Blackman's Burden / Border, Breed nor Birth

Blackman's Burden is one of Reynolds's earlier novels. His ideas are played out much closer to home, in a time much closer to ours. The time is the near future. The place is Africa. In a reaction to centuries of largely-botched colonialism, the rest of the world has chosen to leave Africa pretty much on its own. Aside from some modernization efforts by the Reunited Nations & aside from the efforts of various charitable organizations-- some altruistically motivated, others not--& aside from the presence of agents pursuing the interests of their several home countries. In Blackman's Burden, & in its sequels "Border, Breed Nor Birth" & "The Best Ye Breed", a small team of those interlopers decides that what the Sahel really needs isn't minor charities or piddling interventions, but political union & modernization. Needless to say, almost nobody agrees. It's an interesting book--a knowledgeable view of Africa combined with a cynical view of the human condition. There's a short-story epilog to this trilogy titled "Black Sheep Astray" Border, Breed nor Birth: El Hassan, would-be tyrant of all N. Africa, was on the run. His followers at this point numbered six, one of whom was a wisp of a 24-year-old girl. Arrayed against him & his dream, he knew, was the combined power of the world in the form of the Reunited Nations, &, in addition, such individual powers as the United States of the Americas, the Soviet Complex, Common Europe, the French Community, the British Commonwealth & the Arab Union, working both together & unilaterally. A novel of colonialism set in N. Africa, Border, Breed Nor Birth originally appeared as a serial in Analog under the editorship of John W. Campbell Jr. * Black Man's Burden (Analog, sr5, December 1961-April 1962) - 137pp Border, Breed nor Birth (Analog, sr2, July-August 1962) - 150pp