"The dictator who grew so rich on his country's cocoa crop that he built a 35-story-high basilica in the jungles of the Ivory Coast. The austere, incorruptible leader who has shut Eritrea off from the world in a permanent state of war and conscripted every adult into the armed forces. In Equatorial Guinea, the paranoid despot who thought Hitler was the savior of Africa and waged a relentless campaign of terror against his own people. The Libyan army...

Compiled from four decades of reporting, this is celebrated journalist Kapuscinski's most complete portrait of the Africa that he has made the focus of his great career. Kapuscinski's unorthodox approach and his profound respect for the people he meets challenge conventional understandings of modern Africa.