Architecture and Development: Israeli Construction in Sub-Saharan Africa and Settler Colonial Imagination, 1958–1973 by Ayala Levin (review)

example of a noncapitalistic approach to the RTD. Such interventions targeted toward addressing the root causes of unequal development not only serve to repair the gaps created by previous development pitfalls but hold the promise of positioning the next generation to take advantage of the benefits of development. This text provides what I would refer to as a hopeful look at development in Africa and advances the development discourse critically. It touches on some of the major critical barriers to development and examines some bold and new approaches to reversing “unconscious development.” One point of clarification that would have been helpful for the readers relates to the very first statement made in the first sentence of the introduction. The author writes, “From time immemorial, Africa has been ravaged by poverty and underdevelopment, despite its rich natural resources.” It would have been instructive if the author had explained or provided more insight into the situation referred to here or clarified the time frame (possibly marked by specific time frames in history). Does this time start before or after the exploitation of Africa’s abundant natural resources by European agents or after the exploitation of Africa’s human resources, which were invaluable for the building of European and Western economies, or after the colonial occupation of African territories that legalized the theft of natural, human intellectual, and cultural resources? Clarifying the time frame within which poverty and underdevelopment as it is known and experienced in Africa today set in or became a feature associated with this part of the world in which wealth (natural, human, cultural, intellectual) is endemic would help us as we continue to put Africa’s development challenges in perspective.