Halfway through this hugely readable volume of reportage and analysis, Richard Dowden tells us about the Senegalese Mourides. This small Muslim sect of maybe three million people is quite atypical of the continent, yet provides a unifying illustration of Dowden's main themes: African inventiveness, its ready embracing of new technologies and its infinite variety.

The Mourides are the face and sound of Africa that Europeans who have never visited that [...]

Anne Darwin was a "lying bitch", according to her son Mark. He and his brother had grieved and supported her over the disappearance and likely death of their father - her husband - only to learn, six years later, that their parents had enacted an elaborate hoax.

How could the sons not have known, some have asked. Folk wisdom has it you can tell when people are lying. They scratch [...]

Tropical cyclone Ivan struck Madagascar on 17 February at wind speeds of more than 200km per hour, affecting 14 regions and 44 districts. By 10 March when it had left the island, the death toll had reached 93 and more than 190,000 people had been displaced. Among the severely affected regions was Fenerive Est, where New Statesman subscribers have contributed to water and sanitation projects (NS, 3 December 2007).

Cyclones [...]

It's good, once a year, to have our prejudices confounded. Who'd have thought, for example, that two-thirds of young public-sector employees (the carelessly cruel bureaucrats of so many news stories and TV soaps) are motivated by the belief that their job is useful? Or that eight in ten of us now accept that car use has a serious effect on climate? The annual British Social Attitudes report not only surprises, [...]

"What did we tell you last time we were here?" shouts the man with the microphone.

"Wash Your Hands!" yell back 200 children aged around 5-11. They are seated on the grass verges of the crossroads at Amparatanana, a village on Madagascar's east coast, the audience for a travelling marionette show spreading the word about hygienic use of latrines, keeping water uncontaminated and, above all, hand-washing.

As Mr Clean upbraids [...]

We left Rome for the mountains when the temperature reached 38°C - more than 100°F - with 40°C expected. Romans in the Cinecittà suburb of 1950s apartment blocks have ways to deal with such heat. Life spills noisily outside at night when it's cool enough to eat; families shout above shrieking quiz shows into the small hours. Fellini's films celebrated the exuberance of this working-class part of Rome, but I [...]

Big Ben will not sound for the next four weeks or so. The 14-tonne hour-bell is taking a main tenance break. The four faces of the clock at the Palace of Westminster will still display the time, but the bongs that are broadcast around the globe and make Big Ben the most famous timepiece in the world will be silent.

The loss of an audible reminder of the time might [...]

It can't be easy being Leo Hickman. As the Guardian's "ethical living editor" he must come under constant scrutiny from friends and neighbours for perceived lapses in the high standards he sets himself and his readers. "Ha! Is that a disposable nappy on baby Hickman? Are those air-freighted Kenyan beans in Leo's trolley?"

So, picture the author of such titles as A Life Stripped Bare and The Good Life [...]

Fear has become a major weapon of oppression that is leading to a dangerously divided world, warns Amnesty International in its latest annual report. The global human rights watchdog also accuses Britain of serious human rights abuses including complicity in torture.

"The politics of fear" is being used, not only by terror groups, militias and dictatorships but, increasingly, by democratic governments, says Amnesty.

In a profoundly depressing catalogue of human [...]

Barbara Ehrenreich did not earn her reputation as one of America's most incisive social analysts by walking, still less dancing, on the sunny side of the street. In her celebrated book Nickel and Dimed, she worked her way through the US minimum-wage economy, learning that the pay of waitresses, Wal-Mart shelf-stackers and cleaners could buy you only the meanest living accommodation and the nastiest food. More recently, in Global Woman: [...]