Nkrumah

GHANA, by Kwame Nkrumah.

On March 6, 1957, the former colony of the Gold Coast became an independent nation within the British Commonwealth and took the name of Ghana, thereby recalling a West African empire of medieval times.

The leader of Ghana’s independence struggle has now told his story. Primarily it is a portrait of Kwame Nkrumah the man, and to that extent using Ghana as his title may be misleading. The book, like the events it describes, leaves one in no doubt that it was largely due to Nkrumah’s leader. ship that Ghana won its independence; yet the identification of one man with his country does poor justice to the sacrifices of the rest.

As Nkrumah sees himself, he is a man of immense patience who has suffered a great deal. He is not without humor—indeed, that virtue shines through the pages of his book. He also has grit. A man who has spent a childhood of poverty, in fear that his father would not be able to find the threepenc...