Rating: 
Summary: Out of America
Review: Out of America is courageous, real and honest. Richburg doesn't beat around the bush about what he saw and what he felt while working as a foreign correspondent in Africa. While the book is a personal memoir, it gives the reader a good understanding of Africa today from the best vantagepoint that any one person could ever ask for. In one chapter the author compares African countries to Southeast Asian countries, both fresh out of colonialism, both with many ethnic groups, both battling corruption. Why then do the Asian countries flourish while African countries, rich in natural resources, languish? Being the objective journalist that he is Richburg doesn't offer his opinion but does present the opinions of others including some prominent African leaders. After sifting through the worn out excuses and clichés, some of the more thoughtful answers are surprising and thought provoking. I read this book while working as an expat in Zambia. I can identify with many of the author's observations and feelings. The only disappointment was Richburg's acceptance of the common liberal view of South African whites, even though he only spent a few weeks in RSA. His analysis of the rest of southern Africa is objective and real. Out of America is highly recommended reading for anyone whose interest in Africa goes beyond game parks and waterfalls.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, but more about America than Africa
Review: Richburg's book attacks the myths of Afrocentrists in the United States, a very easy target. Richburg succeeds, hence the often admiring reviews, but there is little here new about Africa. The key failing is that Richburg is so keen to knock down Afro-centrist myths that he creates an Americano-centric myth. He treats Africa as a whole in the same mistaken way that the Afro-centrists do. Richburg's thought as he saw the bodies of slaughtered Rwandans in the river that "there but for the grace of God go I" sounds good but is actually vapid. The idea is that but for the enforced journey to America through slavery that he too might have been a slaughtered Rwandan. In fact, few if any slaves came to America from Rwanda, a country which is rather a long way away and very different from the west African regions from which slaves were bought. The point is that Africa is as diverse as Europe or Asia, something which neither Richburg nor his Afro-centrist opponents seem to understand. It is as if Irish American journalists went to Bosnia and declared that had it not been for the potato famine which drove their ancestors to leave for the USA, then they too would have ended up being butchered by the Serbs at Srebrenica. A book then for those interested in the debates about Africa between Americans rather than for those interested in finding out about what is actually happening in a large, diverse and interesting continent.
Rating:
Summary: A brutally honest book, and a must-read!
Review: This book was a real eye-opener for me. It makes me realize that you can divide people into two different groups: those who have spent time in Africa, and those who have not. And when I say Africa, I do not mean Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt, those Arabic-speaking countries of North Africa. I mean black Africa, or sub-Saharan Africa. As an African the author met on a train explained, "I mean REAL Africa." The people who have actually spent time in Africa -- not passing through on a tourist expedition -- will tend to have radically different ideas about the continent than those who have done their travelling while seated in their armchairs. Africa is a brutal, dangerous, and horrifying place, where the mentality is still largely tribal and the most important type of violence is direct inter-tribal violence of the most shocking sort. The genocidal slaying between the Tutsis and the Hutus in Rwanda is perhaps the most horrific, but there have been similar horrors in Somalia -- and all over the continent! The author is a black American who realized, while he was in Africa, that he could not consider himself an "African-American." He was simply an American, born and raised in the USA. I believe Richard Wright and James Baldwin have had similar experiences while living in Europe: they realized that they were not at home, so to speak. And then they realized where "home" was. One of the author's main conclusions is that he's very lucky to be an American, not an African. But the problem strikes me as a little more radical than that: leaving Black Africa for (say) Tunisia will already markedly improve your quality of life. The author seems to have no problems living in Asia or in Europe. The problem is that Black Africa seems to have its own unique set of problems, and so far nobody seems to have a clue about how to solve these problems. Until that happens, the outlook seems to be extremely bleak. Highly recommended!
Rating: 
Summary: Reality
Review: When many people think of Africa, they think of its animals or its pastoral backwaters.....But no lion or leopard can be found in this book. Keith Richburg's Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa is powerful stuff. Richburg, an award-winning reporter for the Washington Post, was the Post's African bureau chief from 1991 through 1994. As a journalist, he reported on the turmoil rocking Africa during this period, including the civil wars in Somalia and Rwanda. Though Richburg writes of the deference White people still receive in Africa -- it's only some of the time. African leaders confide in Richburg because he is Black. Zaire's communications minister allows how the disintegration of his nations economy is a grand conspiracy of the White man. A Sudanese leader explains that there is a White plot to keep his country from too much independence, and he equates this with the condition of Blacks in America. Richburg, in turn, can compare these with the sorts of conspiracy theories, widespread among African-Americans in Washington, that "they" are out to eliminate the Black man. No, it isn't the White man that keeps Africa in the 'dark', it's stupidity, corruption and incompetence. Richburg contrasts the growth and development he had seen as a journalist in Asia. Both areas, he points out, suffered under colonialism - so how to explain their subsequent divergent paths? While I hardly agree with Richburg 100%, "Out of America" is insightful and is a damn good story.
Rating:
Summary: It takes a lot of discerning to know African problems
Review: Yes, many africans were annoyed by the frankness of Mr.Richburg.
Indeed, what the author describes in his book has taken place not only in Africa, but in many other places as well. Does the author talk about the atrocities committed by King Leopold II in the Congo, which might be at the roots of present evils there?
What may be at the root cause of animosity between the two tribes in Rwanda? It is easy to blame blacks in America for for many ills, but does anyone ever talk about the possibility of slavery in America as being at the cause of many ills today?
One has to look and see what took place in Yougoslavia, South Africa, Germany, Russia, Iraq, and in Pol Pot's killing fields and realize that evil is everywhere.
Today, these places are considered "civilized" because we have quickly forgot the past. The author may have lost his seep trying to come up with new adjectives to describe for example what took place during the culture revolution in China or during the 1918 bolshevik revolution in Russia.
There are crooks, devils, dictators and madmen everywhere. It is the main reason our founding fathers put the system of checks and balance, and installed democracy so people can elect leaders who are accountable to the people. This system weeds out would-be maniacs before they seize power.
Until then, Africa will never know no peace.
Sincerly, I really liked the book, for someone must have the courage to confront Africa. Hopefully the Africans will read and draw a lesson from it.
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