Help finding a non-fiction book about Africa.

I am hoping someone on this thread might know a book about Africa that I’ve been thinking about for over 20 yrs but don’t know the name!

I remember very very very little- it was a book about Africa and all I remember is the first chapter (or maybe the preface or an introduction) saying very high level statements about the continent such as how the huge deserts, the coastline, colonialism, influences, varying eco and political diversity, poverty etc has let to it being such a complex continent with unique history. I remember a statement along the lines of if we don’t start paying attention to africa and it’s problems etc it’ll be bad. It was a very well written short synopsis (unlike my very poor written memory of it) of the upcoming pages . I know this is likely impossible to identify which book that is by that- but I so so badly have wanted to find this book! Is there a chance anyone happens to have an idea? I know it’s not a lot to go on. The book had to have been published before 1995 or 1996.

Just for (irrelevant) background- I was living w a boyfriend in the mid 1990 who got this book and I read the preface/intro mentioned above and was fascinated and was planning to read it when he finished but we literally broke up when he was reading it. I’ve thought often about that book and had no clue how to go about finding it, but, seeing this thread, I thought I’d throw it out here.