John Ryle says no:
People shouldn't write books about Africa. Not the whole of Africa. When was the last time you read a book about Eurasia? Never. The vastness of the European-Asian landmass precludes useful generalisation. And Africa is just as various, if not quite as huge. There are almost as many countries, rather more languages and a comparable degree of environmental diversity. [...]In an important sense, "Africa" is a western invention. Despite attempts by visionaries to promote unity among the states that inherited dominion from Europe's retreating empires, African politicians have never paid anything more than lip-service to the pan-African ideal. African writers have an uphill task reclaiming the term "Africa" from the mythic associations it has in western literature. Most of these writers don't write about continental aspirations but about the worlds within a single country, leaving generalisations to World Bank experts, grandstanding politicians and Hollywood stars.
Chris Blattman says yes, and holds an informal poll:
There are enumerable volumes entitled “Europe” or “Latin America”. These suffer from all the weaknesses of breadth over depth, but the good ones draw cultural and historical parallels worth making.I asked a half dozen Liberians their opinoin on the matter today. All saw the idea of pan-Africanism as something worth aspiring to. "Even Obama is our African brother," said one. Let us cautiously write about so ambitious a topic, but not pretend it's merely an extension of the colonial impulse.
I don't have much to say on this, but my two closest friends have spent the last year doing work in Africa (one does developmental work, the other humanitarian relief. The former even has a blog!), and it's certainly the case that some people specialize in African issues, moving from country to country in response to changing circumstances and new job opportunities. On the other hand, I guess you could argue that that's part of the same problem that leads to books about "Africa."
