Alex Thomson (3) (1966–)

This is an extremely belated review of a book I used for my undergraduate degree at a prestigious British university. The review is so belated that the version I used was the previous edition and the next edition is due out soon.

Alex Thomson has put together a fabulous compendium of key political issues stretching across the continent of Africa. It was such an invaluable tool to me that I would credit the entirety of my mark on my African Politics paper to it and some serious cramming. I did not use any other information though did have some background knowledge of Nigeria and Ghana. Having had an utterly useless African Politics tutor, I would definitely not have passed without this book but with it I scored my highest mark of any paper.

In particular I found the chapter on Botswana to be unbelievably helpful. A question on Botswana happened to come up on the paper for the first time the year I sat the exams and this fascinating country was covered so brilliantly by Thomson that I can still recite some of his phrases off-hand nearly a decade later.

For anyone at undergraduate level with a study of African Politics this is an overview that should never be overlooked.… (altro)