Search results for ""James Currey""
James Currey Makers and Breakers: Children and Youth in Postcolonial Africa
Presents a range of views on the lives of young people around Africa. This book contributes to a theoretical, ethnographic and historical understanding of issues concerning children, youth, agency, locality, globalization and identity from the past to the postcolony and beyond. As such the authors strive to achieve a better insight into what lives in the hearts and minds of African youngsters. Contributors include: Alcinda Honwana, Filip De Boeck, Jean & John Comaroff, Mats Utas, Pamela Reynolds, Tshikala Biaya,Deborah Durham, Nicolas Argenti, Ibrahim Abdullah & Mamadou Diouf North America: Africa World Press; Senegal: Codesria
£24.99
James Currey Uganda Now: Between Decay and Development
Essential overview of Uganda's National Resistance Movement's desperate inheritance. Uganda's recovery has been remarkable, but when this book was being written, Museveni's guerrillas were only then launching their final bid for power. North America: Ohio U Press; Uganda: Fountain Publishers
£24.99
James Currey Migrant Cocoa-farmers of Southern Ghana: A Study in Rural Capitalism
With a new introduction by Gareth Austin This series of Classics in African Anthropology is primarily drawn from a distinct family of texts which dominated the academic analysis of society in mid-20th century Africa. The texts reproduced are significant yet often neglected, and have stood the test of time. Polly Hill's classic study was originally published in 1963. New edition published in association with the International African Institute North America: Transaction Books; Germany: Lit Verlag.
£24.99
James Currey Being Maasai: Ethnicity and Identity in East Africa
A multi-disciplinary approach to studying ethnicity in Africa. Many of the people who identify themselves as Maasai, or who speak the Maa language, are not pastoralist at all, but framers and hunters. Over time many people have 'become' something else, adn what it means to be Maasai has changed radically over the past several centuries and is still changing today. This collection by historians, archaeologists, anthropologists and linguists examines how Maasai identity has been created, evoked, contested and transformed. North America: Ohio U Press; Tanzania: Mkuki na Nyota; Kenya: EAEP
£24.99
James Currey Guns and Rain: Guerrillas and Spirit Mediums in Zimbabwe
Lan shows that to understand the meaning that Zimbabwe's war of independence had for its people, the role of the spirit mediums must also be understood. Almost every anti-colonial struggle in the 20th century was led by an army of guerrillas, and no such struggle has succeeded without cooperation between the guerrillas and the local peasantry. This book examines what such 'cooperation' meant in the context of Zimbabwe's war of independence between 1966 and 1980 when hundreds of thousands of peasants provided the guerrillas with practical help and support. But throughout the country scores of spirit mediumsalso gave active support to the resistance, and with their help the scale of the war expanded into an astonishing act of collaboration between ancestors and their descendants, the past and the present, the living and the dead. North America: University of California Press
£24.99
James Currey General History of Africa volume 4 [pbk abridged]: Africa from the 12th to the 16th Century
SPECIAL COMMENDATION in Africa's 100 Best Books of the Twentieth Century. The series is illustrated throughout with maps and black and white photographs. The twelfth to the sixteenth centuries constitute a crucial phase in the continent's history, and a period in which written records became more common. The period covered by this volume has several major themes: the triumph of Islam; the extension of trading relations; cultural exchanges and human contacts; and the development of kingdoms and empires. 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.
£24.99
James Currey Marikana: A People's History
In-depth account of the Marikana massacre, based on the voices of the miners and their families themselves, from the build up to the strike to attempts to hold the state to account and its lasting significance. In August 2012 the South African police - at the encouragement of mining capital, and with the support of the political state - intervened to end a week-long strike at the Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana, in South Africa's NorthWest Province. On the afternoon of Thursday, 16 August, the police shot and killed 34 men. Hundreds more were injured, some shot as they fled. None posed a threat to any police officer. Recognised by many as an event of international significance in stories of global politics and labour relations, the perspectives of the miners has however been almost missing from published accounts. This book, for the first time, brings into focus the mens' lives - and deaths - telling the stories of those who embarked on the strike, those who were killed, and of the family members who have survived to fight for the memories of their loved ones. It places the strike in the context of South Africa's long history of racial and economic exclusion, explaining how the miners came to be in Marikana, how their lives were ordinarily lived, and the substance of their complaints. It shows how the strike developed from an initial gathering into a mass movement of more than 3,000 workers. It discusses the violence of the strike and explores the political context of the state's response, and the eagerness of the police to collaborate in suppressing the strike. Recounting the events of the massacre in unprecedented detail, the book sets out how each miner died and everything we know about the police operation. Finally, Brown traces the aftermath: the attempts of the families of the deceased to identify and bury their dead, and then the state's attempts to spin a narrative that placed all blame on the miners; the subsequent Commission of Inquiry - and its failure to resolve any real issues; and the solidarity politics that have emerged since. Southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland and Botswana): Jacana.
£24.99
James Currey ALT 39: Speculative & Science Fiction
Explores the ways in which African writers have approached speculative fiction through in-depth articles on the use of language, terminology and the genealogy of the works. Over the past two decades, there has been a resurgence in the writing of African and African diaspora speculative and science fiction writing. Recent discussions around the "rise of science-fiction and fantasy" in Africa have led to a push-back, in which writers and scholars have suggested that science fiction and fantasy is not a new phenomenon in African literature, but that the deep past of the African world and its complex and mysterious foundations still register in burgeoning modern literary productions. Such influences can be seen in early twentieth-century writers such as D.O. Fagunwa's classic novel (1938) Ogboji Ode ninu Igbo Irunmale (The Forest of a Thousand Daemons: A Hunter's Saga), the mythopoeia of Elechi Amadi's The Concubine (1966) as well as the dystopian writing of Buchi Emecheta in The Rape of Shavi (1983). This volume shows this long tradition of speculative literature in examining African classics such as Kojo Laing's Woman of the Aeroplanes (1988) and the oeuvre of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. The volume also critically examines modern African texts from writers including Nnedi Okorafor, Namwali Serpell and Masande Ntshanga, as well as critically looking at the terms 'Afrofuturism' and 'Africanfuturism' vis-à-vis their particular cultural aesthetics and suitability in describing tradition rooted African speculative arts. This volume also includes a Literary Supplement. Guest Editors: LOUISA UCHUM EGBUNIKE (Associate Professor in African and Caribbean Literature, Durham University) and CHIMALUM NWANKWO (Writer-in-Residence, Department of English and Literary Studies, Veritas University, Abuja, Nigeria). Series Editor: Ernest N. Emenyonu (Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Michigan-Flint) Reviews Editor: Obi Nwakanma (Fellow, Department of English University of Central Florida).
