During the recent Ebola epidemic in West Africa, a number of Guinean friends expressed their frustration to me that their country is so little known or understood by outsiders. Indeed, Guinea was once relatively well-known beyond the region, for its role in decolonisation and African nationalism in the mid-20th century. Today, however, its history, culture, politics and people are often overlooked by others in favour of its larger neighbours. The journalist Bram Posthumus aims to counter this oversight in his informative new book, and to fill in some of the gaps for Anglophone readers.

The book's subtitle suggests a particular focus on cultural and ecological/extractive issues, and indeed Posthumus devotes one entire chapter to local music and musicians. Masks and minerals are relatively less examined, however, and for the most part the book reads as a political history of the country, from the late 19th century to the present. The author is particularly interested in the machinations of power in the post-colonial state. Most of his chapters thus examine instances of electoral fraud, corruption, political violence and tension surrounding the regimes of successive Guinean presidents, from Sékou Touré to current president Alpha Condé. The reader learns in some detail about elections in the early 1990s, for example, or about conditions in Guinea's most infamous prison in the 1970s.

Interspersed within these political histories are brief, sometimes fleeting, discussions of numerous other subjects, from female genital mutilation to the ecology of coastal mangroves or the refugee crisis of the 1990s and 2000s. At times, it is somewhat difficult to keep up with these various topics. Posthumus wants to explore a wide range of aspects of local life, yet this breadth means that subjects are sometimes hurriedly treated. In the music chapter, for example, we learn about a dizzying range of stars, genres and histories. Posthumus clearly loves Guinean music and, even at the risk of rushing us through his account, does not want to leave anything out.

Guinea: Masks, Music and Minerals begins in a lively, engaging style, and I imagined that it would be filled with personal stories, anecdotes and eye-witness accounts. Most of the book consists of a tightly condensed overview, however, often based on other existing texts and sources. There are occasional vignettes in which Posthumus references his own conversations with working people or families or politicians. These moments give a glimpse of the human beings behind the history – a taxi-man who struggles to buy the vehicle he has long been driving, or the mothers of two boys who froze to death as stowaways in a Brussels-bound airplane. It would be enriching to know more about Posthumus's encounters with these and other individuals during his many years of experience in Guinea. Indeed, more of their stories would have balanced out the overall bleak picture of despair and bad governance that the book paints. The local voices that are directly represented at times offer some nuance in this regard. For example, more than one Guinean that Posthumus meets declares his love of his country, such as the regional bureaucrat who proudly states that he has never left; or the pharmacist who emigrated to France but returned because he ‘could not wait to get back’. These statements stand in contrast to the litany of hardships the book recounts, and for anyone who knows Guinea, they faithfully reflect the mixed legacies of heritage, upheaval, pain and pride in local experience.

Overall, however, Guinea: Masks, Music and Minerals is packed with information, and should be of interest to anyone who wishes to have a broad overview of local history, politics and culture in this country.