African history Books

Book SynopsisBeginning with antiquity, Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora captures the essential political, cultural, social, and economic developments that shaped the black experience. The second edition updates the text of the previous edition to be current with the most recent research on the African Diaspora.Trade Review'No other study seeks to identify and globally illuminate the African diaspora from antiquity to the present day. This second edition of Reversing Sail is a must-read for general undergraduate course development, but also important for a popular informative and cognitive understanding of Africa's role in world history.' Margaret Washington, Cornell University, New York'This gem of a book conveys the uniqueness of the African diaspora among migrations of humankind. Gomez, the leading chronicler of the diaspora, elicits insight and inspiration in tracing the achievements of antiquity, the brave and effective responses to centuries of enslavement and empire, and the recent generations of creative genius in cultural leadership.' Patrick Manning, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of World History, Emeritus, University of Pittsburgh'In Reversing Sail, Michael A. Gomez gives us the full sweep of the early African diaspora - not just the story of slavery, but the story of Africans with their lives, their languages, and their civilization as it encountered Europe. For those who were enslaved, the story goes beyond the bare-bones narrative of plantation and service to include the transformation of African culture by that of America, and the African part in the creation of the culture of the Americas.' John Thornton, Boston University'Reversing Sail will endure as the most competent book to introduce generations of students to what we now characterize as the African diaspora, as well as yielding considerable knowledge on the Indian Ocean, the Black Atlantic, Atlantic History, and World History.' Toyin Falola, Frances and Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities, University of Texas, Austin'Reversing Sail succeeds beautifully in its goal of introducing readers to the challenges and rewards of studying the African diaspora and laying out categories for making sense of an enormously rich subject. In so doing, Gomez demonstrates the value of approaching the stories of the African diaspora with a 'diasporic lens.'' Harvey Hill, Anglican and Episcopal History ReviewTable of ContentsPart I. 'Old' World Dimensions and the First Wave: 1. Antiquity; 2. Africans and the Bible; 3. Africans and the Islamic World; Part II. 'New' World Realities and Diaspora's Second Wave (to 1945): 4. Transatlantic moment and the dawn of modernity; 5. Enslavement; 6. Asserting the right to be; 7. Reconnecting; Part III. Empire's Dismantling and the Third Wave (since 1945): 8. Movement people; 9. Global Africa in the era of Mandela and Obama; Epilogue; Index.

Read more less

Book SynopsisBronwen Everill offers a new perspective on African global history, applying a comparative approach to freed slave settlers in Sierra Leone and Liberia to understand their role in the anti-slavery colonization movements of Britain and America.Table of ContentsList of Maps, Tables, and Illustrations Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction PART I: FOUNDATIONS Transatlantic Anti-Slavery Networks An African Middle Class Americans in Africa PART II: INTERACTIONS The Abolitionist Propaganda War Slave Trade Interventionism Commercial Rivalry and Liberian Independence Arguments for Colonial Expansion Epilogue: 1861 and Beyond Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book critically analyses the 2011 intervention in Libya arguing that the manner in which the intervention was sanctioned, prosecuted and justified has a number of troubling implications for the both the future of humanitarian intervention and international peace and security.Trade Review"The Libyan intervention has been greeted as demonstrating the arrival of R2P. This excellent collection critically dissects these claims. Recommended for all those interested in the shifting debates concerning international intervention, law, ethics and humanitarian action." - David Chandler, University of Westminster, UK "This collection's incisive, critical analyses will set the terms of the debate over the 2011 Libya intervention, as well as shine much-needed light on the politics and future of the 'Responsibility to Protect' in Africa and around the world." - Adam Branch, San Diego State University, USATable of ContentsAcknowledgements Notes on Contributors List of Figures and Tables 1. Introduction: Libya and the Responsibility to Protect; Aidan Hehir 2. Humanitarianism, Responsibility or Rationality? Evaluating Intervention as State Strategy; Robert W. Murray 3. The Responsibility to Protect as the Apotheosis of Liberal Teleology; Aidan Hehir 4. 'My Fears, Alas, Were Not Unfounded:' Africa's Responses to the Libya Conflict; Alex de Waal 5. Africa's Emerging Regional Security Culture and the Intervention in Libya; Theresa Reinold 6. The Use – and Misuse – of R2P: the Case of Canada; Kim Richard Nossal 7. The (D)evolution of a Norm: R2P, the Bosnia Generation and Humanitarian Intervention in Libya; Eric A. Heinze and Brent J. Steele 8. The UN Security Council on Libya: Legitimation or Dissimulation?; Tom Keating 9. NATO's Intervention in Libya: A Humanitarian Success?; Alan Kuperman 10. Conclusion: The Responsibility to Protect after Libya; Robert W. Murray