£75.00
James Currey A History of Modern Ethiopia, 1855-1991: Updated and revised edition
Updated and revised edition. Bahru Zewde has updated the first edition, adding a new chapter and taking the history through to 1991. 'The new chapter enhances the value of the book as the best historical introduction to modern Ethiopia. The account of the Revolution, contained in 41 pages, is nuanced and worthy of attention in its own right... In short, the updating of an already indispensable book.' - Donald Crummey in JOURNAL OF MODERN AFRICAN STUDIES NorthAmerica: Ohio U Press; Ethiopia: Addis Ababa U Press
£24.99
James Currey General History of Africa volume 3 [pbk abridged]: Africa from the 7th to the 11th Century
SPECIAL COMMENDATION in Africa's 100 Best Books of the Twentieth Century. The series is illustrated throughout with maps and black and white photographs. The period covered by Volume 3 is dominated by two movements of major and lasting significance in the history of Africa: the influence of Islam in the north and west, interacting with traditional African culture; and the Bantu expansion in the south. The book first places Africa in the context of world history at the opening of the seventh century. Detailed chapters follow discussing the successive Islamic dynasties, the Christian Nubia, the civilizations of the savannas, forests and coast of West Africa, the Horn of Africa, the East African coast and interior, Central Africa, Southern Africa, and Madagascar's internal development and international contacts. The three concluding chapters trace the African diaspora in Asia, examine international relations and the spread of technology and ideas, and assess the overall impact of the period on African history. The series is co-published in Africawith seven publishers, in the United States and Canada by the University of California Press, and in association with the UNESCO Press.
£25.99
James Currey War in Pre-colonial Eastern Africa: The Patterns and Meanings of State-level Conflict in the 19th Century
Of interest to researchers of pre-colonial African history, military history, and anyone involved in modern development and conflict resolution seeking to understand the deeper historical roots of African warfare. This is an examination of the nature and objectives of conflict in the major states of Eastern Africa in the nineteenth century. It focuses on highland Ethiopia, on the interlacustrine area of Buganda and its neighbours, and on the area of central Tanzania from the south of Lake Victoria to Lake Tanganyika. RICHARD REID is Lecturer in African History at SOAS Published in association with The British Institute in Eastern Africa North America: Ohio U Press; Uganda: Fountain Publishers; Kenya: EAEP
£24.99
James Currey Reel Resistance - The Cinema of Jean-Marie Teno
Weaving together critical analysis and a filmic conversation, this book journeys through the multiple layers of Cameroonian filmmaker Jean-Marie Teno's thematically and aesthetically challenging body of work, framed here as a form of decolonial cinematic resistance. Co-winner African Literature Association Book of the Year - Scholarship Both a monograph and a critical dialogue between academic Melissa Thackway, author of Africa Shoots Back, and the Cameroonian filmmaker Jean-Marie Teno, this collaborative work takes the reader on a journey through Teno's multifaceted on-going filmic reflection on Cameroon and the wider African continent, its socio-political systems, history, memory and cultures. Presenting and contextualizing Teno's cinema, it addresses the notion of political commitment in art and of cinema as a form of resistance. It also considers Teno's filmmaking both in relation to the theoretical and aesthetic debates to have animated West and Central African filmmakers since the 1960s and 1970s, and n relation to documentary filmmaking practices on the continent and beyond. In so doing, the book offers an analysis of the predominant stylistic and thematic traits of Teno's work, examines the individual films and the collective oeuvre, and highlights the evolutions of his film language and concerns. It identifies and explores the committed socio-political and historical themes at play, such as violence, power, history, memory, gender, trauma and exile. It also considers Teno's unwavering focus, both thematically and in his filmmaking choices, on forms and instances of resistance, framing his cinema as a form of decolonial aesthetics.
£24.99
James Currey ALT 41: African Literature in African Languages
Interrogates and explores African literature in African languages today, and the continuing interfaces between works in indigenous languages and those written in European languages or languages of colonizers. Sixty years after the Conference of African Writers of English Expression at Makerere University, the dominance in the global canon of African literatures written in European languages over those in indigenous languages continues to be an issue. This volume of ALT re-examines this central question of African literatures to ask, 'What is the state of African literatures in African languages today?' Contributors discuss the translation of Gurnah's novel Paradise to Swahili, and Osemwegie's Ọrọ Epic to English, and Wolof wrestlers' panegyrics. They analyse Edo eco-critical poetry, and the poetics of Igbo mask poetry, and morality in early prose fiction in indigenous Nigerian languages. Other essays contribute a semiotic analysis of Duruaku's A Matter of Identity, and the decolonization of trauma in Uwem Akpan's Say You're One of Them. Overall, the volume paints a complex image of African cultural production in indigenous languages, especially in the ways Africa's oral performance traditions remain resilient in the face of a seemingly undiminished presence of non-African language literary traditions.
£65.00
James Currey State-building and National Militaries in Postcolonial West Africa: Decolonizing the Means of Coercion 1958–1974
Explores the fundamental role of the military in state-building in francophone postcolonial West Africa and how foreign economic and military aid has influenced it. How did African armed forces in postcolonial states in francophone West Africa influence decolonization and state-building in African states? How did foreign assistance from ex-colonial powers, the USSR and the US and colonial state structures influence political systems, and sometimes result in weak and unstable governance? This book explores the development of national militaries in Cote d'Ivoire, Dahomey (now Benin), Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) and Togo during the 1960s and 1970s. Revealing the strength of decision-making power by African political elites, the study also shows the decisive impact of foreign economic and military assistance on countries that did not experience a prolonged armed conflict. The author provides new insights into the way the decisions of African governments in building their national militaries impacted postcolonial states' autonomy, legitimacy, sovereign control and governance. In West Africa, during the 1960s, France sought to maintain exclusive relations with its former colonies through military assistance, economic aid and close personal relations with African political and military elites. State coercive capacities extended far beyond the strength of political institutions, with soldiers' assumption of political roles linked to the weaknesses of colonial and postcolonial structures. Disagreements between French and American officials, as well as Arab-Israeli and Sino-Russo conflicts, increased African presidents' opportunities to mobilize external resources. Yet in the late 1980s, it became evident that national militaries and police were often the main causes of personal insecurity, rather than providing protection, and that some economies remained weak and political structures unstable. This book is available as an Open Access ebook under the Creative Commons license CC-BY-NC. The open access version of this publication was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.
