Uganda, once described as the "Pearl of Africa" by Sir Winston Churchill (1874–1965), underwent major transformations in the first four decades of its independence. At independence in 1962 Uganda's economy was flourishing. Indeed, it was one of the strongest in postcolonial sub-Saharan Africa. Uganda was thus one of the most agriculturally fertile, economically prosperous, and literate countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Nevertheless, like many other newly independent African states, the former British protectorate was plagued at the same time by a lack of unifying nationalism. This served to exacerbate the existing ethnic, religious, and regional divisions within the country, leading to almost two decades of civil war in the 1970s and 1980s. Uganda in the early twenty-first century was at a crossroads: Although some democratic inroads had been made under the "Movement" regime of President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni (b. 1944), there were troubling signs of authoritarianism lurking in the background.

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