African history Books
Pelagic Publishing Africas Threatened Rhinos
Book SynopsisAfrica?s surviving rhinos are seriously threatened. Poaching for their horns, massive extermination by ?sports? hunters in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century and progressive habitat loss have all driven black and white rhino close to the edge. This book considers human interactions with these magnificent and enigmatic animals ? charting hunting for food and hides, and then hunting for horn to meet external demand for this much-coveted commodity, as well as peaceful coexistence, over the course of three millennia. With only two females alive in a closely protected reserve in Kenya, the Northern White Rhino is on the brink of extinction. The Southern White Rhino was increasing in numbers, but poaching in South Africa, Botswana and Namibia has reduced the population to fewer than 20,000, while Black Rhino hovering around the 5,000?6,000 mark, also with the danger of extirpation everywhere but in parts of eastern and southern Africa. Many books have been written on poaching and the decline of the rhino, often from a very personal, engaged viewpoint. This volume takes the reader into important new territory, showing how human agency has led to the situation we now face. Covering the history of commercial and sporting exploitation of rhino, it brings the picture up to date with an overview of contemporary conservation and anti-poaching operations. The urgent book is a significant contribution to our understanding of wildlife on the African continent.
£28.50
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Blood River 1838
Book SynopsisA myth-shattering study of the first clash between the Zulu kingdom and European interlopers and its dramatic effects on Boer and Zulu alike. By the 1830s, the Zulu kingdom was consolidating its power as the strongest African polity in the south-east, but was under growing pressure from British traders and hunters on the coast, and descendants of the early Dutch settlers at the Cape the Boers. In 1837, the vanguard of the Boers'' Great Trek migration reached the borders of Zulu territory, causing alarm. When the Boer leader Piet Retief and his followers were massacred in cold blood, war broke out. Although the initial Boer counter-attacks were defeated by the Zulus, in December 1838 a new Trekker offensive resulted in a nation-defining clash between Boer and Zulu at the battle of Blood River. In this ground-breaking and carefully balanced new work, containing stunning artwork and detailed maps, Ian Knight explores what has long been a controversial and partis
£15.29
Hackett Publishing Co, Inc Afonso I Mvemba a Nzinga, King of Kongo: His Life
Book Synopsis"John K. Thornton’s new book is another must-read. It contains both translations of the extant letters of the most significant king of Kongo’s history, Afonso I (r. 1506–1542), and a powerful, learned, and highly readable analysis of what these letters tell us about the life and times of one of the most important rulers anywhere in the world during the sixteenth century. This book will be essential reading for scholars, teachers, and students engaged with the history of the Kingdom of Kongo." —Toby Green, King’s College LondonTrade Review"Historians of Africa and the Atlantic World have long known of King Afonso I’s pioneering efforts in establishing the Catholic Church in Kongo, as well as his efforts in fighting the Portuguese slave trade. But until now there has been no authoritative biography of one of the world’s most important political figures of the sixteenth century. Thornton’s account fills this gap, vividly revealing Afonso’s complicated life and legacies on the global stage. As Thornton deftly demonstrates, Afonso was neither a victim of European deception nor a naïve dupe. Rather, he was an astute, innovative statesman who advanced Kongolese political interests both at home and abroad. "Accompanying Thornton’s biography are unique, translated letters penned by Afonso that will also be of great interest to historians of Africa and the Atlantic World. In these letters, Afonso reveals his firsthand thoughts on Kongolese political sovereignty, the distinctiveness of Kongolese Christianity, and his demands to control the slave trade in his kingdom. Additionally, he expresses his desires to expand the technological capacity of the kingdom through education and literacy campaigns, as well as by offering apprenticeships in carpentry, masonry, and medicine. Afonso’s letters, along with those of his European and African contemporaries, are a treasure trove of primary source materials that reveal Kongo’s key role in early modern Atlantic history.” —James H. Sweet, University of Wisconsin-Madison"Only decades of research and engagement with primary sources and centuries of secondary historical analysis could yield such a detailed, insightful account of a pivotal reign in the history of Kongo, Atlantic Africa, and the early modern world at large. It may be the author’s most impressive book yet. “Both the biography and the translated letters will serve for many years to come as sources for research and material for teaching. They will bring knowledge about Afonso, Kongo, and their world-shaping role in the early modern period to students and researchers well beyond specialist circles. I look forward to the new wave of research, discoveries, and debates the book will spur.” —Cécile Fromont, Yale University"This is a page-turner that students and their professors will appreciate. Through a compelling narrative and translated primary sources focused on the life of an important African leader, Thornton examines larger issues around African development, religions conversion, slavery, the rise of the Atlantic trade in enslaved people, and interconnectedness of the 16th-century world." —Walter Hawthorne, Michigan State University"With this monograph, John K. Thornton, the doyen of West Central African history, has not only further cemented his place in the field, but has also steered the 'biographical turn' in the precolonial history of Africa into a new phase. This is regional history on a grand scale, an exceptional feat for Sub-Saharan Africa during the first half of the XVIth century, made possible by a career-long passion with understanding the Kingdom of Kongo." —José C. Curto, History, York University, Canada"Never has the voice of the ruler of the early sixteenth-century Kongo Kingdom, the renowned Christian Mwene Kongo, King Afonso, resonated in language so accessible to a modern audience and yet so faithful to original historical context. Luís Madureira provides a superb translation of Afonso's most significant correspondence along with an insightful translator’s note that contributes to confidence in his rigorous effort. Scholars and students can at last understand the original meaning of Afonso's letters. "With the translation and contextualization provided here, Afonso’s complaints of Portuguese slave trading, for example, can be better understood. Other episodes recounted in the letters, such as Afonso’s victory over his non-Christian brother, attributed to the miraculous appearance of Saint James, will provide for fascinating class discussions. Going beyond its key contribution to African history, this edition will be widely used in the study and teaching of early modern global history.” —David Gordon, Bowdoin College
£20.69
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Tangier
Book SynopsisIn this first guide to Tangier''s extraordinary cultural history , former BBC North Africa correspondent Richard Hamilton explores the city to find out what has inspired so many international writers, artists and musicians.In Tangier, the Moroccan novelist Mohamed Choukri wrote, everything is surreal and everything is possible.' In this intimate portrait, Hamilton explores hotels, cafés, alleyways and the city''s darkest secrets. Delving down through complex historical layers, he finds a frontier town that is comic, confounding and haunted by the ghosts of its past.Samuel Pepys thought God should destroy Tangier and St Francis of Assisi called it a city of madness and delusions.' Yet, throughout the centuries, it has also been a crucible of creativity. It was a turning point in Henri Matisse's artistic journey and had a profound impact on the founder of the Rolling Stones, Brian Jones.Tangier also produced two of the greatest American novels of the twentieth century: The Shel
£13.49
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Kenya
Book SynopsisCharles Hornsby holds a D.Phil on Kenyan politics from St Antony's College, Oxford and has combined a professional career in information technology with a deep engagement with Kenya. He is the co-author of Multi-Party Politics in Kenya (1998).Trade ReviewMagisterial * Richard Waller, Africa *...the definitive work on modern Kenya * Miles Osborne, International Journal of African Historical Studies *Table of Contents1: Introduction 2: Independence! 3: Struggle for the State, 1964-1965 4: Multi-Party, but not Democracy, 1966-1969 5: Golden Years, 1970-1974 6: Rigor Mortis, 1975-1978 7: Too Many Cooks, 1978-1983 8: Heavy Footsteps, 1984-1989 9: A Second Liberation? 1990-1992 10: Conflict and Change, 1993-1997 11: Unnatural Succession, 1998-2002 12: Back to the Future, 2003-2008 13: Epilogue: Cold War, 2008-2009 14: Conclusions Notes Bibliography Index
£25.99
Helion & Company Great Lakes Conflagration: Second Congo War,
Book Synopsis
£16.10
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Boer War A History