£28.99
James Currey Contested Sustainability: The Political Ecology of Conservation and Development in Tanzania
Richly detailed and timely study on conservation, development and sustainability in Tanzania. Provides valuable insights into the successes and failures of the management and governance of wildlife, forestry and coastal resources. Responding to the urgent need to examine the outcome of interventions in governing natural resources, this book analyses different types of sustainability partnerships - with donors, governments, business, NGOs and other actors, and, crucially, assesses which result in better livelihood and environmental outcomes. The contributors, from a range of disciplines, compare 'more complex' partnerships to relatively 'simpler', more traditional top-down and centralized management systems and to location where sustainability partnerships are not in place. Within-sector comparisons allow a fine-tuned analysis that is formed of historical, location and resource-specific issues, which can be used as input for resource-specific policy and partnership design. Experiences and lessons can be drawn from comparisons across the three different sectors, which can be applied to natural resource governance more broadly. This book is openly available in digital formats under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND.
£28.99
James Currey Benefits of Famine: A Political Economy of Famine and Relief in Southwestern Sudan, 1983-9
First paperback edition with a new and updated author's introduction, and a Foreword by Douglas H. Johnson.. The conflict in Darfur had a precursor in Sudan's famines of the 1980s and 1990s. David Keen's The Benefits of Famine presented a new and startling interpretation of the causes of war-induced famine. The book is now in paperback for the first time with a new and updated introduction by the author. The Benefits of Famine gives depth to understanding the Darfur crisis. DAVID KEEN is Professor of Complex Emergencies at the DevelopmentStudies Institute, London School of Economics North America: Ohio U Press; Uganda: Fountain Publishers
£24.99
James Currey Transport Corridors in Africa
In-depth examination of the inherent tensions and dynamics of transport corridors in Africa: between short-term optics and long-term durability; between regional integration and national interest; between the facilitation of trade and the generation of corridor revenue. The image of the corridor, a central pathway of road and rail carving its way through Africa's interior, has guided the coordination of transport and trade developments on the continent in recent decades. Existing analysis of the "Corridor" - a label with a great capacity to change shape, guiding funding and infrastructural priorities at different times and in different settings - tends to be presentist, technical, and conveyed in the language of transport economics. The chapters collected here showcase a more varied approach, offering perspectives from academics and policy-makers coming from a range of disciplinary backgrounds. They capture the varied forms of the corridor concept (developmental, transport, and trade corridors), the multiplicity of actors (including China and the European Union), as well as the different permutations of the infrastructure itself, in corridors linking coastal states and in others that link coastal states with the hinterland. The breadth of cases allows for a comparative perspective of East, West, and Southern Africa, as well as the basis of comparisons outside of the continent in Europe, South Asia, and elsewhere. The motivations behind corridor initiatives in Africa range enormously, from resource extraction to urban development and poverty reduction. A lot depends on scale, and this collection places the grand designs thrashed out at continental and regional economic forums alongside the individual concerns of drivers and cross-border traders hauling goods across the continent's checkpoints. What emerges are a number of central tensions in the study of transport corridors: between short-term optics and long-term durability; between road and rail as modes of transportation; between regional integration and national interest; between the facilitation of trade and the generation of corridor revenue; between different port configurations; and between local dynamics and the dynamics of long-distance transportation. This book is available as an Open Access ebook under the Creative Commons license CC-BY-NC.
£26.99
James Currey Sports & Modernity in Late Imperial Ethiopia
Innovative study of the role of sports in modernity in Africa. Sports in Ethiopia was always more than a means of useful recreation. It was also a way to enjoy and define fun, as new modes of behaviour emerged that showed what it meant to be a modern man or woman. This book is the first academic study of the history of modern sports in Ethiopia during the imperial rule of the twentieth century. Showing how agents, ideas and practices linked societal improvement and bodily improvement, this innovative study argues thatmodern sports offers new possibilities to explore the meanings of modernity in Africa. Drawing on written and oral sources in Amharic, Tigrinya, English, French, German and Italian, Bromber provides an in-depth analysis of the role of sports in modern educational institutions, volunteer organizations and urbanization processes. She examines sports' function as a political propaganda tool during the Italian fascist occupation (1935 - 1941), as well as in representations of successful modernization under Haile Selassie (1930 - 1974). The integration into global networks of ideas about the fit colonized body linked Ethiopia, which was never colonized, to the legacy of colonialism. Institutions such as schools, civilian sports clubs, and volunteer organizations were not only loaded with coercive procedures, but instituted modes of behaviour that developed into certain styles and affirmation of the self as well as their contestation. Examining the locations for practising sports in organized forms, informal leisure and practices consumption in Ethiopia, this book contributes to recent debates on the role of sports in the history of urbanization in Africa, as well as those on global modernity. Ethiopia: AAUP
£75.00
James Currey Whites and Democracy in South Africa
Key book in Whiteness Studies that engages with the different ways in which the last white minority in Africa to give way to majority rule has adjusted to the arrival of democracy and the different modes of transition from "settlers" to "citizens". How have whites adjusted to, contributed to and detracted from democracy in South Africa since 1994? Engaging with the literature on 'whiteness' and the current trope that the democratic settlement has failed, this book provides a study of how whites in the last bastion of 'white minority rule' in Africa have adapted to the sweeping political changes they have encountered. It examines the historical context of white supremacy and minority rule, in the past, and the white withdrawal from elsewhere on the African continent. Drawing on focus groups held across the country, Southall explores the difficult issue of 'memory', how whites seek to grapple with the history of apartheid, and how this shapes their reactions to political equality. He argues that whites cannot be regarded as a homogeneous political grouping concluding that while the overwhelming majority of white South Africans feared the coming of democracy during the years of late apartheid, they recognised its inevitability. Many of their fears were, in effect, to be recognised by the Constitution, which embedded individual rights, including those to property and private schooling, alongside the important principle of proportionality of political representation. While a small minority of whites chose to emigrate, the large majority had little choice but to adjust to the democratic settlement which, on the whole, they have done - and in different ways. It was only a small right wing which sought to actively resist; others have sought to withdraw from democracy into social enclaves; but others have embraced democracy actively, either enthusiastically welcoming its freedoms or engaging with its realities in defence of 'minority rights'. Whites may have been reluctant to accept democracy, but democrats - of a sort - they have become, and notwithstanding a significant racialisation of politics in post-apartheid South Africa, they remain an important segment of the "rainbow", although dangers lurk in the future unless present inequalities of both race and class are challenged head on. African Sun Media: South Africa
£75.00
James Currey Namib: The archaeology of an African desert
