Reporting from Equatorial Guinea in central Africa, the authors focus on the social transformations unfolding, as revenues from offshore oil extraction are used to build infrastructure on which rising labour productivity, industry, and progress depend. Pulled into the world market as never before, both a capitalist class and a working class are being born. Index, 160pp, UK. PATHFINDER BOOKS.

New in paperback. It is Lisbon in the year 1905 and our hero, Luis Bernardo Valenca, a 37-year-old bachelor and owner of a small shipping business, is revelling in the luxury of Lisbon's high society. Intellectually curious, he writes about politics in his spare time, believing that Portugal's vast empire is having a civilising effect on the far-off lands it has colonised. But his life is turned upside down when King Dom Carlos asks him to become governor of Portugal's smallest colony, the tiny island of Sao Tome e Principe, stuck out in the Atlantic off the coast of equatorial West Africa, whose economy rests almost entirely on its cocoa plantations. Translated from the Portuguese by Peter Bush. 384pp, UK. BLOOMSBURY.

Vibrant music from Equatorial Guinea. 12 tracks, 54:47mins, SPAIN.

Investigates the paradox at the heart of present-day Gulf of Guinea politics. The governance crisis festering throughout every one of the region's states ought to discourage outsiders from capital-intensive, long-term commercial involvement and cast doubts over the political survival of ruling cliques. However, the presence of large petroleum deposits radically changes this equation: the negative dynamics of state failure affect the general population but spare the oil nexus. The material and political resources made available by oil allow states to survive regardless of bad policies, facilitate their governing elites' material success regardless of reckless management, earn international allies regardless of erratic domestic conduct, and make companies want to invest regardless of risk. The recent oil boom only strengthens this paradoxical viability. Index, bib, 379pp, UK. HURST & CO.

A thorough survey of all aspects of Equatorial Guinea. Bibliography, index. Maps, 216pp, USA. 0389208612

Selected as one of the six best non-fiction books of 1990 by the New York Times Book Review, this is a compelling and entertasining account of the author's two-and-a-half year adventure in Equatorial Guinea, and his efforts to get this small bankrupt African nation on the path of structural development. xiv, 281pp. index. USA, BASIC BOOKS.

New, updated edition. On 7 March 2004, Zimbabwean police impounded a plane which flew in from South Africa with 64 alleged mercenaries on board. The group, led by Nick Du Toit and former SAS member Simon Mann, were planning a coup in Equatorial Guinea. Within a few days of the failed takeover, Du Toit appeared on TV and admitted everything, almost certainly after torture. Investigators soon found that the plot was funded not by oil tycoons but by celebrity investors. Several names were put forward, including Sir Mark Thatcher and Jeffrey Archer. The target of the coup was Obiang Nguema, the president of Equatorial Guinea, Africa's third largest oil producer. 336pp, UK. PROFILE BOOKS.