Book excerpt: After having been stunned by untold evils making the order of each day in Africa, and particularly in his country, Alfani was compelled to address this in the form of a book. The ideas he suggests to alleviate the situation is what he regards as alternative strategies to develop a crumbling continent. Alfani believes that development should be given priority. He laments that most of the continent's resources are misused by a handful of citizens and dumped in the most worthless personal luxuries and expenditures such as civil and religious wars. About HIV/AIDS in Africa, he simply but firmly says that no matter how complicated the disease can be, the chance is that it can be reversed if there'll be a systematic paradigm shift in people's minds. From the experience of land reform in Zimbabwe as well as severe hunger caused by extremely low rate of food production in many African states, he scoffs the continent's inability to invest in the land. He also blames contemporary African leaders for their reluctance to embrace the breeze of development, and accuses politicians of treating ordinary citizens cheaply. In this book, he offers a simple definition of the word "development" when he equates it to a walk from where people have been getting delayed to where they would like to be. For Africa, this means joining other continents or even taking an extra mile. On the other hand, he warns his readers not to take his book as a compilation of some absolute "do's" but to consider it as a guide or help. The implementation of his suggestions is absolutely a personal issue. Alfani's book is not only engaging but also informative.