WINNER SAfA BOOK PRIZE 2023 The first full-length examination of the archaeology and history of the Namib Desert. This is a story of human survival over the last one million years in the Namib Desert - one of the most hostile environments on Earth. Namib reveals the resilience and ingenuity of desert communities and provides a vivid picture of our species' response to climate change, and ancient strategies to counter ever-present risk. Dusty fragments of stone, pottery and bone tell a history of perpetual transition, of shifting and temporary states of balance. Namib digs beneath the usual evidence of archaeology to uncover a world of arcane rituals, of travelling rain-makers, of intricate social networks which maintained vital systems of negotiated access to scarce resources. Ranging from the earliest evidence of human occupation, through colonial rule and genocide, to the invasion of the desert by South African troops during the First World War, this is the first comprehensive archaeology of the Namib. Among its important contributions are the reclaiming of the indigenous perspective during the brutal colonial occupation, and establishing new material links between the imperialist project in German South West Africa during 1885-1915 and the Third Reich, and between Nazi ideology and Apartheid. Southern Africa: University of Namibia Press/Jacana
£90.00
James Currey African Theatre 19: Opera & Music Theatre
Compelling inside views of what characterises opera and music theatre in African and African diasporic contexts. Music is often cited as a central artistic mode in African theatre and performance practices. However, little attention has been paid to music theatre on the continent in general, and to opera in particular, with the exceptions ofa few noted genres, such as Concert Party or the Yorùbá "folk opera" of the 1960s, and the emerging research on opera culture in South Africa. This volume of African Theatre highlights the diversity across the continent from a variety of perspectives - including those of genre, media, and historiography. Above all, it raises questions and encourages debate: What does "opera" mean in African and African diasporic contexts? What are its practices and legacies - colonial, postcolonial and decolonial; what is its relation to the intersectionalities of race and class? How do opera and music theatre reflect, change or obscure social, political and economic realities? How are they connected to educational and cultural institutions, and non-profit organisations? And why is opera contradictorily, at various times, perceived as both "grand" and "elitist, "folk" and "quotidian", "Eurocentric" and "indigenous"? Contributors also address aesthetic transformation processes, the porousness of genre boundaries and the role of space and place, with examples ranging from Egypt to South Africa, from Uganda to West Africa and the USA. The playscript in this volume is We Take Care of Our Own by Zainabu Jallo GUEST EDITORS: Christine Matzke, Lena van der Hoven, Christopher Odhiambo & Hilde Roos Series Editors: Yvette Hutchison, Reader, Department of Theatre & Performance Studies, University of Warwick; Chukwuma Okoye, Reader in African Theatre & Performance University of Ibadan; Jane Plastow, Professor of African Theatre, University of Leeds.
£75.00
James Currey Land, Investment & Politics: Reconfiguring Eastern Africa's Pastoral Drylands
Examines the new challenges facing Africa's pastoral drylands from large-scale investments and how this might affect the economic and political landscape for the regions affected and their peoples. More than ever before, the gaze of global investment has been directed to the drylands of Africa, but what does this mean for these regions' pastoralists and other livestock-keepers and their livelihoods? Will those who have occupied drylands over generations benefit from the developments, as claimed, or is this a new type of territorialisation, exacerbating social inequality? This book's detailed local studies of investments at various stages of development - from Kenya, Tanzania, Somaliland, Ethiopia - explore, for the first time, how large land, resource and infrastructure projects shape local politics and livelihoods. Land and resources use, based on ancestral precedenceand communal practices, and embedded regional systems of trade, are unique to these areas, yet these lands are now seen as the new frontier for development of national wealth. By examining the ways in which large-scale investmentsenmesh with local political and social relations, the chapters show how even the most elaborate plans of financiers, contractors and national governments come unstuck and are re-made in the guise of not only states' grand modernist visions, but also those of herders and small-town entrepreneurs in the pastoral drylands. The contributors also demonstrate how and why large-scale investments have advanced in a more piecemeal way as the challenges of implementation have mounted. JEREMY LIND is Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex. DORIS OKENWA holds a PhD in Anthropology from the London School of Economics. IAN SCOONES is a Professorial Fellow at the IDS, University of Sussex and co-director of the ESRC STEPS Centre.
£19.99
James Currey ALT 37: African Literature Today
AFRICAN LITERATURE TODAY was established at a time of uncertainty and reconstruction but for 50 years it has played a leading role in nurturing imaginative creativity and its criticism on the African continent and beyond. Contemporary African creative writers have confidently taken strides which resonate all over the world. The daring diversities, stylistic innovations and enchanting audacities which characterize their works across many different genres resonate with readers beyond African geographic and linguistic boundaries. Writers in Africa and the diaspora seem to be speaking with collective and individual voices that compel world attention and admiration. And they arebeing read in numerous world languages. This volume's contributors recognize the foundations laid by the pioneer African writers as they point vigorously to contemporary writers who have moved African imaginative creativityforward with utmost integrity, and to the critics who continue to respond with unyielding tenacity. The founding Editor of ALT, Professor Eldred Durosimi Jones, recalls in an interview in this volume, the role ALT played in the evolution and stimulation of a wave of African literary studies and criticism in mid-20th century: "The 1960s saw a good deal of activity among scholars teaching African Literature throughout Africa and the world, and this ledto a series of conferences in African Literature in Dakar, Nairobi, and Freetown.around the idea of communication between the various English Departments which took an interest in African Literature. We decided on a bulletin, which was just a kind of newsletter between departments saying what was going on....it was that bulletin that showed the potential of this kind of communication... after that we started African Literature Today as a journal inviting articles on the works of African writers." Contributors to the series demonstrate the impact of the growth in studies and criticism of African Literature in the 50 years since its founding. Series Editor: Ernest N. Emenyonu is Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Michigan-Flint, USA. Reviews Editor: Obi Nwakanma
£75.00
James Currey At the Crossroads: Nigerian Travel Writing and Literary Culture in Yoruba and English
Shortlisted for the SAUK Fage & Oliver Prize 2020 'Honorable Mention' for the ALA First Book Award - Scholarship 2021 A path-breaking contribution to the critical literature on African travel writing. Throughout the twentieth century, Nigerians have been writing about their travels within Nigeria using a variety of media and forms, from serialised newspaper travelogues to personal diaries, autobiographies and online narratives.These works offer important insights into how Nigerians have represented Nigeria to itself and to the world. This is the first book to examine the production of Nigerian travel narratives about Nigeria in the century from colonisation to independence. Rebecca Jones argues that we can read these texts both as the products of a local Nigerian print culture, and through their articulations with global travel writing traditions. Focusing on travel writing published from 1914 to 2014 in the Yoruba-speaking region of southwestern Nigeria, home to a well-established and prolific writing and print culture in both Yoruba and English, this cultural history of Nigerian travel comprisesclose readings of these works, and argues that the production of travel writing in the region can be read not simply as a foreign import, but as a cluster of genres with a cohesive local history. Writers discussed include Samuel Ajayi Crowther, I.B. Thomas, E.A. Akintan, Isaac Delano, D.O. Fagunwa, Amos Tutuola, Ben Okri, Babatunde Shadeko, Damilola Ajenifuja, Chibuzor Mirian Azubuike, Pelu Awofeso, Lape Soetan, Teju Cole, Adewale Maja-Pearce, Noo Saro-Wiwa, and the Invisible Borders collective. Nigeria: Premium Times Books
£80.00
James Currey Land, Migration and Belonging: A History of the Basotho in Southern Rhodesia c. 1890
