How Africa Works: Success and Failure on the World’s Last Developmental Frontier

Studwell shifts the question from why poverty persists in Africa to which economic policies have worked. Looking at colonial land policy, soil quality, disease eradication, urbanization, and the shift from subsistence farming to export-oriented manufacturing, he examines why some regions have grown rapidly while others have stalled. The book ↗ argues that rapid population growth can be an asset when governments raise agricultural productivity and create labor-intensive industries.