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis volume aims to advance our understanding of beauty's role in modern consumer societies by bringing together fresh scholarship that addresses a common set of questions from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including especially history, but also black studies, women's studies, German studies, sociology, and anthropology.Trade Review'Chock full of useful information and marvelous counterintuitive insights alike, this spectacular collection demonstrates the enormous cultural and economic ramifications of the global pursuit of beauty. Ranging from Jewish pageant queens and the Nazi cosmetics industry through Kikuyu headshavings in Kenya, lipstick in Sumatra, and muscle-men in the postwar U.S. to Muslim male nose jobs in present-day Tehran, the essays scramble all our assumptions about what is traditional and what is modern. This is a fabulous and compelling book.' - Dagmar Herzog, Distinguished Professor, Graduate Center, City University of New York, USA, and author of Sexuality in Europe: A Twentieth-Century History 'This volume reveals the centrality of beauty and appearance in modern societies, illuminating consumer cultures, technologies of the body, and concepts of identity and difference in the twentieth century. With topics ranging from cosmetics and soap to beauty pageants and plastic surgery, these excellent essays give particular insight into the tensions between the global expansion of Western beauty culture and the tenacity of local practices.' - Kathy Peiss, Nichols Professor of American History, University of Pennsylvania, USA, and author of Zoot Suit: The Enigmatic Career of an Extreme StyleTable of ContentsIntroduction: 'It Makes Princes of Those Who Have It': Beauty and Consumerism in the Twentieth Century; Hartmut Berghoff and Thomas Kühne PART I: BASIC DEVELOPMENTS AND KEY PROBLEMS 1. The Global and the Local in the Beauty Industry: A Historical Perspective; Geoffrey Jones 2. Consuming Bodies: The Commodification and Technification of Slenderness in the Twentieth Century; Ulrike Thoms 3. Medial Beauty: Three Sociological Theses on Late Modern Body Aesthetics; Michael R. Müller and Anne Sonnenmoser 4. The Harm in Beauty: Toni Morrison's Revisions of Racialized Traditional Theories of Aesthetics in The Bluest Eye; Althea Tait 5. Queer Beauty: Image and Acceptance in the Expanded Public Sphere; Jennifer V. Evans PART II: COSMOPOLITAN ATTEMPTS IN INTERWAR EUROPE 6. Miss Germany, Miss Europe, Miss Universe: Beauty Pageants in the Popular Media of the Weimar Republic; Mila Ganeva 7. Recognition for the 'Beautiful Jewess': Beauty Queens Crowned by Modern Jewish Print Media; Kerry Wallach 8. The Rise of Fashion Forecasting and Fashion Public Relations, 1920 1940: The History of Tobé and Bernays; Véronique Pouillard 9. 'The Beauty Soap of Film Stars': Lux Toilet Soap, Star Endorsements, and Building a Global Beauty Brand; Christina Burr 10. Beauty, Cosmetics, and Vernacular Ethnology in Weimar and Nazi Germany; Uta G. Poiger PART III: APPROPRIATIONS AND AGENCY IN AFRICA AND ASIA 11. Contesting Beauty Concepts in Precolonial and Colonial Kenya: Hierarchy, Resistance, and Identity; Christiane Reichart-Burikukiye 12. Imported Surgeries? Accounting for the Rise of Tehran's Nose-Job Industry; Sara Lenehan 13. Embodying Modernity: The Thrills and Ills of Being a Beautiful Woman in Tana Karo, North Sumatra; Karin Klenke

Read more less

Book SynopsisAfrican-American Female Mysticism: Nineteenth Century Religious Activism is an important book-length treatment of African-American female mysticism. The primary subjects of this book are three icons of black female spirituality and religious activism - Jarena Lee, Sojourner Truth, and Rebecca Cox Jackson.Trade ReviewTKTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. The Nineteenth-Century Contextual Landscape of African American Female Mysticism 2. On Defining Mysticism and the Sacred Social Worlds of African American Women 3. Standing Upon the Precipice: Community, Evil, and Black Female Subjectivity 4. God I Didn't Know You Were So Big: Apophatic Mysticism and Expanding World Views 5. Look at What You Have Done: Spiritual Power and Re-imagining the Divine 6. Wholly Weaving the Spider's Web: African American Women's Mystical Activism