A new history of the Basotho migrants in Zimbabwe that illuminates identity politics, African agency and the complexities of social integration in the colonial period. Tracing the history of the Basotho, a small mainly Christianised community of evangelists working for the Dutch Reformed Church, this book examines the challenges faced by minority ethnic groups in colonial Zimbabwe and how they tried to strike a balance between particularism and integration. Maintaining their own language and community farm, the Basotho used ownership of freehold land, religion and a shared history to sustain their identity. The author analyses the challenges they faced in purchasing land and in engaging with colonial administrators and missionaries, as well as the nature and impact of internal schisms within the community, and shows how their "unity in diversity"impacted on their struggles for belonging and shaped their lives. This detailed account of the experiences and strategies the Basotho deployed in interactions with the Dutch Reformed Church missionaries and colonial administrators as well as with their non-Sotho neighbours will contribute to wider debates about migration, identity and the politics of belonging, and to our understanding of African agency in the context of colonial and missionary encounters. Published in association with the British Institute in Eastern Africa
£70.00
James Currey Tanzanian Development: A Comparative Perspective
An up-to-date, comparative, examination of the developing economy of Tanzania and its grass roots progress out of poverty, with pointers to its wider implications for policymakers, NGOS and practitioners. Over the past thirty years, in common with a number of other Sub-Saharan African countries, Tanzania has experienced a period of painful adjustment followed by relatively rapid and stable economic growth. However the extent of progress on poverty reduction and the sustainability of the development process are both open to question. In this book, prominent international observers provide a range of different perspectives on the process of development over time and the issues facing a rapidly growing African economy: political economy; agriculture and rural livelihoods; industrial development; urbanisation; aid and trade; tourism; and the use of natural resources. Comparisons are drawn with other African economies as well as other developing countries, such as Vietnam. An invaluable deep review of Tanzania's economy and development, the book also looks at the wider implications of the research for the futureon the continent and beyond. David Potts is Honorary Visiting Researcher at the University of Bradford and was Head of the Bradford Centre for International Development 2015-16. He worked for six years as an economist in Tanzania's Ministry of Agriculture in the 1980s, has had many subsequent short-term assignments in the country and is co-editor of Development Planning and Poverty Reduction (2003).
£80.00
James Currey The African Garrison State: Human Rights & Political Development in Eritrea REVISED AND UPDATED
Examines Eritrea's deprivation of human rights since independence and its transformation into a militarised "garrison state", updated to include the recent UN Commission of Inquiry and the new geopolitical dynamics. When Eritrea gained independence in 1991, hopes were high for its transformation. In two decades however, it became one of the most repressive in the world, effectively a militarised "garrison state". This comprehensive and detailed analysis examines how the prospects for democracy in the new state turned to ashes, reviewing its development, and in particular the loss of human rights and the state's political organisation. Beginning with judicial development in independent Eritrea, subsequent chapters scrutinise the rule of law and the court system; the hobbled process of democratisation, and the curtailment of civil society; the Eritrean prison system and everyday life of detention and disappearances; and the situation of minorities in the country. While the situation is bleak, it is not without hope: the epilogue describes the recent UN Commission of Inquiry process, the renewed international dialogue with Asmara and the new geopolitical dynamics. Kjetil Tronvoll is Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Bjørknes University College, Director of Oslo Analytica policy research and advisory company, and a former Professor of Human Rights at the University of Oslo. ; Daniel Mekonnen is the Executive Director of the Eritrean Law Society, and a Guest Writer at the Writers in Exile Program of the Swiss-German PEN Centre in Luzern, Switzerland. Formerly, he was Judge of the Central Provincial Court in Asmara, Eritrea.
£24.99
James Currey Electricity in Africa: The Politics of Transformation in Uganda
Examines the history of electricity provision in Africa and the effects of privatization and infrastructure changes in energy transformation, offering a critical window into development politics in African states. No country has managed to develop beyond a subsistence economy without ensuring at least minimum access to electricity for the majority of its population. Yet many sub-Saharan African countries struggle to meet demand. Why is this, and what can be done to reduce energy poverty and further Africa's development? Examining the politics and processes surrounding electricity infrastructure, provision and reform, the author provides an overview of historical andcontemporary debates about access in the sub-continent, and explores the shifting role and influence of national governments and of multilateral agencies in energy reform decisions. He describes a challenging political environment for electricity supply, with African governments becoming increasingly frustrated with the rules and the processes of multilateral donors. Civil society also began to question reform choices, and governments in turn looked to new development partners, such as China, to chart a fresh path of energy transformation. Drawing on over fifteen years of research on Uganda, which has one of the lowest levels of access to electricity in Africa and has struggled to construct several, large hydroelectric dams on the Nile, Gore argues that there is a critical need to recognize how the changing political and social context in African countries, and globally, has affected the capacity tofulfil national energy goals, minimize energy poverty and transform economies. Christopher Gore is Associate Professor, Department of Politics and Public Administration, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada. OA EDITION This book has been made available as Open Access through the support of the Office of the Dean, Faculty of Arts, Ryerson University; Ryerson International; and the Department of Politics and Public Administration, Ryerson University.
£19.99
James Currey The Politics of Peacemaking in Africa: Non-State Actors' Role in the Liberian Civil War
A detailed examination of the role of two critical non-state groups in the Liberian Civil War peace process - the diaspora and the religious - that provides key insights for policymakers and NGOs into the roles that civil societyactors can play in conflict resolution and peacemaking. Throws light on the role of several key agents in bringing to an end one of the darkest episodes in post-independence African history.' Ebenezer Obadare, University of Kansas Until the 1990s, conflict resolution and peacemaking fell to states, the UN and other intergovernmental organizations. In recent times it is non-armed, non-state actors who have had a pivotal role in seeking to resolve civil wars in Africa. This book examines, for the first time, through an examination of the Liberian Civil War in particular, how non-state actors have impacted upon peace processes. The Liberian Civil War was the first post-Cold War intra-state conflict in West Africa and exemplified the "new wars" breaking out on the continent. The peace process that followed showed how future peacemaking processes might evolve, being not only the first in which a regional economic grouping had a role - in this case ECOWAS - but also involving non-state religious and diaspora actors. Religious actors, initiators of the Liberian peace process, were mediators, dialogue facilitators, watchdogs and trustees of the entire peace process. Although their efforts were mainly influenced by the desire to fulfil the divine mandate to "tend to the flock", they were also able to regain some of the societal influence that organized religion, especially Christianity, enjoyed during the 158 years of minority Americo-Liberian rule. Diaspora actors' roles ranged from being founders and sponsors of warring factions to providing succour to Liberians back home through remittances and engaging in the peace process. Babatunde T. Afolabi is a Senior Programme Manager at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD). He had previously worked at the ECOWAS Commission where he was involved in peace processes across West Africa.