Book SynopsisDenis Judd is Professor Emeritus of Imperial and Commonwealth History, London Metropolitan University, and Professor at New York University in London. His books include Empire; George VI (both published by I.B.Tauris); The Lion and the Tiger: The Rise and Fall of the British Raj; Balfour and the British Empire; Radical Joe - A Life of Joseph Chamberlain; The Victorian Empire; Palmerston; The Crimean War and Jawaharlal Nehru. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Keith Surridge is an independent scholar. He is the author of Managing the South African War 1899-1902.Table of ContentsIllustrations Acknowledgements Maps Preface Introduction: An Irrepressible Conflict? PART I: THE BACKGROUND TO THE WAR British Rule, Confrontation and Compromise 1815-1886 The Descent to War 1886-1899 PART II: THE COMBATANTS 3. The British Army 4. Rallying the Empire 5. The Boers PART III: THE CAMPAIGNS 1899-1902 6. The Opening Battles, October 1899 7. The Disasters of Black Week, December 1899: The Battles of Stormberg, Magersfontein and Colenso, and their less disastrous prelude 8. Humiliation, January and February 1900: The Battles of Spion Kop and Vaal Krantz 9. ‘I thank God we have kept the flag flying’: The Besieged Towns of Ladysmith, Kimberley and Mafeking 10. The Turn of the Tide, February 1900: The Relief of Kimberley, the Battle of Paardeberg, the Relief of Ladysmith 11. Marching to Pretoria (and Johannesburg): The British Advance through the Boer Republics, the Relief of Mafeking, the Start of the Guerrilla War 12. Methods of Barbarism? December 1900 to October 1901: The Guerrilla War, Farm Burning, the Concentration Camps 13. Seeking Peace, March 1900-June 1901 14. The Final Battles, May 1901-May 1902 PART IV: THE AMBIVALENCES OF WAR 15. Big Business, Capitalism and War 16. The Last of the Gentlemen’s Wars? 17. The Pro-Boers 18. Foreigners and the War 19. The Press and the War 20. The Literature of the War PART V: THE PEACE 21. The Talks Begin 22. Taking Stock Peace at Last
£18.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Last Storytellers: Tales from the Heart of
Book SynopsisAfter witnessing first-hand the death throes of this rich and captivating tradition, Richard Hamilton has tracked down the last few remaining storytellers of Morocco, recording stories that are replete with the mysteries and beauty of the Maghreb. Marrakech is the heart and lifeblood of Morocco's ancient storytelling tradition. For nearly a thousand years, storytellers have gathered in the Jemaa el Fna, the legendary square of the city, to recount ancient folktales and fables to rapt audiences. But this unique chain of oral tradition that has passed seamlessly from generation to generation is teetering on the brink of extinction. The competing distractions of television, movies and the internet have drawn the crowds away from the storytellers and few have the desire to learn the stories and continue their legacy. Moroccan tales have a huge educational, religious and moral impact on their audience, offering timeless values and guidance to all who listen. With their passing we risk losing something of Morocco's national psyche and also part of the world's tangible heritage. Those who have listened to the storytellers at Marrakech first-hand have witnessed something that is no longer part of this world, a treasure as precious as the planet's most endangered species and of immeasurable importance to humanity.Trade ReviewInspiring . . . brilliantly illustrates an ancient oral tradition in my country. I cannot but commend your untiring, meticulous work. Building on stories gathered directly from some of our most renowned storytellers, you have introduced readers to a time-honoured Moroccan tradition. -- Mohammed VI, King of MoroccoCharming, fantastical and lively collection. Like a genie emerging from a flask, The Last Storytellers produces a startling amount of pleasure from some very small packages.... Both men [author and interpreter] deserve much praise for the successful outcome of this endeavour. * Times Literary Supplement *Hamilton presents readers with a precious gift: a collection of content not quite like anything we have ever heard or seen before. Readers who might never reach Marrakech can find their own oasis by making a cup of mint tea and giving thanks for these enchanting stories rescued from oblivion. * New York Journal of Books *Think of this as a collection of Grimm’s fairy tales with plenty of added North African charm. * Lonely Planet *Hamilton does not only offer his readers a valuable, enchanting, interesting and entertaining read but also launches a cri de coeur to rescue this vanishing and traditional form of storytelling as it slowly falls into the abyss of forgetfulness. * North South Magazine *This is addictive material. * The National *A truly remarkable piece of literature. * Essential Travel Blog *Table of ContentsForeword: Circles in the Jemaa el Fna xiii Author’s Note Acknowledgements Introduction The Red Lantern The King and His Prime Minister The Gazelle with the Golden Horns The Imam and the Wager The Girl Who Fell in Love with the Hermit The Birth of the Sahara The Trials of Noureddine The Sultan and His Vizier’s Wife The Queen and the King, the Son of Amelkani Nour and the Sultan The Laundryman and the Fountain The Man Who Went Against His Father’s Wishes The Vizier and the Chicken The Fakir and the Frog The Two Hunchbacks El-Ghaliya Bent Mansour The Land and the Treasure The Statue and the Robber The Tailor, the Princess and the Eagle The Sultan and the Thief The Eyes of Ben’Adi The Shoemaker and the Bird The Vizier and the Barber Seven Coins and a Donkey The Sultan’s Daughter and the Leper The Nobleman and His Three Sons The Vengeance of Allah The Woman and the Black Cat Aicha Rmada The Traveller and the Pasha’s Daughter The Girl from Fes One Hundred and One Beheadings The Three Figs Suleiman, the Stork and the City of Gold The Woman and the Devil The Bird from the Land of Gabour The Pomegranate and the Talking Drum The Date Gatherers The Rich Woman and the Sacks of Corn Postscript
£13.49
Dorling Kindersley Ltd The Black History Book
Book Synopsis
£16.99
HarperCollins Publishers Africonomics
Book Synopsis''A historically insightful read''Financial Times ''A wry, rollicking, and provocative history'' Michael Taylor, author of The InterestA thought-provoking analysis of Africa''s relationship with economic imperialism' Astrid Madimba and Chinny Ukata, authors of It's A ContinentWe need to think differently about African economics.For centuries, Westerners have tried to fix' African economies. From the abolition of slavery onwards, missionaries, philanthropists, development economists and NGOs have arrived on the continent, full of good intentions and bad ideas. Their experiments have invariably gone awry, to the great surprise of all involved.In this short, bold story of Western economic thought about Africa, historian Bronwen Everill argues that these interventions fail because they start from a misguided premise: that African economies just need to be more like the West. Ignoring Africa''s own traditions of economic thought, Europeans and Americans assumed a set of universal economic laws that they thought could be applied anywhere. They enforced specifically Western ideas about growth, wealth, debt, unemployment, inflation, women's work and more, and used Western metrics to find African countries wanting.The West does not know better than African nations how an economy should be run. By laying bare the myths and realities of our tangled economic history, Africonomics moves from Western ignorance to African knowledge.*Shortlisted for the BCA African Business Book of the Year*
£21.25
Pan Macmillan We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be
Book SynopsisPhilip Gourevitch is the author of We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families. He is a staff writer for the New Yorker and editor of the Paris Review.
£10.79
HarperCollins Publishers Africonomics
Book Synopsis''A historically insightful read''Financial Times ''A wry, rollicking, and provocative history'' Michael Taylor, author of The InterestA thought-provoking analysis of Africa''s relationship with economic imperialism' Astrid Madimba and Chinny Ukata, authors of It's A ContinentWe need to think differently about African economics.For centuries, Westerners have tried to fix' African economies. From the abolition of slavery onwards, missionaries, philanthropists, development economists and NGOs have arrived on the continent, full of good intentions and bad ideas. Their experiments have invariably gone awry, to the great surprise of all involved.In this short, bold story of Western economic thought about Africa, historian Bronwen Everill argues that these interventions fail because they start from a misguided premise: that African economies just need to be more like the West. Ignoring Africa''s own traditions of economic thought, Europeans and Americans assumed a set of universal economic laws that they thought could be applied anywhere. They enforced specifically Western ideas about growth, wealth, debt, unemployment, inflation, women's work and more, and used Western metrics to find African countries wanting.The West does not know better than African nations how an economy should be run. By laying bare the myths and realities of our tangled economic history, Africonomics moves from Western ignorance to African knowledge.*Shortlisted for the BCA African Business Book of the Year*
£15.29
HarperCollins Publishers Can Feminism be African
Book SynopsisWhat happens when we consider Africa through a feminist lens and feminism through an African one? And what does it mean to centre selfhood in this journey?
£18.70
Faber & Faber Trapped in History
Book SynopsisTrapped in History tells how the British colonised Kenya and how African nationalism arose under Jomo Kenyatta. It describes the terrifying first attacks by the guerrilla freedom fighters known as Mau Mau. Though defeated, the Mau Mau hastened the end of British rule in Kenya. Trapped in History explores the effect the uprising on the author, who grew up as a child in the Kenya colony.The book is both a history, as well as a memoir, of the end of Empire.