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis volume provides a multidimensional assessment of the diverse ends of the European colonial empires, addressing different geographies, taking into account diverse chronologies of decolonization, and evaluating the specificities of each imperial configuration under appreciation (Portuguese, Belgian, French, British, Dutch).Trade Review'In this collection two ambitious Portuguese scholars assemble an impressive cast of contributors to rethink the demise - or reconfiguration - of European power in Africa. Eschewing morality plays and polemics for historical analysis, the authors add nuance and complexity to the decolonization, the most important phenomenon of 20th century history - making their book essential reading for the growing number of students interested in this crucial topic.' David C. Engerman, Brandeis University, USA 'It is perhaps surprising that decolonisation has remained stubbornly resistant to theorisation. Comparative analysis offers a means to redress things, making this collection especially valuable to researchers and students alike. Interrogating the meanings of decolonisation, its local and global implications, and its material consequences both foreseen and unforeseen, the essays in this collection complement one another well.' Martin Thomas, University of Exeter, UK 'With a range from the 1940s to the 1970s and beyond, the selection of distinguished and innovative younger historians guide the reader through conceptual issues in a way that is consistently compelling. The individual chapters are integrated into an overall, coherent account of a critical period in world history. A vital read for all those interested in the dissolution of the European colonial empires and the aftermath of decolonization.' Wm. Roger Louis, University of Texas, USATable of ContentsIntroduction: The Ends of Empire: Chronologies, Historiographies, and Trajectories; Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo and António Costa Pinto PART I: COMPETING DEVELOPMENTS: THE IDIOMS OF REFORM AND RESISTANCE 1. Development, Modernization, and the Social Sciences in the Era of Decolonization: The Examples of British and French Africa; Frederick Cooper 2. A Modernizing Empire? Politics, Culture and Economy in Portuguese Late Colonialism; Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo and António Costa Pinto 3. Commanders With or Without Machine-Guns: Robert Delavignette and the Future of the French-African 'Imperial Nation-State', 1956-58; Martin Shipway PART II: COMPARING ENDGAMES: THE MODI OPERANDI OF DECOLONIZATION 4. Imperial Endings and Small States: Disorderly Decolonization for Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal; Crawford Young 5. British, French and Portuguese Decolonization Compared: Political Culture and Strategic Options in Multilateral Consultations; Bruno Cardoso Reis 6. Exporting Britishness: Decolonisation in Africa, the British State and its Clients; Sarah Stockwell 7. Acceptable Levels? The Use and Threat of Violence in the Decolonization of British Central Africa, 1953-1965; Philip Murphy PART III: CONFRONTING INTERNATIONALS: THE (GEO)POLITICS OF DECOLONIZATION 8. Inside the Parliament of Man: Decolonization, Apartheid, and the Remaking of the United Nations, 1945-1970; Ryan Irwin 9. Cold War and Decolonisation in the Congo: Lumumba and the Neo-colonial Transfer of Power 1960; John Kent 10. The International Dimension of Portuguese Colonial Crisis, 1961-1968; Luís Nuno Rodrigues Last Days of Empire; John Darwin

Read more less

Book SynopsisJosiah Brownell received his Ph.D. from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London in 2009, and has a J.D. from the University Of Virginia School Of Law. His research focuses on Rhodesian history, comparative settler colonialism, and the end of the British Empire.Table of ContentsList of illustrations – ix List of abbreviations – xi Acknowledgements – xiii 1. Introduction: The Hidden War of Numbers in Rhodesia – 1 The Course of the Visible War – 4 Racial Numbers and the Nature of the Settler State – 7 The War of Numbers and the Nature of Rhodesia’s Racial Divisions – 14 The Hidden Ubiquity of Population Pressures – 16 The Historiography of Demographic Engineering – 20 Chapter Overview – 22 2. The Rationalism of Racial Population Imbalances: ‘A Matter of Political Consequences’ – 25 The Impact of the 1962 Census – 26 Counting, Controlling, and Regulating the African Population – 30 Proposed Solutions to the Population Problem – 35 The Casus Belli for the War of Numbers: the 1969 Census – 38 Control over the Numbers – 41 Conclusion – 42 3. The African Population Explosion: ‘The Greatest Problem’ – 45 Wealthy Populations, Poor Populations, and Neo=Malthusianism – 47 Historicising White Population Anxieties in Rhodesia – 50 The Origins of the State’s Population Policy – 56 The Failure of the State’s Population Policy – 63 Measuring the State’s Success – 66 Conclusion – 68 4. White Emigration: ‘There’s a Hole in the Bucket’ – 71 White Demography Reconsidered – 72 Exit, Voice, and Loyalty among White Rhodesians – 76 White Transience Explored – 79 The Economic Effects of White Emigration – 79 White Emigration and the Military Conflict – 81 The Political Consequences of White Emigration – 85 Engineering Emigration – 87 Conclusion – 94 5. Rhodesia’s Immigration Policy: ‘To Save Civilisation in this Country’ – 97 The Migration Market – 98 Discourses Concerning Immigration – 107 Economic Aspects of Immigration – 114 The Formation and Evolution of the State’s Immigration Policy – 116 Analysing the Post-UDI Immigration Yields – 124 Tensions and Contradictions in Rhodesia’s White Migration Policies – 128 Conclusion – 130 6. African Agency in the War of Numbers: ‘Nature is on Our Side’ – 131 White and African Perspectives on Population Matters – 132 The Politicisation of ‘Natural’ Growth Rates – 135 The Nexus between Population and Land – 137 Nationalist Propaganda – 141 African Influence on White Migration Patterns – 146 African Influence on the Rate of White Natural Increase – 149 Nationalist Resistance to the State’s Family Planning Initiatives – 154 Conclusion – 163 7. Conclusion – 165 Conundrums, Conflicts, and Contradictions within the State’s Population Policies – 169 The Timing of Rhodeisa’s Collapse – 173 Who was the Rhodesian Rebellion For? – 174 How Unique was Rhodesia’s Fate? – 177 Notes – 179 Bibliography – 223 Index – 233

Read more less