£70.00
James Currey African Theatre 15: China, India & the Eastern World
PAPERBACK FOR SALE IN AFRICA ONLY Extends the study of China's "soft power" into theatre studies and looks more widely at syncretic traditions evolving in other long-term historic exchanges between Asia and Africa. China is the main focus of this volume, and articles consider the way it is using "soft power" in its extensive engagement with South Africa, and, through its support for theatre festivals, with Lusophone countries in Africa. China's involvement with the construction of theatres, opera houses and cultural facilities as part of its foreign aid programmes in such countries as Algeria, Cameroon, Mauritius, Ghana and Senegal, provides the background to the playscript included in this volume, Blickakte (Acts of Viewing) by Daniel Schauf, Philipp Scholtysik & Jonas Alsleben, that explores Chinese impact in Somalia. Issues also emerge around what China is "importing" culturally from Africa. In 2012, Soyinka's The Lion & the Jewel was produced there, and a season of Fugard's work was enjoyed in Beijing during 2014. During 2016 Brett Bailey's Macbeth Opera will be performed in Macao. In recent years courses in African theatre have been started in Beijing by Biodun Jeyifo, and also taught on occasions by Femi Osofisan, joint-editor of this volume. His well-known Esu and the Vagabond Minstrels as wellas Once Upon Four Robbers have been translated into Mandarin, along with Soyinka's The Lion & the Jewel. The volume also includes contributions on exchanges between other Asian countries and Africa such as articles on the production of African plays in Bangladesh and on the persistence of African performance traditions among African migrants in India. Attention is paid to the syncretic theatre traditions that have evolved wherever African andAsian populations have been in close and extended contact, as in Mauritius and Durban. Unusual exchanges and globalized theatre surfaces in the course of the volume. For example, while the Guangdong Provincial Puppet Art Theatre Group performed at the 41st Grahamstown Festival (2015), Chinese puppeteers are being trained to manipulate the War Horse for a Beijing production. Volume Editors: JAMES GIBBS & FEMI OSOFISAN Series Editors: Martin Banham, Emeritus Professor of Drama & Theatre Studies, University of Leeds; James Gibbs, Senior Visiting Research Fellow, University of the West of England; Femi Osofisan, Professor of Drama, University of Ibadan; Jane Plastow, Professor of African Theatre, University of Leeds; Yvette Hutchison, Associate Professor, Department of Theatre & Performance Studies, University of Warwick.
£11.36
James Currey ALT 34 Diaspora & Returns in Fiction: African Literature Today
Imagined or actual returns to a "homeland" in African literature are examined in relation to changing concepts of identity, belonging, migration and space. This special issue focuses on literary texts by African writers in which the protagonist returns to his/her "original" or ancestral "home" in Africa from other parts of the world. Ideas of return - intentional and actual - have been a consistent feature of the literature of Africa and the African diaspora: from Equiano's autobiography in 1789 to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's 2013 novel Americanah. African literature has represented returnees in a range of locations and dislocations including having a sense of belonging, being alienated in a country they can no longer recognize, or experiencing a multiple sense of place. Contributors, writing on literature from the 1970s to thepresent, examine the extent to which the original place can be reclaimed with or without renegotiations of "home". GUEST EDITORS: HELEN COUSINS, Reader in Postcolonial Literature at Newman University, Birmingham, UK; PAULINE DODGSON-KATIYO, was formerly Head of English at Newman University, Birmingham, UK, and Dean of the School of Arts at Anglia Ruskin University. Series Editor: Ernest Emenyonu is Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Michigan-Flint, USA. Reviews Editor: Obi Nwakanma
£70.00
James Currey The Road to Soweto: Resistance and the Uprising of 16 June 1976
A new history of the 1976 Soweto Uprising and the events leading to it in the preceding decade, that will transform our understanding of the historical evolution of the struggle against apartheid. This revisionary account of the Soweto Uprising of June 1976 and the decade preceding it transforms our understanding of what led to this crucial flashpoint of South Africa's history. Brown argues that far from there being "quiescence" following the Sharpeville Massacre and the suppression of African opposition movements, during which they went underground, this period was marked by experiments in resistance and attempts to develop new forms of politics that prepared the ground for the Uprising. Students at South Africa's segregated universities began to re-organise themselves as a political force; new ideas about race reinvigorated political thought; debates around confrontation shaped the development of new forms of protest. The protest then began to move off university campuses and onto the streets: through the independent actions of workers in Durban, and attempts by students to link their struggles with a broader agenda. These actions made protest public once again, and helped establish the patterns of popular action and state response that would come to shape the events in Soweto on 16 June 1976. Julian Brown is a Lecturer in the Department of Political Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland & Botswana): Jacana 'throws new light on the background to the Soweto Uprising, providing insight into white and black student politics, worker protest and broader dissent' - William Beinart, University of Oxford 'an extremely important contribution to the historiography on protest in South Africa. It links black and white student protests (too often studied in isolation from one another) to workers' movements by looking at the changing forms of protest during the 1960s and 1970s, and the apartheid government's changing responses.' - Anne Heffernan, University of the Witwatersrand 'By showing how the Soweto Uprising served as a precursor for later historical and political events, the author convincingly shows the continuity from one from one protest and decade to the next.' - Dawne Curry, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
£63.00
James Currey ALT 8 Drama in Africa: African Literature Today: A review
The re-issue of archival volumes ALT 1 to ALT 14 makes the complete series available and provides the historical perspective of these early contributions to the literature and its criticism. First published in 1976, this volume has a focus on African drama and carries an introductory article by Ghanaian poet and playwright J.C. de Graft. There are three articles on Wole Soyinka's work as a playwright and an article onthe dramatic works of Ama Ata Aidoo, as well as an article on four dramatists from East Africa. The dilemmas of the popular playwright are discussed in an article on two Zambian writers and Eldred Jones's Editorial gives examplesfrom Sierra Leone of the challenges faced by more "popular" playwrights and those with the more "literary" concerns of publication.