£21.25
Simon & Schuster The Last Slave Ship: The True Story of How
Book SynopsisThe “enlightening” (The Guardian) true story of the last ship to carry enslaved people to America, the remarkable town its survivors’ founded after emancipation, and the complicated legacy their descendants carry with them to this day—by the journalist who discovered the ship’s remains.Fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed, the Clotilda became the last ship in history to bring enslaved Africans to the United States. The ship was scuttled and burned on arrival to hide the wealthy perpetrators to escape prosecution. Despite numerous efforts to find the sunken wreck, Clotilda remained hidden for the next 160 years. But in 2019, journalist Ben Raines made international news when he successfully concluded his obsessive quest through the swamps of Alabama to uncover one of our nation’s most important historical artifacts. Traveling from Alabama to the ancient African kingdom of Dahomey in modern-day Benin, Raines recounts the ship’s perilous journey, the story of its rediscovery, and its complex legacy. Against all odds, Africatown, the Alabama community founded by the captives of the Clotilda, prospered in the Jim Crow South. Zora Neale Hurston visited in 1927 to interview Cudjo Lewis, telling the story of his enslavement in the New York Times bestseller Barracoon. And yet the haunting memory of bondage has been passed on through generations. Clotilda is a ghost haunting three communities—the descendants of those transported into slavery, the descendants of their fellow Africans who sold them, and the descendants of their fellow American enslavers. This connection binds these groups together to this day. At the turn of the century, descendants of the captain who financed the Clotilda’s journey lived nearby—where, as significant players in the local real estate market, they disenfranchised and impoverished residents of Africatown. From these parallel stories emerges a profound depiction of America as it struggles to grapple with the traumatic past of slavery and the ways in which racial oppression continues to this day. And yet, at its heart, The Last Slave Ship remains optimistic—an epic tale of one community’s triumphs over great adversity and a celebration of the power of human curiosity to uncover the truth about our past and heal its wounds.Trade Review"The fast-paced narrative begins with the voyage and follows the Clotilda’s survivors beyond the Civil War....Raines vividly conjures the watery landscape into which the Africans stepped... Knowledge of these waterways also led Raines to locate the Clotilda in a place previous searchers had ignored." — The New York Times (Editors' Choice) "In our uncertain times, The Last Slave Ship.. is a welcome and affecting history lesson... Enlightening." — The Guardian "A multidimensional exploration of the Clotilda, its bad actors and the descendants of the survivors... an important, weighty, timely read." — The Atlanta Journal-Constitution "Ben Raines made headlines in 2019 when he discovered the remains of the Clotilda, the last ship to bring enslaved people to America. His gripping, affecting book chronicles his search for the vessel in the swamps of Alabama and tells the stories of its captives and their descendants."— The Christian Science Monitor (Best Books of February) "The Last Slave Ship is an action-packed, whip-smart true account that’s filled with science, history, and compassion. Readers will devour it." — The Washington Informer "Ben Raines’ passionate detective work led him to discover the most famous slave shipwreck… Raines has written a crucial chapter in this unique story of loss and exploitation, but also of unsurmountable strength and hopefulness. An inspiring and captivating book.” — Sylviane A. Diouf, PhD, author of Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America "The Last Slave Ship is all at once the true story of a terrible crime and its survivors, a riveting account of discovering the evidence its perpetrators hoped would never be found, and a moving attempt to grapple with its legacy. We may never ultimately be able to reckon adequately with slavery, but Ben Raines reminds us that the task’s immensity is no excuse for neglecting it. This is a powerful and important book."— Joshua Rothman, the Dept. of History professor at University of Alabama "Raines’ adroit descriptions of the people and events triggered by the voyage of Clotilda are not only riveting, but speak to the true spirits of all involved." — Darron Patterson, President of The Clotilda Descendants Association "An evocative and informative tale of exploitation, deceit, and resilience.”— Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A highly readable, elucidating narrative that investigates all the layers of a traumatic history.— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
£12.99
Fordham University Press Moroccan Other-Archives: History and Citizenship
Book SynopsisMoroccan Other-Archives investigates how histories of exclusion and silencing are written and rewritten in a postcolonial context that lacks organized and accessible archives. The book draws on cultural production concerning the “years of lead”—a period of authoritarianism and political violence between Morocco’s independence in 1956 and the death of King Hassan II in 1999—to examine the transformative roles memory and trauma play in reconstructing stories of three historically marginalized groups in Moroccan history: Berbers/Imazighen, Jews, and political prisoners. The book shows how Moroccan cultural production has become an other-archive: a set of textual, sonic, embodied, and visual sites that recover real or reimagined voices of these formerly suppressed and silenced constituencies of Moroccan society. Combining theoretical discussions with close reading of literary works, the book reenvisions both archives and the nation in postcolonial Morocco. By producing other-archives, Moroccan cultural creators transform the losses state violence inflicted on society during the years of lead into a source of civic engagement and historiographical agency, enabling the writing of histories about those Moroccans who have been excluded from official documentation and state-sanctioned histories. The book is multilingual and interdisciplinary, examining primary sources in Amazigh/Berber, Arabic, Darija, and French, and drawing on memory studies, literary theory, archival studies, anthropology, and historiography. In addition to showing how other-archives are created and operate, El Guabli elaborates how language, gender, class, race, and geographical distribution are co-constitutive of a historical and archival unsilencing that is foundational to citizenship in Morocco today.Table of ContentsPreface | ix Note on Transliteration | xiii List of Abbreviations | xv Introduction | 1 1. (Re)Invented Tradition and the Performance of Amazigh Other- Archives in Public Life | 26 2. Emplaced Memories of Jewish- Muslim Morocco | 63 3. Jewish- Muslim Intimacy and the History of a Lost Citizenship | 89 4. Making Tazmamart a Transnational Other- Archive | 115 5. Other- Archives Transform Moroccan Historiography | 150 Conclusion | 177 Acknowledgments | 189 Notes | 193 Bibliography | 253 Index | 281
£26.99
Indiana University Press Seeing the Unseen Arts of Power Associations on
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Seeing the Unseen's broadest impact will be its revisionist call for scholars to both recognize and abandon the structures of knowledge that have shaped the representation of African histories and worldviews, flattened African identities, and reinforced dangerous misconceptions of African lives as bounded by ethnicity, language, and tradition."—Victoria L. Rovine, University of North Carolina at Chapel HillTable of ContentsPrefaceAcknowledgmentsNote on NamesIntroduction1. Power Associations2. Assemblages3. Performers and Performances4. Unseeing Audiences5. Komo on ScreenCodaNotesBibliographyIndex
£21.59
C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd Amazons of Black Sparta: The Women Warriors of
Book SynopsisHistory is rife with tales of fighting women. More often than not, these stories prove more legend than history. Dating back to the Amazons of ancient Asia Minor, myths of fierce, autonomous women of martial excellence abound. And yet, the only thoroughly documented Amazons in world history are the women warriors of Dahomey, an eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Western African kingdom. Once dubbed a "small black Sparta," residents of Dahomey shared with the Spartans an intense militarism and sense of collectivism. Moreover, the women of both kingdoms prided themselves on bodies hardened from childhood by rigorous physical exercise. But Spartan women kept in shape to breed male warriors, Dahomean Amazons to kill them. Originally palace guards, the Amazons had evolved by the 1760s into professional troops armed mainly with muskets, machetes and clubs. Theoretically wives of the king and quartered in his palaces, they were sworn to celibacy on pain of death. In compensation they enjoyed a semi-sacred status and numerous privileges, including the right to own slaves. By the 1840s their numbers had grown to 6,000. The Amazons served under female officers and had their own bands, flags and insignia: they outdrilled, outshot and outfought men, became frontline troops and fought tenaciously and with great valour till the kingdom's defeat by France in 1892. The product of meticulous archival research, Amazons of Black Sparta is defined by Alpern's gift for narrative and will stand as the most comprehensive and accessible account of the woman warriors of Dahomey.Trade ReviewAlpern draws together the available material on this peculiar institution into an interesting and readable book. The author's meticulous literary and archival research indicates that these females were indeed formidable warriors in the turbulent nineteenth-century era of the slave trade and subsequent European colonial conquest ... Alpern's work is an informative study. -- W. Arens, ChoiceAlpern does very well in assembling most of the evidence about these intimidating women whose courage impressed even the Foreign Legion. He produces a very detailed picture from a wide variety of European and African sources. He provides a readable narrative of Dahomean military history from the state's origins to its defeat by France in 1892, ... [and] a mass of information on what these women wore, ate and sang, how they were recruited, trained and mobilised. -- Richard Rathbone, The TimesAlpern has written an impressively comprehensive study covering all aspects of this extraordinary military force - he describes them in fascinating detail - Altogether he has made an important scholarly contribution to the history of nineteenth-century West Africa in which the Amazon achievement has until now been scarcely mentioned. -- Christopher Fyfe, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History… and today they [the Amazons] exist as no more than footnotes to history. Only one scholarly work has been written about these women, Amazons of Black Sparta by Stanley B. Alpern. -- Stieg Larsson, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s NestA succint, yet comprehensive, survey of the history of Dahomey. ... Alpern is by no means the first writer to give an account of the Amazons of Dahomey. Yet, his is by far the most detailed and most convincing. ... Truly, Alpern's portrait of the Amazons is a well deserved encomium to the courage and dedication of these intrepid women warriors. ... [and] the feather in the cap of this extremely well-written book is [its] remarkable empathy. -- Africa Review of Books
£14.24
Princeton University Press Worldmaking after Empire
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Winner of the Frantz Fanon Prize, Caribbean Philosophical Association""Winner of the ASA Best Book Prize, African Studies Association""Winner of the First Book Award, Foundations of Political Theory Section of the American Political Science Association""Co-Winner of the W.E.B. Du Bois Distinguished Book Award, National Conference of Black Political Scientists""Co-Winner of the J. David Greenstone Book Prize, Politics & History Section of the American Political Science Association""Winner of the ISA Theory Best Book, Theory Section of the International Studies Association""One of Foreign Affairs' Best Books of 2020""It’s been a bad decade for politics, but a great decade for political theory. Three standouts for me were Shatema Threadcraft’s Intimate Justice, Adom Getachew’s Worldmaking after Empire, and Kathi Weeks’s The Problem With Work."---Amia Srinivasan, The Chronicle of Higher Education"[A] marvellous book . . . tracing a new narrative of the nature and significance of anti-colonial thought and politics over the middle decades of the 20th century. Challenging the standard view of decolonisation as a moment of European-style nationbuilding, Getatchew offers instead an account of anti-colonial theory and practice as "worldmaking"."---Jonathan Egid, New Humanist"A compelling look at how Black internationalist thought evolved throughout the postcolonial period and how its successes and failures . . . continue to shape global politics today."---Jennifer Williams, Foreign Policy
£21.25
The American University in Cairo Press A History of Egypt: From Earliest Times to the
