In a word, I gave up African studies because I found it depressing. But that is hardly an explanation, even if it is an emotionally precise description of what occurred. To explain my giving up African studies I have to say why I came to find the activity depressing. This requires a little history - both personal history, or autobiography, and history of Africa. I began to be interested in Africa whilst an undergraduate student of economics and politics at Sheffield university (1965-8) and I began my doctoral work in African politics in Oxford in 1969. That means that I...