Although Africa seems to most people a remote and impoverished place remembered for the suffering of its people, it has played an important role in recent history, and it will play a significant role in the future of America and the West in general. This volume of the ANNALS, Perspectives on Africa and the World, provides a unique opportunity for fresh insight into the continentÆs past, present, and future by examining crucial historical turning points in African history over the past 75 years. The distinguished authors emphasize that understanding the reality of Africa in the twenty-first century requires viewing the continent within a broader context of recent world history. Through the lens of four watershed eventsùWorld War II, the end of colonialism, the cold war, and the new global interconnectionsù they show how much of what happens on the African continent has its origins in Washington, London, Paris, Moscow, or Beijing, just as events in Africa can shape the politics and economies of the world, and that we ignore Africa to our own peril.