Book SynopsisThis cohesive account of Egypt’s millennia-long past offers readers a sure guide through the corridors of Egypt’s past, from the mysterious predynastic kingdoms to the nation-state of the twenty-first century. The author addresses central issues such as how Egyptian history can be treated as a whole and how the west has shaped prevailing images of it, both through direct contact and through the lens of western scholarship. Drawing on current historical scholarship and his own research, Jason Thompson has written a remarkable work of synthesis and concision, offering students, travelers, and general readers alike an engaging one-volume narrative of the extraordinarily long course of human history by the Nile. This updated paperback edition contains new material on the 25 January Revolution, the rise and fall of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the new era of President Sisi.Trade Review"“Intended to offer travelers especially a basic background in Egyptian history, Thompson’s survey fluidly relates thousands of years of time. . . . An excellent introduction to Egyptian history.”—Gilbert Taylor, Booklist, ""A remarkable work of synthesis, cohesion, and understanding.""—Al-Ahram Weekly, ""[An] excellent summation of the flow of Egyptian history.""—Egyptian Archaeology, ""[The] dearth of comprehensive histories is answered handsomely by Thompson's survey.""—Saudi Aramco World"Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Preface Chronology Maps 1. The Gift of the Nile 2. The Birth of Egyptian Civilization: Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt 3. The Old Kingdom 4. The First Intermediate Period and the Middle Kingdom 5. The Second Intermediate Period and the New Kingdom 6. The Third Intermediate Period and the Late Period 7. Ptolemaic Egypt 8. Egypt in the Roman Empire 9. Coptic Egypt 10. The Advent of Islam 11. The Fatimids and Ayyubids 12. The Mamluks 13. Egypt in the Ottoman Empire 14. The Birth of Modern Egypt 15. Mid-Nineteenth-Century Egypt 16. The British Occupation of Egypt 17. The Parliamentary Era 18. Nasser 19. Sadat 20. Mubarak 21. Postscript to Revolution Notes Recommended Reading Image Sources
£16.95
Amava Heritage Publishing Pty Ltd Maqoma The legend of a great Xhosa warrior
Book Synopsis
£17.09
Egypt Exploration Society Temple Ritual at Abydos
Book SynopsisThe Temple of Sethos I at Abydos is one of the best-preserved monuments from the New Kingdom. This work was 1st published in two now long-out-of-print but much sought-after classics: Religious Ritual at Abydos (1973), and A Guide to Religious Ritual at Abydos (1981). This edition incorporates new material: a complete set of translations of the ritual inscriptions with their transliterations; simplified line drawings of the temple scenes; photographs from the archives of the Egypt Exploration Society; and images from A. M. Calverley and M. F. Broome, The Temple of King Sethos I at Abydos, available for the 1st time in a practical and affordable format.Table of ContentsIntroduction First and Second Courts First and Second Hypostyle Halls The Six Chapels of the Sanctuary Area The Chapel of King Sethos, the Nefertem-Ptah-Soker Complex, the Gallery of the Lists, the Corridor of the Bull, the Stairway Passage The Osiris Complex Service Rooms and Storerooms Conclusion Appendices Index of Deities Chronology of Dynasty 19 Notes Abbreviations Bibliography Additional Selective Bibliography
£44.99
James Currey General History of Africa Complete Set of Vols
Book SynopsisSPECIAL COMMENDATION in Africa's 100 Best Books of the Twentieth Century. The series is illustrated throughout with maps and black and white photographs. This set brings together all 8 volumes of the groundbreaking Unesco General History of Africa, which are all now available again as paperbacks. The series demonstrates the importance of African history from earliestpre-history, through the establishment of its ancient civilizations to the placing of Africa in the context of world history. The growth and development of African historiography, once written records became more common, documentthe triumph of Islam, the extension of trading relations, cultural exchanges and human contacts, as well as the impact and consequences of the slave trade. The European scramble for colonial territory in the 1880s is examined witha focus on the responses of Africans themselves to the economic and social aspects of colonial systems up to 1935, including the growth of anti-colonial movements and the strengthening of African political nationalism. The contributions document how the continent moved from international conflict under foreign domination to struggles for political sovereignty and economic independence. The last (unabridged) volume 8 examines the challenges of nation-building and the socio-cultural changes affecting the newly independent nations. The series is co-published in Africa with seven publishers, in the United States and Canada by the University of California Press, and in association with the UNESCO Press.Trade ReviewReviews of the Series: * . *... a real contribution to scholarship. - Roland Oliver in the * TLS *The General History of Africa was launched in 1970, when an International Scientific Committee of 39 scholars was formed to oversee the writing and publication of a complete survey of the African past, from pre-history to the present. The laudable aim of the project was to break free from the straightjacket of Eurocentrism, and to provide a history that reflected a range of African views without imposing any set historical interpretation. - David M. Anderson in * INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS *Table of ContentsGeneral History of Africa Vol 1: Methodology and African Prehistory [pbk abridged] General History of Africa Vol 2: Ancient Civilizations of Africa [pbk abridged] General History of Africa Vol 3: Africa from the 7th to the 11th Century [pbk abridged] General History of Africa Vol 4: Africa from the 12th to the 16th Century [pbk abridged] General History of Africa Vol 5: Africa from the 16th to the 18th Century [pbk abridged] General History of Africa Vol 6: Africa in the Nineteenth Century until the 1880s [pbk abridged] General History of Africa Vol 7: Africa under Colonial Domination 1880-1935 [pbk abridged] General History of Africa Vol 8: Africa since 1935 [pbk unabridged]
£117.00
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Youthquake: Why African Demography Should Matter
Book SynopsisA riveting study of Africa's demographics – its youth and growth – and what they mean for the continent, today and into the future. 'Essential reading' Guardian 'Intensely researched – and very important!' The Week 'The research in Youthquake is meticulous' Tim Marshall, Reaction 'Attempts to end the hysteria and ignorance surrounding demographic trends' New Statesman 'Meticulously researched, nuanced and brilliant' Mary Harper Africa's population growth in the last 50 years has been unprecedented. By mid-century, the continent will make up a quarter of the global population, compared to one-tenth in 1980. Africa's youth is the most striking aspect of its demography. As the rest of the world ages, almost 60 per cent of Africa's population is younger than 25 years old. This 'youthquake' will have immense consequences for the social, economic and political reality in Africa. Edward Paice presents a detailed, nuanced analysis of the varied demography of Africa. He rejects the fanciful over-optimism of some commentators and doom-laden prophecies of others, while scrutinising received wisdom, and carefully considering the ramifications of the youthquake for Africa and the world.Trade ReviewEssential reading for anyone who wants to understand Africa and its place in the world * Guardian *Paice's attempt to end the hysteria and ignorance surrounding demographic trends, and to remind us that how we respond to them is above all a political question, will increase understanding of the possibilities and challenges facing the world * New Statesman *The research in Youthquake is meticulous – there are more than 70 graphs and hundreds of facts -- Tim Marshall, ReactionAn in-depth look at Africa's population data, while calling for a sense of humility in discussions around this topic * Irish Times *One of the great qualities of this fascinating book is even-handedness... Very sober, very fact-based, non-ideological – cool, calm and collected -- Mark Steyn, GB NewsThe youth bulge heading Africa's way is real, and in the next 30 years it will throw up economic, social and political problems for African states the like of which the world has never before witnessed. This demographic surge is neither a catastrophe nor a boon, but it is a wicked problem: one for which there is no easy or satisfactory solution. In this utterly compelling and important book, Edward Paice disentangles the facts from the fictions, the truths from the falsehoods, and tells us why Africa's future will shape the futures of us all. This is a book none of us should ignore -- David M. Anderson, Professor of African History, University of WarwickThis meticulously researched, nuanced and brilliant book takes apart simplistic, hysterical myths about Africa's population growth and what it means for the continent and the rest of the world. It presents a powerful case for Africa to be viewed as central, not peripheral, to the future, making up a quarter of the world's population by 2050 and providing about one-third of its working-age population -- Mary Harper, Africa Editor, BBC World Service NewsIf there is one book to choose that dissects the demography of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, then this is it. Edward Paice has achieved the feat of assembling the data and examining the trends by country to show the possibilities and challenges that come with fertility trends moving at different speeds. Required reading for those interested in Africa's development -- Kwame Owino, CEO, The Institute of Economic Affairs (Kenya)I greatly admired the author's command of Africa's demography and particularly appreciated his demolition of the demographic dividend -- John Cleland, former Professor of Medical Demography at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Fellow of the British AcademyPaice's text is heavy on statistics, but the goulash of arithmetic is easy to digest, as well as spiced with plenty of numerical eye-poppers * Spectator *Intensely researched – and very important! * The Week *Paice's excellent book [...] convincingly makes the point that African demography is a matter of truly universal importance -- Adam Tooze, Director of the European Institute at Columbia UniversityPaice's book is a monument of industry, a mine of information and invaluable reading for anyone who wants to understand the scale and implications of Africa's demographic growth -- Nick Westcott, African Affairs
£10.44
Ohio University Press Authentically African Arts and the Transnational
Book SynopsisTogether, the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium, and the Institut des Musées Nationaux du Zaire (IMNZ) in the Congo have defined and marketed Congolese art and culture.Trade Review“This masterful study of Belgian and Congolese collecting and exhibitions of African arts, and the murky heritage politics so implied, offers insights for understanding colonial and postcolonial histories of representation anywhere in the world.”“Authentically African successfully shows how colonial tensions between politics and creativity left their imprint on colonial as well as on postcolonial Congo… this book remains a necessary introduction to some key chapters in the rich and complex entrance of arts premiers into world cultural histories.” * American Historical Review *“This is an important book that fills a gap in our knowledge about museums in this geographical area as well as our understanding of the role of political ideologies, a topic which has been well covered in South Africa, for example, but not as much by scholars in other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. … An impressive analysis.” * Museum Anthropology Review *“This well-informed book is the result of a careful inquiry carried out ‘on the spot’ in Congo, Belgium, and North America. … Authentically African successfully shows how colonial tensions between politics and creativity left their imprint on colonial as well as on postcolonial Congo. … This book remains a necessary introduction to some key chapters in the rich and complex entrance of arts premiers into world cultural histories.” * American Historical Review *“[An] impressive exploration of how and postcolonial powers in former Zaire utilized ‘cultural guardianship’ to justify their political legitimacy and to establish cultural and political economies nationally and internationally.” * African Studies Quarterly *“Authentically African is an impressively researched study of material culture and its institutions in the construction of Congolese cultural and political projects. Van Beurden’s fascinating examination of objects and collections in cultural and political economies makes a significant contribution to several bodies of scholarship, from those focused on material culture, heritage, and identity politics to those concerned with African cultural institutions as part of the global landscape.”
