To hear a recording of this lecture:  

This lecture is based on Richard Dowden’s book, Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles, published by Portobello Books in September 2008. Telling personal stories, interwoven with history and analysis, Richard Dowden probes beneath the surface to reveal a continent of huge diversity and complexity that survives a lot more cheerfully than some would have us believe. Based on travels as a journalist in 13 countries, and touching on politics, religion, race, culture and music, the book traces the causes of successes and failures in the continent over four decades.

Richard Dowden’s first experience of Africa was as a volunteer teacher at a bush school in Uganda in the early 1970s. On his return to Britain he was employed by a peace organisation in Northern Ireland, became a journalist, and was made editor of The Catholic Herald in 1976. After joining The Times foreign desk in 1980, he reported from the Middle East and Africa, before being appointed Africa Editor at The Independent when it was founded in 1986. During the next nine years he visited almost every country in sub-Saharan Africa. He later became The Times’ Diplomatic Editor.

In 1995 he was invited to join The Economist as Africa Editor and continued to travel regularly to Africa. He left The Economist in 2001 and a year later began working as a freelance journalist and writer. In November 2002 he was appointed Director of the Royal African Society.