This handbook presents an extensive new overview of African development – past, present and future. It addresses key core themes and topics that are pertinent to the continent’s development – including sections on history, health and food, politics, economics, rural and urban development, and development policy and practice.

The volume draws on the expertise of over 60 of the world’s leading scholars to provide a detailed and up-to-date analysis of the key opportunities and challenges that confront Africa, and how such issues are being addressed. Arranged by key themes, the handbook provides not only a historical understanding of the past, but also political perspectives on the future. The chapters provide critically informed analyses of their topics by drawing upon the latest conceptual viewpoints and applied experiences in Africa in the form of case studies to offer a comprehensive examination of the opportunities, challenges, key debates and future prospects.

This handbook is an invaluable state-of-the-art overview and reference concerning many different aspects of Africa’s development, which will be of interest to academics in all fields of African studies, and also academics and students working in cognate disciplines such as development studies, geography, history, politics and economics.

"This Handbook represents a distinctively authoritative compendium of expertise addressing contemporary Africa. Attention focuses on the diverse conditions prevailing today, explanations of how they have arisen and are understood in theoretical and practical terms, and what future prospects are likely to hold. The attention to African perspectives, often distinguished from those of outsiders, as manifest in most development theory, international policy discourse and policy, is particularly welcome. The essays are clearly written and will provide an invaluable guide to those wishing to understand Africa and its place in the world." - David Simon, Director of Mistra Urban Futures, Chalmers, Gothenburg, Sweden and Professor of Development Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

Tony Binns, Kenneth Lynch, Etienne Nel