This monographic work deals with an entire subcontinent -- black Africa, the Africa that begins south of the Sahara desert. A heterogeneous subcontinent made up of 48 independent states and with a population of 785 million; a subcontinent that features the coexistence of multiple, diverse cultures, languages, ways of life and ways of understanding life, political and social systems, economic realities and conflict situations. The study takes a look at the region by searching for the aspects that are common to a large part of its population and its past and present history, in order to define the trends and processes that take place there, and which enable us to explain and understand what the immediacy and volatility of the news as presented by the media is incapable of explaining. The work analyses the causes of violence beyond the region's colonial and postcolonial past, the great world powers’ interest in an Africa that has virtually been excluded from the profits of globalisation, the reasons behind the failure of certain economic, political, social and cultural models which, either imposed or modelled on a Western image, have failed in the search for development after having come up against totally different worldviews.

ISSN: 1132-6107

60 pp.