Gold mingles with dross on Mazrui's picaresque journey through African and Western history, culture and politics. In assaying Africa's international relations, the author ultimately, although haphazardly, returns to an important truth: the power of race and culture in Africa's relations with the West. Discussing African political formation, his overriding theme, not unpredictably, is assimilation - of the entire panoply of world culture, including that of the West.