From the bestselling author of Dictatorland, this is the long and turbulent history of China's growing influence over African states.

People are increasingly fascinated by – and terrified of – the role of China in the modern world, and in this book Paul Kenyon gives a fascinating insight into how China operates overseas. He charts China's extraordinary success in gaining access to, and control over, Africa's natural resources, consumers, workforce and political institutions.

Kenyon's narrative is full of shocking stories and extraordinary characters from both China and Africa. He tells of how Mao and his comrades cultivated new African leaders in the 1950s– Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, Julius Nyerere in Tanzania and a young Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe – seducing this new generation of statesmen with cheap supplies of arms and machinery, training in guerrilla warfare and exaggerated displays of wealth at flag-waving receptions in Beijing.

Kenyon takes us right up to the present day, examining China as a mighty economic power under Xi Jinping. Today China's presence is ubiquitous in Africa and Xi Jinping offers huge infrastructure projects, joint exploitation of mineral wealth and easy credit to African states still struggling to develop – all in exchange for access and control.