Where Africans once fought ruling powers, now they battle a ruling perception. Alex Perry's lyrical and meticulous exploration of the new Africa required a spell in jail, visits to numerous wars and, eventually, his resignation as a magazine correspondent. But this is no tale of African woe. Taking the Great Rift Valley - the geological fault that will eventually tear Africa in two - as his central metaphor, Perry explores the split between a resurgent Africa and a world at odds with its rise: between rich and poor, between Western ideals and Western reality, and between African dreams and African achievement. Using his unique first-hand experience and interviews, Perry overturns our misconceptions and plots the new dynamics shaping the continent to reveal the stunning face of modern Africa. He uncovers a place that is defiantly rising from centuries of oppression to become an economic and political titan: where cash is becoming a thing of the past, where astronomers are unlocking the origin of life and where, 25 years after Live Aid, Ethiopia's first yuppies are traders on an electronic food exchange. THE RIFT is an evocative and insightful picture of this fascinating and rapidly changing continent, where unpredictability is the only consistency.