There is insidious fear across Kenya from rising costs of living, rampant spectacular crime, bizarre terrorist events and a sense that the future is clouded. The fear is making people angry and hateful, as depicted in this fictional account.

Although it starts with a bang, bringing to light some shocking and unfortunately typical facts about capitalistic accumulation, ‘Tyranny of experts’ is a frustrating book because of the author’s black and white approach, his libertarian dogmatism, his apparent lack of awareness of the history of certain political ideas, and his method of reasoning which favours numerous anecdotes over systematic analysis.

Western countries have relied heavily on military force in their purported war against terrorism, but the root causes of the proliferation of terrorist activity will not be addressed solely by military means. Social, political and economic factors need attention.

The danger of focusing solely on Zuma, and seeing all of the scandals as simply being linked to his clearly flawed personality, is that it runs the risk of missing the point that the events surrounding him are symptoms of much deeper problems.

The book is a tale of opportunism, spoliation, misappropriation and dispossession. The arrival of Chinese in Africa in drovees lately is arguably the latest chapter in a very long narrative of empire building through emigration.