The last fifty years have seen unprecedented changes in people’s standards of living all over the world. Despite explosive population growth, it has proved possible to dramatically elevate the quality of life. On average people’s lives have improved, all over the world, on every continent. Except Africa. Africa is the only large, contiguous region left out of the worldwide rise in prosperity. Why is that? Why has Africa failed to develop? Roel van der Veen (the Netherlands, 1957) is a historian by training. He deals with sub-Saharan Africa in his daily work. In ''What went wrong with Africa'' he describes the recent history of the continent and explores the causes of its widespread poverty, the AIDS epidemic and the misrule, corruption and disintegration afflicting so many African states.