£26.09
Ohio University Press To Speak and Be Heard
Book SynopsisThrough detailed archival research, Hanson reveals the origins of Uganda’s strategies for good government—assembly, assent, and powerful gifts—and explains why East African party politics often fail.Trade ReviewIn this thought-provoking new book Holly Hanson has cut clean through the conventional but hated three-part periodization of African historiography—pre-colonial, colonial, and postcolonial—with its equally unhelpful oppositions of tradition and modernity. With persuasive evidence she shows that Ugandans have for centuries sought consultative, accountable governance, often with institutional checks on the caprice of kings, governors, or presidents. They have long spoken up in public in the conviction that loyalty from below deserves attention from above, and now hope that premodern strategies to secure good governance will help to conjure up a better modernity. -- John Lonsdale, coauthor of Unhappy Valley: Conflict in Kenya and AfricaThis book ‘speaks loudly’ in the hope that it will ‘be heard.’ Holly Hanson successfully demonstrates how in pursuit of a just and moral polity, physical and conceptual spaces created out of people’s presence and actions provided an opportunity through which people can speak to the powerful and expect to be heard. To Speak and be Heard is a prototype of how a blended study of overt ‘spaces’ and ‘speaking’ can reveal larger political engagement and accountability trends in a complex and rapidly changing world. It superbly demonstrates how those trends could be encapsulated and discerningly written about in the twenty-first century. -- Nakanyike B. Musisi, University of Toronto, coauthor of Decentralisation and Transformation of Governance in UgandaHolly Hanson weaves into her account of good government a history of inequality, revealing the kind of thing that can make the formula for direct democracy fail to produce the desired results and atrophy. The next challenge is to speak up, be heard, and figure out the obligations that will diminish inequality. Crossing all major periods in Ugandan history, but focused on the last century and a half, this is a landmark book in African history. -- David L. Schoenbrun, author of The Names of the Python: Belonging in East Africa, 900 to 1930Holly Hanson’s survey has unearthed massive evidence to show that autocracy, one person rule and tyranny did not define African precolonial systems, much as western visitors focused on it or as current media depicts African systems of governance. [Hanson] proves that there were defined mechanisms for the expression … of alternative views of managing society. These views were implemented because there were ample spaces for people to speak and be heard. -- A.B.K. Kasozi, author of The Social Origins of Violence in Uganda, 1964–1985Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: A Long History of Political Voice Chapter 1. Building Polities through Assent, Assembly, and Voice in Ancient East Africa Chapter 2. Incorporating Strangers in the Time of Two Lukikos Chapter 3. Seeking Justice at the Palace and the Lake Chapter 4. The Modernity That Might Have Been: How Ugandans Lost Mechanisms of Accountability in the Transition to Independence Chapter 5. The Pretense of Assent and the Power of Assembly in the Time of Amin Conclusion: The Shape of the Present Notes Bibliography Index
£25.19
Penguin Putnam Inc The Healing Wisdom of Africa
Book SynopsisThrough The Healing Wisdom of Africa, readers can come to understand that the life of indigenous and traditional people is a paradigm for an intimate relationship with the natural world that both surrounds us and is within us. The book is the most complete study of the role ritual plays in the lives of African people - and the role it can play for seekers in the West.
£15.19
Hodder & Stoughton Operation Thunderbolt
Book SynopsisThis is the true story of the greatest special forces' operation of the 20th Century and the first shot in the West's long war against international terrorism. It is a tale of human drama and unbearable tension in which courage, comradeship, fanaticism, incompetence and luck all play their part.Trade ReviewThis is a minute-by-minute narrative of that week by a scrupulous and thorough historian, who has written what will most likely be the definitive work on the subject and produced a tense and riveting account of what has come to be known as the Entebbe raid. By means of extraordinarily deep research, David essentially lets the characters speak for themselves...This is the achievement of a masterly, first-rate historian. * The New York Times Book Review *It's a brilliantly orchestrated book, wonderfully rich in detail, but at the same time roaring along at a heart-thumping pace... I embarked on this book as someone not particularly interested in the Middle East, or in adventure tales of soldiers in action; I finished it in a state of high tension, buzzing through the pages in the need to know what happened next. -- Craig Brown * Mail on Sunday *Long fuse. Slow burn. Big bang. A Krakatoa of a tale. * Damien Lewis, author of Operation Certain Death *Combining exceptional research with gripping storytelling, Saul David's Operation Thunderbolt is an unputdownable account of perhaps the most extraordinary Special Forces mission in history. I loved it. * Rowland White, author of 'Vulcan 607' *Totally thrilling, totally poignant. Bringing the greatest special forces operation of modern times blazingly to life, David's book, full of new revelations, written with the excitement of an action-movie, the authority of a historian, is great drama, superb storytelling - and yet tells us much about the Middle East today. * Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Jerusalem *A brilliant, breathless account that reads like the plot of an action movie. * Sunday Telegraph *Better than fiction can ever hope to be and true to Saul David's characteristically authentic style, this breathtakingly tense and incredibly moving account of history's most audacious Special Forces operation is one of the best true stories I've ever read. Gritty, visceral and edge-of-the-seat dramatic, Operation Thunderbolt ticks all the boxes and is destined to be one of the military history classics of the decade. - Major Chris Hunter, author of Broadcaster and Former Special Forces Bomb Disposal Operator. * Major Chris Hunter, author of Eight Lives Down *Gripping... will introduce a whole new generation of readers to an extraordinary story... The climax of the rescue itself is brilliantly told; nearly 40 years on, you still heave a sigh of relief when the last when the last Hercules lifts off from the Entebbe runway and lumbers off into the night and a new daw for the hostages - and for Israel. * Jewish Chronicle *For the first time in my reading life I felt physically thrilled by a book... Wonderful. -- Jonathan Mirsky * Literary Review *Gripping... As the hours tick down to the threatened bloody denouement, tension mounts and the atmosphere thickens... A page-turner, with its single clear mission, cast of distinct personalities and very filmic scenes. * The Spectator *Told with the style and pace of TV thrillers such as 24. * The Times *A meticulously researched, skilfully constructed, carefully balanced and absorbing book. * The Observer *A ripping read and a meticulously researched work of history. * Evening Standard *Combines phenomenal research with the paciness of a thriller. * Economist Intelligent Life *Well-researched and highly readable. * Times Literary Supplement *
£10.44
Publishing Print Matters Zulu Basketry The Definitive Guide to
Book SynopsisLong overlooked, Zulu Basketry is the first comprehensive pictorial record of a craft form that has endured political change in education and empowered basket weavers with a sustainable means of making a living.Table of ContentsHistorical overview; basketry method and technique; basket weaver profiles; telephone wire basketry; sources and suppliers.
