The Rift A New Africa Breaks Free

A vivid, powerful, and controversial look at how the world gets Africa wrong, and how a resurgent Africa is forcing it to think again.

Africa has long been misunderstood -- and abused -- by outsiders. Correspondent Alex Perry traveled the continent for most of a decade, meeting with entrepreneurs and warlords, professors and cocaine smugglers, presidents and jihadis. Beginning with a devastating investigation into a largely unreported war crime-in 2011, when the US and the major aid agencies helped cause a famine in which 250,000 Somalis died-he finds Africa at a moment of furious self-assertion. To finally win their freedom, Africans must confront three last false prophets-Islamists, dictators and aid workers-who would keep them in their bonds.

Beautifully written, intimately reported, and sure to spark debate, The Rift passionately argues that a changing Africa revolutionizes our ideas of it, and of ourselves.

Alex Perry was born in the US and educated at Oxford University, He has worked as a foreign correspondent for two decades, covering Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. During that time, he wrote more than 30 cover stories for TIME and Newsweek and covered more than 35 wars. His numerous awards include honors from the Foreign Press Association in London and the Overseas Press Club in New York.