This House Has Fallen

Midnight in Nigeria - by Karl Maier

Published 2000 by Public Affairs pp 240 ISBN 1-891620-60-6

This House Has Fallen is a bracing, disturbing, evocative report on the state of Africa's most populous, potentially richest, and most dynamic nation. A bewilderingly complex entity of 110 million people and 300 ethnic groups, Nigeria is a bellwether for Africa, the continent's answer to Brazil, Indonesia and India.

After 15 years of continuous military dictatorship, in 2000 Nigeria is poised on a fine edge, and however difficult to predict, its outcome could determine the fate not only of its immediate neighbours but of the rest of Africa as well. Religion, ethnicity, politics, corruption and grinding poverty simmer in a potent brew in Nigeria. Karl Maier's book illustrates the tensions that are threatening to tear apart one of the world's great multi-ethnic states.

A brilliant piece of reportage and travel writing, This House Has Fallen looks into the Nigerian abyss and comes away with insight, profound conclusions, and even some hope.

About the author
From 1986-1996, Karl Maier was a correspondent in Africa for The Independent newspaper in London and a contributor to The Economist and The Washington Post. Since then he has written two books on Africa, Angola: Promises and Lies and Into the House of the Ancestors. He lives in Italy.