Phillip Muehlenbeck's book deals with Czechoslovakia's involvement in Africa during the nearly quarter of a century from the end of World War II to the Prague Spring in 1968. Muehlenbeck seeks to explain why Czechoslovakia invested an inordinate amount of resources to strengthen its political, economic, and cultural relations with Africa. Drawing on extensive research in Czech, British, U.S., and South African archives as well as secondary literature in English and Czech, Muehlenbeck argues that Czechoslovakia was looking to increase export revenue, serve the interests of its patron (the Soviet Union), and gain international prestige. The book offers a riveting story of how Czechoslovak engagement with the continent started with great hopes and ended in mutual disappointment.
Many African governments believed the Soviet bloc, untainted with the sin of colonialism, would prove to be a more generous partner than the West in supplying the knowhow and technology they needed to...