£15.30
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC History of Africa
Book SynopsisKEVIN SHILLINGTON trained history teachers at the University of Botswana in the 1980s. His years of teaching experience in Africa have included African History at school and university level. He holds an MA and PhD in African History from the University of London, UK, is the author of many books on African history and is a renowned authority in this field.Trade ReviewHistory of Africa remains the best introductory textbook on the market. This comprehensive and engaging overview of African history takes the reader on a fascinating journey from human origins to the present. * Professor Alicia Decker, Pennsylvania State University, USA *One of the most comprehensive and incisive treatments of African history. Lucid and coherent, it conveys the complexities and diversity of the African historical experience. Students, scholars and general readers will find this narrative engaging and compelling. * Dr Bonny Ibhawoh, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada *A clear, readable narrative of the entire span of the continent's history, augmented by the best maps and illustrations of any textbook. * Professor Lisa A. Lindsay, University of North Carolina at Chapel-Hill, USA *Shillington's History of Africa remains as relevant as ever. Starting with the origins of humankind and authoritatively guiding readers to the present day, this is a superb account of a vast story, tenaciously placing Africa's peoples at its centre. * Dr Wayne Dooling, SOAS, University of London, UK *The standard textbook on the subject. Readable and comprehensive, the latest edition has numerous colour photos, and has been thoroughly updated. * Professor Hakim Adi, University of Chichester, UK *The best edition of Shillington yet. * Professor Paul Landau, University of Maryland at College Park, USA *Table of ContentsIntroduction SECTION ONE: EARLY AND LATER PRE-HISTORY 1 Early prehistory of Africa 2 Later prehistory: farming and pastoralism in tropical Africa and Ancient Egypt SECTION TWO: EARLY IRON AGE 3 The impact of iron in north and west Africa 4 The Early Iron Age in central, eastern and southern Africa SECTION THREE: RELIGION AND EMPIRE IN NORTHERN AND WESTERN AFRICA 5 North Africa to 1000 CE 6 Trans-Saharan trade and the kingdom of ancient Ghana 7 Islam and the Sudanic states of west Africa SECTION FOUR: RELIGION, TRADE AND CHIEFTAINCY IN EASTERN, CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN AFRICA 8 Eastern Africa to the sixteenth century 9 Later Iron Age states and societies of central and southern Africa to the sixteenth century 10 Trading towns of the east African coast to the sixteenth century SECTION FIVE: WEST AFRICA IN THE ERA OF THE SLAVE TRADE 11 The Atlantic slave trade, sixteenth to eighteenth century 12 West African states and societies, to the eighteenth century SECTION SIX: STATE RENEWAL AND FORMATION IN NORTH, EAST, CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN AFRICA 13 North and north-east Africa to the eighteenth century 14 Central and eastern Africa to the eighteenth century 15 Southern Africa to the eighteenth century SECTION SEVEN: THE NINETEENTH CENTURY BEFORE THE EUROPEAN ‘SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA’ 16 West Africa in the nineteenth century 17 The ending of the Atlantic slave trade 18 Christian Missions, new States and pre-colonial ‘nationalism’ 19 Central and east Africa in the nineteenth century 20 Pre-industrial southern Africa in the nineteenth century 21 North and north-east Africa in the nineteenth century SECTION EIGHT: THE CHALLENGE OF CULTURAL AND POLITICAL IMPERIALISM, LATE-NINETEENTH CENTURY 22 Colonial conquest and African resistance in east, north-central and west Africa 23 Industrialisation, colonial conquest and African resistance in south-central and southern Africa SECTION NINE: THE IMPACT AND NATURE OF COLONIAL RULE, 1890-1945 24 Consolidation of empire: the early period of colonial rule 25 Africa between the wars: the high tide of colonial rule 26 The Second World War and Africa SECTION TEN: THE OVERTHROW OF COLONIALISM 27 The winning of independence (1) 28 The winning of independence (2) 29 The winning of independence (3) SECTION ELEVEN: AFRICA SINCE INDEPENDENCE 30 African responses to the colonial legacy 31 The challenges and dilemmas of development: debt and international aid 32 Contemporary Africa Further Reading Index.
£42.74
Lexington Books Steve Biko
Book SynopsisMoving away from the domain of commemorative, iconicity, monumentalization, and memorialization, Sithole uses Steve Biko''s meditations as a discursive intervention to understand black subjectivity. The epistemological shift of this book is not to be bogged down by the cataloging of events, something that is popular in the literature of Steve Biko and Black Consciousness. Rather, a theoretical imagination and conceptual invention is engaged upon in order to situate Biko within the existential repertoire of blackness as a site of subjectivity and not the object of study. The theoretical imagination and conceptual invention fosters an interpretive approach and an ongoing critique that cannot reach any epistemic closure. This is what decolonial meditations are all about, opening up new vistas of thought and new modes of critique informed by epistemic breaks from empirical absolutism that reduce Biko to an epistemic catalogue. It is in Steve Biko: Decolonial Meditations of Black ConsciousnTrade ReviewSithole's critical decolonial foray into the liberatory ideas of Steve Biko is pioneering and refreshing in many ways. Biko is neither reduced to a simple shrine to be worshiped nor a hagiography to be celebrated. Through Sithole's sharp analysis, Biko is rightfully given a place in the burgeoning pantheon of black liberatory philosophies. -- Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, author of "The Decolonial Mandela: Peace, Justice and the Politics of Life"This book is a profound ground-breaking account of Biko’s philosophy from a decolonial epistemic perspective hitherto unheard of. It is testimony to the relevance and ever growing re-emergence of Biko and the Black Consciousness philosophy in a country still suffering from antiblack racism, Nelson Mandela’s efforts at racial reconciliation notwithstanding. Sithole’s book is therefore a must-read for anyone trying to understand the confluence of existentialism and decolonial theory in Biko’s philosophy of Black subjectivity in an antiblack society. -- Mabogo Percy More, Professor of Philosophy, University of LimpopoTable of ContentsIntroduction: Biko’s Contested Subjectivities Chapter 1: Biko: A Decolonial Philosopher Chapter 2: The Existential Scandal of Antiblack Racism Chapter 3: The Mask of Bad Faith Chapter 4: The Colonial State: The Freedom Charter and the Modicum of Freedom Chapter 5: The Racist State, the Law, and its Outlawed Chapter 6: Biko and the Problématique of Death Coda: Charting the Terrains of the De-colonial Turn
£40.50
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Operation Torch 1942
Book SynopsisFollowing the raid on Pearl Harbor and the entry of the United States into World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt identified the European theatre as his country''s priority. Their first joint operation with the British was an amphibious invasion of French North Africa, designed to relieve pressure on their new Soviet allies, eliminate the threat of the French navy joining the Germans, and to shore up the vulnerability of British imperial possessions and trade routes through the Mediterranean.Operation Torch was the largest and most complex amphibious invasion of its time. In November 1942, three landings took place simultaneously across the French North African coast in an ambitious attempt to trap and annihilate the Axis'' North African armies between the invading forces under General Eisenhower and British Field-Marshall Montgomery''s Eighth Army in Egypt. Using full-color artwork, maps, and contemporary photographs, this is the thrilling story of this compl
£15.29
Darf Publishers Ltd The Book of Mordechai: A Study of the Jews in
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£12.56
HarperCollins Publishers In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz: Living on the Brink
Book Synopsis‘Joyous … a book that makes other journalists weep with envy’ The Economist 'Provocative, touching, and sensitively written … an eloquent, brilliantly researched account’ Sunday Times One of The Economist’s best books by foreign correspondents. A story of grim comedy amid the apocalypse and a celebration of the sheer indestructibility of the human spirit in a nation run riot: Michela Wrong’s vision of Congo/Zaire during the Mobutu years is incisive, ironic and revelatory. Mr Kurtz, the colonial white master, brought evil to the remote upper reaches of the Congo River. A century after Conrad’s 'Heart of Darkness' was first published, Michela Wrong revisits the Congo as the era of Mobutu Sese Seko collapses into absurdity, anarchy and corruption. Hers is a brilliant portrait of the grotesque as confusion takes over: pink lipsticked rebel soldiers mingle with tracksuited secret policemen in hotels where fin de siecle dinner parties are ploughing through hotel wine cellars rather than see bottles lost to the new regime. Congo, Africa’s richest country in terms of its natural resources, has institutionalised kleptomania: everyone is on the take. In a country where the minimum wage has dropped to below $150 a year, the government over twenty-five years spent $250 million providing courtesy cars. Congo has a vanity nuclear reactor built on a subsiding slope and one of its uranium rods is missing… The Mobutu reign, successor to Belgium’s failed imperial experiment in Africa, was fed by World Bank dollars and IMF loans. Having presided over unprecedented looting of the country’s wealth, Mobutu, like Kurtz, retreated deep within the jungle to his absurdly overwrought palace of marble floors and gold taps. A century on, nothing seems to have changed at the heart of Africa: it is lawless, graceless and it slaughters its own.Trade Review‘A brilliant account of Africa’s most extraordinary dictator told with wry wit and delicious irony… this book will become a classic’ The Economist ‘Provocative, touching, and sensitively written … an eloquent, brilliantly researched account and a remarkably sympathetic study of a tragic land’ Sunday Times ‘Michela Wrong made the so-called ‘Heart of Darkness' much less opaque to me when I visited the Congo. She can do the same for you if you read this brave and witty book’ Christopher Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great ‘Michela Wrong nimbly balances absurdity and outrage in her portrait of Mobutu Sese Seko and the wreckage he visited – with steady Western sponsorship – on the country he called Zaire. Her book is charged with pity and terror, and with the sort of sustaining humour that she rightly admires in Mobutu’s former subjects’ Philip Gourevitch, author of We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We will be Killed With Our Families
£11.69
Penguin Books Ltd The Shadow of the Sun
Book Synopsis''Only with the greatest of simplifications, for the sake of convenience, can we say Africa. In reality, except as a geographical term, Africa doesn''t exist''. Ryszard Kapuscinski has been writing about the people of Africa throughout his career. In astudy that avoids the official routes, palaces and big politics, he sets out to create an account of post-colonial Africa seen at once as a whole and as a location that wholly defies generalised explanations. It is both a sustained meditation on themosaic of peoples and practises we call ''Africa'', and an impassioned attempt to come to terms with humanity itself as it struggles to escape from foreign domination, from the intoxications of freedom, from war and from politics as theft.
