Eurocentrism

Achebe's main complaint is that the author's description of Africa is highly skewed by his Eurocentric mindset.  That such a novel by such an author is regarded by the west's literature-elite as one of man's greatest novels concerns Achebe greatly, to say the least.  Not long after Europeans learned to fare the seas, they took on a colonialist mindset towards Africa, in addition to Asia and eventually the Americas.  A distinct change occurred in the 19th and early 20th centuries.  Europe's colonial powers began to liberate their subjugated peoples abroad from forced adaptation of European societal norms.  However, then began the neocolonialist movement, wherein Europe's powers used their economic might (and military might, when necessary) to enslave the "free" rest of the world to the European markets at large.  I highly recommend watching Gillo Pontecorvo's 1969 film Burn!, an effectively objective depiction of Europe's transition from outright colonialism to economic neocolonialism, which also happens to star Marlon Brando.  That film bears much similarity to Apocalypse Now.  The latter was, at the time of its release, a modern version of the true story, providing the viewer an intense, yet unbiased depiction of the real consequences of the politically- and economically-motivated Vietnam War.  Admittedly, the westerners' "enemies" get significantly less screen time in Apocalypse Now, but the scenes that depict them effectively display the ambiguity of which side of the conflict is right and/or wrong.  Apocalypse Now attempts to provide a glimpse of the psychological effects military conflict has on soldiers, a viewpoint lacking in Burn!