"How to write about Africa - don't"

In a Guardian review of Richard Dowden's Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles John Ryle calls for a halt to generalizations:

People shouldn't write books about Africa. Not the whole of Africa. When was the last time you read a book about Eurasia? Never. The vastness of the European-Asian landmass precludes useful generalisation. And Africa is just as various, if not quite as huge. There are almost as many countries, rather more languages and a comparable degree of environmental diversity...In an important sense, "Africa" is a western invention. Despite attempts by visionaries to promote unity among the states that inherited dominion from Europe's retreating empires, African politicians have never paid anything more than lip-service to the pan-African ideal. African writers have an uphill task reclaiming the term "Africa" from the mythic associations it has in western literature. Most of these writers don't write about continental aspirations but about the worlds within a single country, leaving generalisations to World Bank experts, grandstanding politicians and Hollywood stars...[continue reading]