£10.44
Vintage Publishing Lords of the Horizons
Book SynopsisPerhaps the most readable history ever written' Time OutLords of the Horizons charts the Ottoman Empire''s swirling epic history; dramatic detailed and alive a journey, and a world all in one.The Ottoman Empire has long exerted a strong pull on Western minds and hearts. For over six hundred years the Empire swelled and declined; rising from a dusty fiefdom in the foothills of Anatolia to a power which ruled over the Danube and the Euphrates with the richest court in Europe. But its decline was prodigious, protracted, and total.A fascinating read...a perfect companion for anyone who visits Turkey and wants to make sense of it' The TimesTrade ReviewA fascinating read... a perfect companion for anyone who visits Turkey and wants to make sense of it and those countries it once ruled' * The Times *As plush as a Turkish carpet... Godwin weaves together the threads of barbarism and civilisation with dazzling panache -- Piers Brendon * Mail on Sunday *So rich, so detailed and so astonishing as to be a book of wonders in itself -- Jan Morris * Independent *Perhaps the most readable history ever written on anything * Time Out *
£11.69
Monthly Review Press,U.S. Unity and Struggle 3 Monthly Review Press Classic
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£13.46
Haymarket Books Ethiopia in Theory: Revolution and Knowledge
Book SynopsisBetween the years 1964 and 1974, Ethiopian post-secondary students studying at home, in Europe, and in North America produced a number of journals. In them, these students explored the relationship between social theory and social change within the project of building a socialist Ethiopia. Ethiopia in Theory examines the literature of this student movement, together with the movement 's afterlife in Ethiopian politics and society, in order to ask a vital question: what does it mean to write today about the appropriation and indigenisation of Marxist and mainstream social science ideas in an Ethiopian and African context? And, further, what does the archive of revolutionary thought in Africa teach us about the practice of critical theory more generally?Trade Review"This superb book will transform all discussions concerning the production of knowledge. Ranging through the archives, moving across philosophy and critical theory, and traversing social history, Ethiopia in Theory frames a stunningly original account of the Ethiopian student movement of the 1960s and '70s as a site for the production of radical social science. Rather than the mere reception of revolutionary theory in an African context, Zeleke shows us the dynamics of its generation. There is truly nothing in the literature that comes close to the depth of this multi-leveled, interdisciplinary study. Zeleke 's outstanding book deserves the widest possible readership in social history, African studies, post-colonial analysis, and Marxist and critical theory in general." --David McNally, Cullen Distinguished Professor of History, University of Houston, author of Monsters of the Market: Zombies, Vampires and Global CapitalismTable of ContentsForeword by Donald L. DonhamAcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsNote on CitationsIntroductionPart 1 Knowledge Production and Social Change in Ethiopia1 The Children of the Revolution: Toward an Alternative Method2 Social Science Is a Battlefield: Rethinking the Historiography of the Ethiopian Revolution3 Challenge: Social Science in the Literature of the Ethiopian Student Movement4 When Social Science Concepts Become Neutral Arbiters of Social Conflict: Rethinking the 2005 Elections in Ethiopia5 Passive Revolution: Living in the Aftermath of the 2005 ElectionsPart 2 Theory as Memoir6 The Problem of the Social Sciences in AfricaBibliographyIndex
£27.00
James Currey General History of Africa volume 4 pbk abridged
Book SynopsisSPECIAL COMMENDATION in Africa's 100 Best Books of the Twentieth Century. The series is illustrated throughout with maps and black and white photographs.Trade ReviewReviews of the Series: * . *... a real contribution to scholarship. - -- Roland Oliver * the TLS *The General History of Africa was launched in 1970, when an International Scientific Committee of 39 scholars was formed to oversee the writing and publication of a complete survey of the African past, from pre-history to the present. The laudable aim of the project was to break free from the straightjacket of Eurocentrism, and to provide a history that reflected a range of African views without imposing any set historical interpretation. - -- David M. Anderson * INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS *Table of ContentsThe unification of the Maghrib under the Almohads; the spread of civilization in the Maghrib and its impact on Western civilization; the disintegration of political unity in the Maghrib; society in the Maghrib after the disappearance of the Almohads; Mali and the second Mande expansion; the decline of the empire of Mali - the 15th to 16th centuries; the Songhay from the 12th to the 16th century; the peoples and kingdoms of the Niger Bend and the Volta basin from the 12th to the 16th century; the kingdoms and peoples of Chad; the Hausa and their neighbours in the central Sudan; the coastal peoples from Casamance to the Cote d'Ivoire lagoons; from the Cote d'Ivoire lagoons to the Volta; from the Volta to Cameroon; Egypt and the Muslim world from the 12th to the beginning of the 16th century; Nubia from the late-12th century to the Funji conquest in the early 16th century; the Horn of Africa - the Solomonids in Ethiopia and the states of the Horn of Africa; the development of Swahili cilvilization; between the coast and the Great Lakes; the Great Lakes region; the Zambezi and Limpopo basins 1100-1500; Equatorial Africa and Angola - migrations and the emergence of the first states; southern Africa - its peoples and social structures; Madagascar and the neighbouring islands from the 12th to the 16th century; relationships and exchanges among the different regions; Africa in inter-continental relations.
£23.74
Oneworld Publications The State vs. Nelson Mandela: The Trial that
Book SynopsisThe only account of this seminal trial, written by Mandela’s defence lawyer and with a new foreword by Denis Goldberg, accused alongside Mandela and sentenced to life imprisonment. On 11 July 1963, police raided Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia near Johannesburg, arresting alleged members of the high command of the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). Together with the already imprisoned Nelson Mandela, they were put on trial and charged with conspiring to overthrow the apartheid government by violent revolution. Their expected punishment was death. In this compelling book, their defence attorney, Joel Joffe, gives a blow-by-blow account of the most important trial in South Africa’s history, vividly portraying the characters of those involved, and exposing the astonishing bigotry and rampant discrimination faced by the accused, as well as showing their incredible courage under fire.Trade Review‘Everyone interested in Nelson Mandela’s life and South Africa’s transition to democracy should read this book.’ -- Arthur Chaskalson – Chief Justice of South Africa, 2001-2005'Joffe devotes considerable care to his account of the trial and those who conducted it, crafting a dramatic indictment of apartheid justice.' * Publishing News *
£10.44
Houghton Mifflin A Human Being Died That Night
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£12.14
Ebury Publishing Nelson Mandela
Book SynopsisPreviously published as Mandela''s WayWritten by the co-author of international bestseller Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela: Portrait of an Extraordinary Man presents fifteen powerful lessons on life and leadership based on the life and work of Nelson Mandela (1918 - 2013), whose fight against apartheid in South Africa has become an enduring example of resistance against injustice and oppression. A recipient of the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, Mandela is a man who truly changed the course of world history and is arguably the most inspirational figure of the past century.Stengel spent almost three years with Mandela working on his bestselling autobiography Long Walk to Freedom, and through that process became a close friend. Written with the blessing of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, to which the author will donate a percentage of his royalties, Nelson Mandela: Portrait of an Extraordinary Man is an inspirational book ofTrade ReviewIf we are to accomplish anything in this world, it will in equal measure be due to the work and achievements of others. Richard Stengel is one of those people who readily grasps this idea ... He has shown remarkable insight into the many complex leadership challenges still facing the world today and all the individuals in it. Everyone can learn from it. * Nelson Mandela *A beautiful book - even better than A Long Walk to Freedom - and even more inspiring. * Sir Richard Branson *The most insightful explanation yet of what has become known as the "Mandela magic". * Financial Times *There is no man I admire more than Nelson Mandela. Rick Stengel's wise and moving book captures the Nelson Mandela I have been privileged to know ... I was inspired anew, and I know others will be too * Bill Clinton *
£13.49
Harvard University Press Where the Negroes Are Masters
