“A brilliant and truly original account of the fate of postcolonial developmentalist ambitions in the first decades of independence. Ably integrating personal life histories with national politics and global institutions, Ambition and Adjustment points the way to a valuable new approach to the global history of the late twentieth century. Indispensable reading for anyone interested in international development and the postcolonial predicament.”

David Engerman | author of "Apostles of Development: Six Economists and the World They Made"

“Priya Lal tells the twentieth-century history of African states to show how independence was always provisional—and how austerity policies were its limiting force. Ambition and Adjustment is an essential mapping of how self-determination gets sacrificed to economics.”

Clara E. Mattei | author of "The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism"

"Elegant, ambitious, and deeply humane, this book transforms our understanding of postcolonial Africa by illuminating the lives of the doctors, professors, and students who carried the burdens of nation-building. With remarkable intellectual range, it reveals how dreams of sovereignty, welfare, and social justice became entangled with migration, austerity, and global inequality. A masterful work of history, it dissolves easy binaries and restores African actors to the center of the modern world’s making."

Kenda Mutongi | author of "Matatu: A History of Popular Transportation in Kenya"