£19.99
James Currey ALT 5 The Novel in Africa: African Literature Today: An annual review
The re-issue of archival volumes ALT 1 to ALT 14 makes the complete series available and provides the historical perspective of these early contributions to the literature and its criticism. Originally published in 1971, this was the first volume in the series to focus on a specific theme, in this case the novel, but continues the format of including contributions from both writers and critics. There are articles on:Equiano, Onuora Nzekwu, T.M. Aluko, Ngugi, Sarif Easmon, Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka. The volume also includes a contribution from Ernest Emenyonu asking of African Literature "What does it take to be its critic" plus reviews of Sembene Ousmane's newly published God's Bits of Wood, Mbella Sonne Dipoko's Because of Women
£19.99
James Currey Lost Nationalism: Revolution, Memory and Anti-colonial Resistance in Sudan
Winner of the African Studies Association 2016 Bethwell A. Ogot Book Prize A lively account of the 1924 Revolution in Sudan and the way in which the colonial situation has affected its representation, a case in point inthe histories of nationalist anti-colonial movements in Africa and the Middle East. The 1924 Revolution was a watershed in Sudanese history, the first episode of anti-colonial resistance in which a nationalist ideology was explicitly used, and part of a global wave of anti-colonial movements after the First WorldWar that can be seen as the "spring of the colonial nations". This detailed account of the uprising, and its eventual failure, explores the cosmopolitan nationalism embraced by the White Flag League, the movement that sparked the revolution, and its ability to attract people from diverse origins, classes and professions. It examines the international genesis of the movement; the strategies put in place to spread it in different areas of Sudan and among different groups; the movement's inclusive ideology and its definition of the Sudanese nation, as well as the limitations to its inclusiveness; and the way in which this episode reveals deeper questions relating to origins, social hierarchies and power. The book also unravels the complex history of the memory of 1924, the politics of its representation and the underlying power struggles that saw 1924 largely lost from the historical record. ElenaVezzadini is a historian of modern Sudan affiliated to the Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, University of Bergen, and Institut des Mondes Africains, Paris.
£78.03
James Currey The Swahili Novel: Challenging the Idea of 'Minor Literature'
An overview of the Swahili novel, its place in a globalized world and a reflection on the status and dynamism of Kafka's concept of 'minor literature'. For more than fifty years a dynamic modern literature has been developing in the Kiswahili language. The political weight that Kiswahili carries as the emerging national and pan-national language of many East African countries places this literature, much of it in the form of novels, at the centre of heated literary debates on the social function of literature in the context of rapid global social change. Garnier provides new insights into the Swahili novel form with all its vibrancy and capacity for experimentation. Its obsession with social issues relates to larger, all-pervasive political debates running through East Africa: in its press, its streets, its public and private places. The novels both record and provoke these debates. Based on the study of more than 175 Swahili novels by almost 100 authors, Garnier brings to light a body of work much neglected by African literary critics, but which looks outwards to the wider world. Xavier Garnier teaches African Literature at the Université Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle and is former director of the Centre d'Etudes des Nouveaux Espaces Littéraires, Université Paris 13.
£70.00
James Currey A New Generation of African Writers
Brenda Cooper examines the work of the new generation of African writers who have placed migration as central to their writing
£19.99
James Currey Dealing with Government in South Sudan: Histories of Chiefship, Community and State
Explores various aspects of chiefly authority in South Sudan from its historical origins and evolution under colonial, postcolonial and military rule, to its current roles and value in the newly independent country. South Sudan became Africa's newest nation in 2011, following decades of armed conflict. Chiefs - or 'traditional authorities' - became a particular focus of attention during the international relief effort and post-war reconstruction and state-building. But 'traditional' authority in South Sudan has been much misunderstood. Institutions of chiefship were created during the colonial period but originated out of a much longer process of dealing with predatory external forces. This book addresses a significant paradox in African studies more widely: if chiefs were the product of colonial states, why have they survived or revived in recent decades? By examining the long-term history ofchiefship in the vicinity of three towns, the book also argues for a new approach to the history of towns in South Sudan. Towns have previously been analysed as the loci of alien state power, yet the book demonstrates that thesegovernment centres formed an expanding urban frontier, on which people actively sought knowledge and resources of the state. Chiefs mediated relations on and across this frontier, and in the process chiefship became central to constituting both the state and local communities. Cherry Leonardi is Senior Lecturer in African History at Durham University, a former course director of the Rift Valley Institute's Sudan course, and a member of the council of the British Institute in Eastern Africa Published in association with the British Institute in Eastern Africa.
£70.00
James Currey Breaking the Silence: South African Representations of HIV/AIDS
Examines the South African HIV/AIDS epidemic through creative texts and the impact of these representations in determining which issues receive attention and how public understanding of the virus is shaped. South Africa is one of the countries in the world most affected by HIV/AIDS, and yet, until recently, the epidemic was barely visible in South African literature. Much can be gained from approaching the South African epidemic through creative texts such as novels, photographs, films, cartoons and murals because they produce and circulate meanings of HIV/AIDS and its various facets such as its 'origin', 'transmission routes' and 'physical manifestations'. Other aspects explored are the denial of HIV/AIDS, its stigmatisation, discriminatory practices, modes of disclosure, access to anti-retroviral medication, as well as the role of alternative treatment. Creative texts, which are open to different and possibly contradictory readings, can serve as a starting point to increase the cultural visibility of the virus and to challenge dominant ideas about the epidemic. The cultural constructions of HIV/AIDS should be carefully examined because the meanings are pervasive and have very 'real' consequences: they play a powerful role both in determining which issues receive attention and in shaping public understanding of the virus. Ellen Grünkemeier is a lecturer and researcher in the English Department at Leibniz University of Hanover, Germany. Her publications include two co-edited volumes on postcolonial literatures and cultures, Listening to Africa. Anglophone African Literatures and Cultures (2012), and Postcolonial Studies across the Disciplines (ASNEL Papers 19, forthcoming).
£75.00
James Currey Liberation Movements in Power: Party and State in Southern Africa
Analyses the ZANU-PF in Zimbabwe, SWAPO in Namibia and the ANC in South Africa and to what extent their promises of democracy have been effected in government. The liberation movements of Southern Africa arose to combat racism, colonialism and settler capitalism and engaged in armed struggle to establish democracy. After victory over colonial and white minority regimes, they moved into government embodying the hopes and aspirations of their mass of supporters and of widespread international solidarity movements. Even with the difficult legacies they inherited, their performance in power has been deeply disappointing. Roger Southall tracks the experiences in government of ZANU-PF, SWAPO and the ANC, arguing that such movements are characterised by paradoxical qualities, both emancipatory and authoritarian. Analysis is offered of their evolution into political machines through comparative review of their electoral performance, their relation to state and society, their policies regarding economic transformation, and their evolution as vehicles of class formation andpredatory behaviour. The author concludes that, while they will survive organizationally, their essence as progressive forces is dying, and that hopes of a genuine liberation throughout the region will depend upon political realignments alongside moral and intellectual regeneration. ANC South Africa SWAPO Namibia Zanu-PF Zimbabwe Roger Southall is Professor Emeritus in Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand and a Research Associate of the Society, Work and Development Institute.
