Introduction to Independent Africa, history homework help

In the introduction to the chapters on independent Africa, Richard Reid, the author of the text book, asserted that “There might be new beginnings for some [African countries] as new nations were born, and certainly much nationalist rhetoric focused on the notion of rebirth; but more often than not the trajectories of these new nations would be complicated by their problematic inheritances, from the deep and the more recent past.” (p. 297).

1. What were these complicated ‘problematic inheritances’?

2. What historical and global political circumstances affected the successful ‘nation building’ after independence?

3. To what extent the post-colonial states (nations) differ from the pre-colonial ones? Why?

4.. Why were the post-colonial African leaders unable to accomplish the ‘nation building’ project?

Comment.