Status Updates From Modern Times: The World fro...

Chapter 15: Caliban’s Kingdom” deliberately evokes Shakespeare’s The Tempest, where Caliban is the native inhabitant of a conquered island—both savage and pitiable, resisting colonial authority yet morally ambiguous. Johnson casts postcolonial Africa in a similar light: a land rich in potential, but plagued by internal disorder, violence, and exploitation after the departure of European powers.

In Chapter 14: The Bandung Generation, the 1955 Bandung Conference symbolizes the rise of a post-colonial world, as newly independent nations sought solidarity and autonomy from both Western and Soviet powers. Yet instead of delivering freedom and peace, the movement often gave rise to regimes more brutal than colonial rule. Algeria stands as a stark warning of what happens when ideology overrides morality.