It was a great book, but it felt a little rushed and missed some aspects.
1) For example, one reason why Botswana'a manufacturing never took off is also due to South Africa's nationalist policies (even after apartheid) blocked out Botswana manufacturing with weaponizing rules in the SADC trade union.
In botswana, at the capital Gaborone, they had a Hyundai plant in the 1990s and it was successfully exporting tariff free cars to South Africa during the Mandela period. But many politicians, trade unions, and other interest groups in South africa did not like the competition, and wanted foreign factories to just come to South Africa.
Under Thebo Mbeki, South Africa insisted in SADC that the Botswanan cars didn't meet the "rules of origin" (the requirement that a certain percentage of a product must be manufactured locally to qualify for free trade).
South Africa aggressively applied steep tariffs and trade restrictions on the cars coming out of Botswana. Unable to access its primary consumer market, the Botswana Hyundai plant collapsed and was liquidated in 2000. Almost overnight, Botswana's auto manufacturing industry was wiped out.
2) Also just a note, in the book Studwell mentions both Arab and European slavery. European slavery took 12.5M mainly from West, Central West Africa, and Mozambique, but Arab and North African slavery from the Trans-Sahelian, Red Sea, and Indian Ocean trade took millions of slaves as well from 6th to 19th century. So its much more than 12.5M slaves taken. He also mentioned how the lack of population density formed Africa's own domestic slave trade since people were more valuable than land.
3) I think he should have focused more chapters on the failures of manufacturing in african countries. Because almost all of them have very interesting attempts of industrialization in certain sectors that didnt pan out. It's a great book, but i didnt think it was as good as How Asia Works.
I write about the separate economic and geopolitcal histories of different african countries if anyone is interested. Here's me talking about Nigeria after the civil war:
Thanks for the additional color here, especially the Botswana auto manufacturing story! I imagine such stories are plentiful on the continent (and generally in the world). While Studwell generally focuses on successes (here and in How Asia Works), I wonder if a thorough anatomy of a few near-misses would be illuminating as well.
East Asian model was in large part dependent on the US running large and persistent trade deficits for security and ideological reasons. The US opened up its market to Japan and then South Korea while both countries largely remained closed off to American products. In return, these countries, basically no longer had an independent foreign policy.
In the 1950s, US leaders made this choice knowing full well all the costs and benefits. By 1990s, a different generation of US elite truly believed in free trade as an end rather than just seeing it as a tool to be used. So China got to export to the US for another 2-3 decades without much issue.
But in 2026, US is no longer willing/able to absorb the world's surplus. China wants to export not import. Their leaders have seen the effects of deindustrialization on US and Europe and don't want to repeat the same mistakes. Their leaders are not ideological free traders. I don't think African manufacturing thesis is going to work out.
Set of comments based on my poor performance in economic geography and a bit of knowledge from other academics.
Why no talk of import substitution? This has returned with a vengence as we look at renewable energy and the capability across much/most of the continent to generate huge amounts of renewable energy. At the same time selling hydrocarbons to popularist led places hellbent on continuing down this road?
The Botswana example is a good one of extractive industry with reinvestment countering the capital flight and extractive nature pandered to be less than scrupulous political leaderships.
Here comes the second element - we are still talking administrative boundaries and rather than looking at the economies, the markets and the range of goods (fitting back to import substitution).
This thinking also starts us to change approaches on climate adapatation - the critical element in looking at how to address primary production for food security and nutritional wellbeing.
Nutritional wellbeing fits with import substitution and taking a proactive approach for the development of the population as it ages and/or comes of age - the youth entering the labour markets and the middle aged and middle class urbanites now suffering from non-communicable diseases. Ailements regularly linked to lifestyle and nutrition where we have witnessed the marketing of expediency for an industrialised food industry in Anglo-North America and parts of Europe.
Small dents in the overall economy? Not really as this shifts the mindset and looks again at localisation and how to address the bane of so many of us - logistics and infrastructure. This particullarly the case as urbanisation changes in nature with climate impacts having us with concentrations at different levels because of different drivers and draws.
Digital engagement links to hard and soft infrastructure development changing the way we think on socio-economic development underpinning our governance challenges and, probably, helping us understand hub and spoke for the command and expliot colonial approach reinforced thereafter and not always working to the governance systems developed where we can have the ultimate matrix economics in working to mutual support and terms of trade changes.
It was a great book, but it felt a little rushed and missed some aspects.
1) For example, one reason why Botswana'a manufacturing never took off is also due to South Africa's nationalist policies (even after apartheid) blocked out Botswana manufacturing with weaponizing rules in the SADC trade union.
In botswana, at the capital Gaborone, they had a Hyundai plant in the 1990s and it was successfully exporting tariff free cars to South Africa during the Mandela period. But many politicians, trade unions, and other interest groups in South africa did not like the competition, and wanted foreign factories to just come to South Africa.
