In his “North Africa” trilogy Mack Reynolds argues that a future African continent abandoned by the rest of the world might achieve prosperity if it were unified and brought under the control of a benevolent dictator—here, African-American sociologist Homer Crawford, who under the name of El Hassan strives for “the uniting and modernization of the continent of my racial heritage.” Serialized in Analog magazine Dec 1961–Jan 1962, but was not published in book form until 1972