Book SynopsisAnnamaboe—largest slave trading port on the Gold Coast—was home to wily African merchants whose partnerships with Europeans made the town an integral part of Atlantic webs of exchange. Randy Sparks recreates the outpost’s feverish bustle and brutality, tracing the entrepreneurs, black and white, who thrived on a lucrative traffic in human beings.Trade ReviewWhere the Negroes Are Masters is a pathfinding work that surely will have great influence on our understanding of ‘the largest forced migration in history.’ Sparks is a diligent researcher who shows the many ways in which the Fante leadership entrenched its position in the trade… An interesting and important book. -- Jonathan Yardley * Washington Post *Carefully researched, completely engaging… Sparks recounts a story that is so telling, and so profound in its implications, that it should be explored in every school in the land—and used as a touchstone for a new way of describing the birth of America. -- Marc Aronson * School Library Journal *Africans entered the trans-Atlantic slave trade as more than cargo; many operated as wily merchants integral to the far-reaching Atlantic commerce that began with European contact and the search for gold in the 1430s and shifted to traffic in humans… Unveiling African merchant elites functioning as cultural brokers, literate in English and traveled in Europe and the Americas, and operating as major forces responding to 18th-century market opportunities, Sparks expands our understanding of the Atlantic connections of West Africa’s coastal trading communities. -- Thomas J. Davis * Library Journal (starred review) *This persuasive, well-researched study of the 18th-century Atlantic slave trade takes the unique approach of examining ‘the African merchant elites who facilitated that trade,’ who, according to Tulane University history professor Sparks, ‘were as essential to the Atlantic economy as the merchants of Liverpool, Nantes, or Middleburg.’ That premise may be somewhat surprising, if not outright provocative, but he delivers proof. * Publishers Weekly *If you want to know how the slave trade worked on Africa’s west coast, there is no better starting point than Randy Sparks’s brilliant urban biography of the Gold Coast port of Annamaboe. It elevates our understanding of the Atlantic in the age of the transatlantic slave trade to new heights. -- Ira Berlin, author of Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North AmericaRandy Sparks takes what might appear to be a minor port on the Gold Coast and gives us a history of the whole Atlantic Basin, through the history of one carefully defined branch of the slave trade. He shows us how multiple actors from different cultures speaking a number of different languages managed to cooperate, argue, compete, and finally succeed in knitting a transatlantic community together. This is a masterpiece of turning micro-history, with its fine detail, into mega-history of the first magnitude. -- John Thornton, author of A Cultural History of the Atlantic World, 1250–1820This well-written and altogether gripping story is Atlantic history at its best. Randy Sparks demonstrates the complexity of enslavement itself, examining the multiple processes by which persons came to be construed as property, both on the coast of Africa and in the Atlantic trade. -- Rebecca J. Scott, coauthor of Freedom Papers: An Atlantic Odyssey in the Age of EmancipationRandy Sparks’s well-illustrated study of this Gold Coast port expands and deepens our understanding of African middlemen’s importance in the Atlantic economy before 1800 and of the operations of the transatlantic slave trade. -- David Northrup, author of Africa’s Discovery of Europe, 1450–1850
£28.01
Stanford University Press SoufflesAnfas
Book SynopsisThis book makes available, for the first time in English, essays and poetry published in the seminal postcolonial Moroccan journal of culture and politics, Souffles-Anfas.Trade Review"Richly contextualized, this anthology not only helps to illuminate a tumultuous period in Moroccan history, but also offers a wealth of material to students and scholars with interests in postcolonial studies, Middle East and North African studies, and comparative literature. We need this collection."—Brian T. Edwards, Northwestern University"Postcolonial theory thrives in the academy, but the actual process of decolonization—as well as the texts produced and shaped by that cauldron—remain understudied and untranslated. This brilliant and meticulously assembled collection is an essential part of the revolutionary cultural politics characterizing national and global movements of the 1960s. It palpably demonstrates that true influence has nothing to do with size."—Ammiel Alcalay, City University of New YorkTable of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction: Souffles-Anfas for the New Millennium chapter abstractThe introduction presents the history of the journal from 1966, when it was founded, to 1972, the year it was banned, a period that coincides with the beginning of the "years of lead," as the oppressive regime of Hassan II is known in Morocco, and discusses its evolution from Francophone poetry review to French and Arabic tribune of the radical left. The editors situate the journal's founding mission of "cultural decolonization" in relation to the seminal writings of postcolonial theorist Frantz Fanon and Maghrebi writers of the previous generation, such as Kateb Yacine, Malek Haddad, and Albert Memmi. After a brief explanation of the selection and translation of texts included in the anthology, the introduction ends by assessing the journal's enduring legacy in Morocco, the Maghreb, and the decolonizing world, and presents it as a precursor to the recent pro-democracy protests across North Africa and the Middle East. Part ISouffles 1–Souffles 3 (1966) chapter abstractThis section begins with the incendiary manifesto-prologue of the founding issue of Souffles, which breaks with previous attempts to imitate French poetry and announces a new era of aesthetic innovation. In addition to poetry by Abdellatif Laâbi, Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine, and Abdelkebir Khatibi, this section includes a long essay on popular Moroccan poetry by Ahmed Bouanani, a scathing critique by Abdallah Stouky of the 1966 World Festival of Negro Arts held in Dakar, and of the philosophy of Negritude that subtends it, and an essay on Maghrebi novel by Khatibi. Part IISouffles 4–7-8 (1966-1967) chapter abstractThis section is book-ended by two important editorials by Abdellatif Laâbi on the decolonization of Moroccan culture, a double process involving a sustained critique of Orientalism and the elaboration of non-derivative literary forms. Laâbi's defense of a novel by the Moroccan writer Driss Chraïbi as well as his fascinating interview with Chraïbi and a short autobiographical text by the Tunisian writer Albert Memmi are also included in this section, which is heavily focused on literary and artistic expression. The final essay, by the art critic Toni Maraini, presents the artwork of the "Casablanca group," as the graphic artists involved in the creation of Souffles are known. Alongside works by Souffles-Anfas artistic directors Mohamed Chebaa and Mohamed Melehi, this section includes reproductions of artwork by Jilali Gharbaoui, Ahmed Cherkaoui, and other pioneers of modern Moroccan art. Part IIISouffles 9–13-14 (1968-1969) chapter abstractThis section includes three bilingual issues featuring French-language poems by Mostafa Nissabouri, Mohammed Ismaïl Abdoun, Tahar Ben Jelloun, and Adbellatif Laâbi, and Arabic-language poems by Mohamed Zafzaf and Ahmed al-Madini, introduced by the noted critic and writer Mohammed Berrada. The journal sharpened its critique of Orientalism and racism during this period with a condemnation by the Haitian writer René Depestre of François Duvalier's oppressive regime—informed, according to him, by an essentialist version of Negritude—a biting critique of Albert Camus by founding member Bernard Jakobiak, and a sympathetic interview with the French anticolonial theater director Jean-Marie Serreau that nevertheless warns against the danger of appropriated Third World theater for European consumption. Part IVSouffles 15–Anfas 7-8 (1969–1972) chapter abstractThis section begins with the fifteenth issue of Souffles, devoted entirely to the Palestinian question, and ends with a poem by the Sudanese poet Muhammad al-Fayturi published in the last issue of Anfas, the companion Arabic-language journal launched in 1971 and banned alongside Souffles in 1972. This final period of the journal is marked by a clear engagement for Palestine, as evidenced in its special issue and subsequent editorials, as well as for other anticolonial and leftist causes, most notably the struggles for independence from Portugal in Africa and the plight of Vietnam. Adopting a more accessible format and tone and an overtly Marxist-Leninist editorial line, Souffles-Anfas became the tribune of the Moroccan radical left in the closing years of the 1960s, and one of the first victims of the clampdown on freedom of expression and opinion in Morocco.
£17.99
Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press Toward the African Revolution
Book SynopsisThis powerful collection of articles, essays, and letters spans the period between Black Skin, White Masks (1952) and The Wretched of the Earth (1961), Fanon’s landmark manifesto on the psychology of the colonized and the means of empowerment necessary for their liberation. These pieces display the genesis of some of Fanon’s greatest ideas ideas that became so vital to the leaders of the American civil rights movement.
£12.34
Orion Publishing Co The Slave Trade
Book SynopsisThe rise and fall of the business of slave trading - by a bestselling historianTrade ReviewA 'darkly compelling history of the trade'. * MAIL ON SUNDAY *The most impressive single volume history of the subject. Combining grand narrative sweep with vivid, telling detail, Thomas provides an elegant synthesis of contemporary accounts and modern scholarship * LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS *
£18.00
Princeton University Press Until We Have Won Our Liberty
Book Synopsis
£18.00
Oxford University Press The History of Ashanti Kings and the Whole
Book SynopsisThe History of Ashanti Kings and the Whole Country Itself is a key text for understanding the history of the great West African kingdom of Asante (now in Ghana). It is also an early - and perhaps the earliest - example of history writing in English by an African ruler and his amanuenses. It was begun in 1907 in the Seychelles on the instructions of the Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh I, who had been in British captivity with his family since 1896, during which time he had acquired proficiency in English.The chief source of information was his mother the Asantehemaa Yaa Kyaa, who possessed an encyclopaedic knowledge of the oral history of her own lineage, which was also the royal dynasty of Asante. The result is an indispensably detailed document that charts the history of the Asante monarchy from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. Context is provided by the inclusion of other writings by or about Agyeman Prempeh, together with four introductory essays by the world''s leading scholTrade ReviewReview from previous edition 'This book makes a milestone in more than one sense - as a major new source for precolonial Asante history, as a fascinating example of early historical writing by Africans, as a virtuoso demonstration of how to impose some intelligibility upon the perplexing detail of what was once oral tradition, and as a challenge to historians, who must decide how to respond to this kind of material.' * Anthropos *
£19.00