Under Thebo Mbeki, South Africa insisted in SADC that the Botswanan cars didn't meet the "rules of origin" (the requirement that a certain percentage of a product must be manufactured locally to qualify for free trade).
South Africa aggressively applied steep tariffs and trade restrictions on the cars coming out of Botswana. Unable to access its primary consumer market, the Botswana Hyundai plant collapsed and was liquidated in 2000. Almost overnight, Botswana's auto manufacturing industry was wiped out.
Here's some reads on this if you care:
https://www.namibian.com.na/peugeot-is-namibia-industrialising/?hl=en-US#:~:text=Botswana%20tried%20this%2025%20years,was%20both%20cheap%20and%20reliable.
https://www.sundaystandard.info/botswanaocos-rand-5-2-billion-subsidy-to-the-south-african-automobile-industry/?hl=en-US#:~:text=Exports%20of%20automobiles%20became%20very,exports%20came%20to%20an%20end.
2) Also just a note, in the book Studwell mentions both Arab and European slavery. European slavery took 12.5M mainly from West, Central West Africa, and Mozambique, but Arab and North African slavery from the Trans-Sahelian, Red Sea, and Indian Ocean trade took millions of slaves as well from 6th to 19th century. So its much more than 12.5M slaves taken. He also mentioned how the lack of population density formed Africa's own domestic slave trade since people were more valuable than land.
3) I think he should have focused more chapters on the failures of manufacturing in african countries. Because almost all of them have very interesting attempts of industrialization in certain sectors that didnt pan out. It's a great book, but i didnt think it was as good as How Asia Works.
I write about the separate economic and geopolitcal histories of different african countries if anyone is interested. Here's me talking about Nigeria after the civil war:
https://yawboadu.substack.com/p/how-a-war-torn-country-became-a-petrostate?r=garki
Thanks for the additional color here, especially the Botswana auto manufacturing story! I imagine such stories are plentiful on the continent (and generally in the world). While Studwell generally focuses on successes (here and in How Asia Works), I wonder if a thorough anatomy of a few near-misses would be illuminating as well.
East Asian model was in large part dependent on the US running large and persistent trade deficits for security and ideological reasons. The US opened up its market to Japan and then South Korea while both countries largely remained closed off to American products. In return, these countries, basically no longer had an independent foreign policy.
In the 1950s, US leaders made this choice knowing full well all the costs and benefits. By 1990s, a different generation of US elite truly believed in free trade as an end rather than just seeing it as a tool to be used. So China got to export to the US for another 2-3 decades without much issue.
But in 2026, US is no longer willing/able to absorb the world's surplus. China wants to export not import. Their leaders have seen the effects of deindustrialization on US and Europe and don't want to repeat the same mistakes. Their leaders are not ideological free traders. I don't think African manufacturing thesis is going to work out.
The industrial policy advocates use always the same poor arguments that have already been debunked by Easterly: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2009/10/08/the-anarchy-of-success/
But every time a new journalist arises to make the same argument people seem to forget about it.
That was a great read, thanks!
One thing I'd add for afro optimism is the exponential growth of solar installs that is only speeding up
Set of comments based on my poor performance in economic geography and a bit of knowledge from other academics.
Why no talk of import substitution? This has returned with a vengence as we look at renewable energy and the capability across much/most of the continent to generate huge amounts of renewable energy. At the same time selling hydrocarbons to popularist led places hellbent on continuing down this road?
The Botswana example is a good one of extractive industry with reinvestment countering the capital flight and extractive nature pandered to be less than scrupulous political leaderships.
Here comes the second element - we are still talking administrative boundaries and rather than looking at the economies, the markets and the range of goods (fitting back to import substitution).
This thinking also starts us to change approaches on climate adapatation - the critical element in looking at how to address primary production for food security and nutritional wellbeing.
Nutritional wellbeing fits with import substitution and taking a proactive approach for the development of the population as it ages and/or comes of age - the youth entering the labour markets and the middle aged and middle class urbanites now suffering from non-communicable diseases. Ailements regularly linked to lifestyle and nutrition where we have witnessed the marketing of expediency for an industrialised food industry in Anglo-North America and parts of Europe.
Small dents in the overall economy? Not really as this shifts the mindset and looks again at localisation and how to address the bane of so many of us - logistics and infrastructure. This particullarly the case as urbanisation changes in nature with climate impacts having us with concentrations at different levels because of different drivers and draws.
Digital engagement links to hard and soft infrastructure development changing the way we think on socio-economic development underpinning our governance challenges and, probably, helping us understand hub and spoke for the command and expliot colonial approach reinforced thereafter and not always working to the governance systems developed where we can have the ultimate matrix economics in working to mutual support and terms of trade changes.