£63.00
James Currey A History of Malawi: 1859-1966
A distinguished scholar's magnum opus and the first full account of Malawi's colonial history. This is the first comprehensive history of Malawi during the colonial period. Using a wide range of primary and secondary sources, it places this history within the context of the pre-colonial past. The book examines the way in which British people, starting with David Livingstone, followed by the pioneer Scottish Presbyterian missionaries and including soldiers, speculators, colonial officials and politicians, played an influential part in shaping Malawi. But even more important is the story of how Malawian people responded to the intrusion of colonialism and imperialism and the role they played in the dissolution of the colonial state. There is much here on resistance to colonial occupation, including religious-inspired revolt, on the shaping of the colonial economy, on the influence of Christian missions and on the growth of a powerful popular nationalism that contained within it the seeds of a new authoritarianism. But space is also given to less mainstream activities: the creation of dance societies, the eruption of witchcraft eradication movements and the emergence of football as a popular national sport. In particular, the book seeks to demonstrate the interrelationship between environmental and economic change and the impact these forces had on a poverty-stricken yet resilient Malawian peasantry. Malawi: Mzuni Press John McCracken is Honorary Senior Research Fellow, Stirling University. He has taught at University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, University College of Dar es Salaam and was Professor and Head of the Department of History at Chancellor College, University of Malawi from 1980-83 and returned as Visiting Professor in 2009. John McCracken was awarded ASAUK's Distinguished Africanist Award in 2008.
£89.83
James Currey Obasanjo, Nigeria and the World
This first full account of Obasanjo's life from 1937 to 2010 combines an analysis of an exceptionally vital and complicated man with a history of an exceptionally vital and complicated country. Olusegun Obasanjo was Nigeria's military head of state (1976-9) and President (1999-2007). His career is made the focus for a history of Nigeria's first fifty years of independence (1960-2010) and of African continental affairs during the same period (Obasanjo having been an active opponent of apartheid and an architect of the African Union). The most important African leader of his generation, Obasanjo has had an extraordinarily diverse career as soldier, politician, statesman, farmer, author, political prisoner, Baptist preacher, and family patriarch. As a soldier, he secured the victory in Nigeria's civil war. As military head of state, he returned the country to civilian rule. For the next 20 years he was ceaselessly active, before spending three years as a political prisoner. Released from prison, Obasanjo served Nigeria as elected President from 1999 to 2007, until his growing authoritarianism and his manipulation of his successor's election ruined his reputation among many Nigerians. This book argues that the controversial end to his presidency must be understood in the light of his earlier career. The author has used mainly published sources, especially Nigerian newspapers and political memoirs, as well as recently released FCO documents in Britain. John Iliffe is a Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. He retired as Professor of African History at Cambridge in 2006 and has published widely on African history including: A Modern History of Tanganyika; The Emergence of African Capitalism; The African Poor: A History; Africans: the History of a Continent; Honour in African History and The African Aids Epidemic: A History. Nigeria: HEBN [PB]
£80.00
James Currey Bulawayo Burning: The Social History of a Southern African City, 1893-1960
A unique and stylish contribution to the social history of African cities and Zimbabwean cultural life. NEW LOW PRICE This book is designed as a tribute and response to Yvonne Vera's famous novel Butterfly Burning, which is set in the Bulawayo townships in 1946 and dedicated to the author. It is an attempt to explorewhat historical research and reconstruction can add to the literary imagination. Responding as it does to a novel, this history imitates some fictional modes. Two of its chapters are in effect 'scenes', dealing with brief periods of intense activity. Others are in effect biographies of 'characters'. The book draws upon and quotes from a rich body of urban oral memory. In addition to this historical/literary interaction the book is a contribution to the historiography of southern African cities, bringing out the experiential and cultural dimensions, and combining black and white urban social history. TERENCE RANGER was Emeritus Rhodes Professor of Race Relations, University of Oxford and author of many books including Writing Revolt, Are we not also Men? (1995), Voices from the Rocks (1999) and was co-editor of Violence and Memory (2000). Zimbabwe: Weaver Press
£80.00
James Currey Poison and Medicine: Ethnicity, Power and Violence in a Nigerian City, 1966-1986
An historical view of ethnic conflict in Nigeria. A study of links between interethnic conflict and processes of reconciliation in the ethnically charged setting of Kano, northern Nigeria. It shows how the Igbos renegotiated a position for themselves in the new political environment of Kano following the Nigerian Civil War of 1967-1970. North America: Heinemann
£24.99
James Currey The UDF: A History of the United Democratic Front in South Africa, 1983-1991
Presents an account of the UDF's efforts in the struggle for freedom. This study argues that South Africa after apartheid cannot be properly understood without a knowledge of the UDF and its role in the transition to democracy. North America: Ohio U Press; South Africa: David Philip(NAB)
£25.99
James Currey Power of Babel: Language and Governance in the African Experience
Ali Mazrui address the great language debate in Africa. Tackling the contentious question of African languages versus European languages, this study argues that the dominance of the incoming languages is due to two factors: originally the societies were not expansionist enough, and later the peoples of Africa failed to be nationalist enough. ALI A. MAZRUI was Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at the State University of New York at Binghamton and Senior Scholar in African Studies atCornell University North America: Chicago U Press; Uganda: Fountain Publishers; Kenya: EAEP
£24.99
James Currey History of Islam in Africa
Intended as a reference and textbook, it does not assume prior knowledge of the subject. The history of the Islamic faith in Africa spans fourteen centuries. This book provides a detailed mapping of the cultural, political, geographic and religious past of Islam in a single volume. North America: Ohio U Press
£24.99
James Currey The Search for Africa: A History in the Making
The collection gathers together the questions and answers that have come out of the author's lifelong fascination with Africa. These essays and articles, written between 1953 and 1993, explore the development of an African historiography and, in that context, the author's own development. People who have been involved all their lives with Africa willbe reminded of how many times Basil Davidson has given them new insights. People who approach the study of Africa for the first time will find this collection opens out their perceptions. North America: Times/Random House
£24.99