions. Baba Segi lives with his three wives and seven children in a mansion filled with riches. But Baba decided he was going to take a fourth wife and set his sights on Bolanle, a young university graduate. Bolanle agrees to marry Baba Segi’s. Her marriage unwittingly uncovers a secret which upends Baba’s household to the core.
25. The Appealis a 2008 novel by John Grisham. The jury in a case involving a chemical company in Mississippi, delivers a shocking verdict against the company. This chemical company owned by Carl Trudeau is accused of dumping toxic waste into a small town’s water supply, causing a devastating health crisis in the area, resulting in the deaths of a significant number of residents. The company appeals to the Mississippi Supreme Court, whose nine justices will one day either approve the verdict or reverse it. With judicial elections looming, Carl Trudeau decides to influence the elections to the Court. The cost is a few million dollars, compared to the potential billions in compensation and punitive damages should the verdict stand. Carl’s political operatives recruit a young, unsuspecting candidate to mould him into a Supreme Court justice. They finance his campaign with thousands of dollars unleashed into the state of Mississippi from outside sources. This novel is a powerful repudiation of the increasing role of money in the electoral process and the creeping influence of politics into the judicial system.
26. Pop.1280is a 1964 crime fiction masterpiece by Jim Thompson. Nick Corey is an awful sheriff. He doesn’t give a hoot about maintaining law and order in his county. He knows that nobody in tiny Potts County, the 47th-largest county in what is probably Texas, wants to follow the law and he is perfectly content lazing about and sleeping with all the eligible women. Pop.1280is a true masterpiece.
27. The Amen Corneris a drama piece written by James Baldwin in 1954. The evocative three-act play, which tells the story of Sister Margaret Alexander and the conflict-riddled storefront church she leads in Harlem, excavates, and reckons with many of the moral racial, and existential themes that preoccupied Baldwin during his early years as a “boy preacher” and would later become hallmarks of his work. The play reveals to us the dangers of fundamentalism.
28. The Bride Pricepublished in 1976 by Nigerian writer, Buchi Emecheta, is a compelling and passionate story about the love life of a young lady and her lover. The Bride Price chronicles the love story of Aku-nna, a young Igbo woman, and her teacher, Chike, the son of a prosperous former slave. Aku-nna met Chike when she was enrolled at a school in the village following the death of her father in Lagos. The two are drawn together despite the traditions that forbid them to marry. Aku-nna flees an unwanted and forced marriage to join Chike, only to have her uncle refuse the required bride price from her lover’s family. Frustrated and abandoned by their people, Aku-naa and Chike escape to a modern world unlike any they’ve ever experienced. Despite their joy, Aku-nna is plagued by the fear she will die in childbirth–the fate, according to tribal lore, awaiting every young mother whose bride price is left unpaid.
29. No Longer at Easewas written by Chinua Achebe in 1960. No Longer at Ease is the second piece in Achebe’s African trilogy series. It was preceded by Things Fall Apart and follows the life of Obi. Obi leaves his village in Nigeria to pursue an education in Britain where he meets Clara and falls in love with her. Upon his return to Nigeria, the elders of the village who have funded his education in Britain help him to get a job in the civil service. Reeling under heavy debt, Obi takes a bribe. Obi is strong-minded and stubborn. He intends on marrying Clara although she is an osu and begins taking bribes when he cannot pay his debts. Obi has a complicated relationship with the traditions of his fathers and finds it nearly impossible to find a balance the culture of his people and the Western culture he was exposed to by virtue of his education. However, Obi ultimately understood that one culture was not better than the other, and change was imminent.
30. Development in Actionwas first published in 1978 by the renowned economist, Tony Killick. Development Economics in Action is a study of economic policies in Ghana, one of Africa’s most closely watched economies from independence to 2008. This book provides a nuanced historical perspective to economic policy and development in Ghana. It is a must read for anyone interested in understanding the subject of development economics with respect to Ghana, particularly.