From the glory of Amilcar Cabral to the shame of narco-statehood, political scientist Patrick Chabal, recently deceased, and historian Toby Green examine in this collection of articles the fate of Guinea-Bissau. The first three chapters discuss the country's ambivalent historical legacy. Green describes the persisting fluidity of affiliations despite colonial attempts at solidifying ethnicity. Forrest depicts the weak state formation in Portuguese Guinea (no settlers, little provision of public goods and economic stimulation, a colonial state run from Cape Verde, a legacy of violence and arbitrary rule), all this however tempered by the citizens' ‘legacy of activism, of personal competency and of confidence vis-à-vis perceived-to-be illegitimate rulers’ (p. 43). Havik analyses the state's historical negligence vis-à-vis subsistence farming, its preference for cash crops, failed modernisation through plantation economy and then large-scale farming, continuing attempts by urban elites to control rural surplus, but also a successful appropriation of cash crop production by smallholders.

The second part more or less opens with the war of 1998–1999, with four chapters discussing mid-range social trends. In continuity to Havik, Temudo and Abrantes describe how ‘labour shortage, investment in one cash crop, dependence upon the market for food supply, increased use of credit … and climatic change have created a downward spiral of food insecurity and indebtedness among many smallholders’ (p. 97). Credit shocks resulting from instability and mounting tensions over land rights are making things worse. Yet they detect a new turn, as rural producers realise the dangers of dependence on cashew. Sarro and de Barros focus on religion, noting a move from religions of contract (with spirit shrines) to more universalising religions of prayers. Wahabbi Islam and evangelism in particular are making headway. To the youth, they offer ‘a right-now and ready-made adulthood’ (p. 118) and to all, prosaically, ‘hospitals, wells and schools’ (p. 120). All this happens for now in a context of convivencia – both as syncretism and as ‘compartmentalized respect for the other's religion’ (p. 112). As for Ly, he recalls the gap between the promises of female emancipation borne by Cabral and the disappointing reality since independence, finding it a major cause in the failure of the state to bring about development. Nafafé discusses Guinea-Bissau's growing international migration – a drain on brains, and with little gain, as migrants invest mostly in their country of settlement.

The final part deals with the current politics. Kohl provides a detailed account of recent politics, making it clear that ethnicity is little more than a pretext. He admits to an increasing ethnicisation, notably among the Balanta, but much like Green, he notes it is limited to politics, and overplayed and encouraged by the perceptions of international operators. Massey describes international interventions in the Guinean mess – many actors and little reform overall, as rivalries and intermittent engagement combine. He notes however that the junta did step down and allowed the elections in 2014, finding in the arrest of Admiral na Tchuto by the US Drugs Enforcement Agency a turning point. Ceesay takes up the impact of narco-trafficking in the sub-region, discussing how Senegal and the Gambia have been affected and involved by developments in Bissau.

To go beyond the caricature that Guinea-Bissau has become for lazy media and hurried diplomats, the historical depth and nuances which several authors bring to the dominant narrative are welcome. Analyses of religious change, though somewhat preliminary, or of the rural dynamics are inspiring. So is the two-part discussion of ethnicity (interestingly, Green and Kohl disagree over the reality of the Guinea/Cape-Verdean divide around the 1980 coup). Taken together, these texts give an interesting picture, which Green does a good job of bringing forth in his introduction where he describes the country's bizarre mix of permanent crisis and relative peacefulness and rightly notes the state is an irrelevance to most Guinean citizens. And Green is certainly right to analyse the state's low-legitimacy neopatrimonal functioning as inscribed in ‘structural economic inequalities on the global stage’ (p. 8).

Unfortunately, the chapters are unequally grounded in recent fieldwork. Some are summaries of previously published work, sometimes dated. This is particularly problematic where the discussion tackles the more controversial, hard to approach, immediate topics – the army, international relations, party politics, political economy and drug trafficking. On these aspects, analyses can be confused and confusing (and occasionally mistaken), often falling back on the dominant narrative. Ceesay, for instance, while noting (correctly) that drugs trafficking is a regional issue, seems to lay the blame squarely on Guinea-Bissau. His description of the Gambia as a virtuous player in regional politics fails to convince – it was in the Gambia, after all, that Guinean Admiral-cum-drugs-trafficker Bubo na Tchuto took refuge after his 2008 coup attempt. Given the paucity of solid information, can one say, as Green does, that the drugs trade is the country's ‘major resource’ (p. 231)? On drugs, no chapter in the book comes near the careful and informed thoughtfulness of Shaw's article published in this journal last year. Several chapters tend to make the military the deus ex machina while what is remarkable is in fact how shy the Guinean military have long been at exerting power. In a way, the book stops at the study of Bissau's real powerhouses: the shifting coalitions of officials, politicians, businessmen and officers (and their occasional foreign backers, states or companies) whose moves have made the game in the city of Bissau for decades, threatening to stifle the whole country.