Richer than all his Tribe jumps ahead from the brutal transition to independence that concluded the first book. Now the fictional island country of Pharamaul is independent, though still part of the Commonwealth with the Queen at its head. David Bracken is the head of the civil service and has two elementary school age children. He is on good terms with the ex-chief now Prime Minister, Dinamaula and working with his new Pharamaulian counterpart. Things have settled down from the upheaval, though getting ready to upheave very soon), though there is still discontent from the Whites who have businesses, servants, etc.
This book is done in a series of vignettes (though each one is much longer and more narrative than just a vignette) with some time skips between each one, so a lot happens. On the political side, the Africans want to move faster to independence than Bracken wishes. They jump to become a Republic (and the Prime Minister becoming President) and then to a really scary tyranny, culminating in genocide. Though there is a lot of thinking I don't agree with in the book, this progression felt terrifyingly realistic. On the characters side, we continue to follow David Bracken and his family and that becomes the most solid link to the first book, but most of the side characters leave quite quickly when things turn against them. We get a new white, English character, Paul Jordan who is the aide to the president, both treated with contempt but also kept around because Dinamaula depends on him. He is young and single and we get the romantic angle with him meeting a young Chinese-American woman on his trip to the United Nations (there is some cringeworthy orientalism in the description of their sexy time together, but mostly she is well created and a real person).
The bias of the benevolent colonialism is still the prevalent theme here, with a massive lack of self-awareness endemic to that mindset, yet I found it much less offensive. Monsarrat spends a lot of time exposing and critiquing the excesses, corruption and ultimately brutality of the Africans being in charge and draws it up like it's because "they aren't ready for civilization" rather than understanding where the culture of authority and violent repression may have come from in the first place. Despite that, he equivocates in the end, when Bracken is met with a shrug of the shoulders from his own government and finally a fairly thoughtful soliloquy by his retired boss, who lays out how the African will never forget the atrocities laid on them by colonialism. I wouldn't say it is redemption but this book delivers a more nuanced portrayal of the challenges of moving from colonial rule to independence than the first book does in depicting the initial transition. And it is pretty scathingly critical of almost every character, except the British mid-level civil servants, Jordan and Bracken, who are the innocent, right-minded functionaries trying their best as the structures around them collapse and their leaders betray them.
From a functional perspective, the book really does an almost excellent job of portraying the challenges of moving from colonialism to independence. The solution according to Bracken is to go slowly, but Monsarrat does a good job of showing how that would almost never happen in this context. He portrays the interference of the Russians as a strong factor (with a ridiculous coda at the end, suggesting the Pharamaul will become a launching point for nuclear bombs and that Lord Protector Dinamaul could take over all of Africa and then possibly the world), as well as the "Afro-Asian" block of newly liberated ex-colonialist countries, who unite at the UN. Here is where his blinders are at their worst, portraying a situation that is disturbingly similar to the right-wing racists today who argue that white people are somehow victims of racism and crushed under the woke ideology. He makes it seem like this Afro-Asian block has basically dominated the UN while white liberals desperately kowtow to them. He almost completely ignores the massive power of the large corporations who were doing everything they could, with the assistance of western governments to destabilize the new independent governments and continue to steal their resources. I keep getting back to critiquing Monsarrat's colonialist viewpoint, but my main takeaway was that the actual portrayal of what happened and (mostly) why it happened is quite convincing and richly portrayed. Colonel Mboku, the police officer initially recruited by the English who rises to become the terrifying fist of Dinamaula seems very realistic.
Finally, while the conclusion is far more horrific and destructive than the violence that led to independence at the end of the first book, Monsarrat avoids the sexual violence to the female characters in this one (though the threat is hovering around). It all just felt much more real and less manipulative here and made for a very impactful book.
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