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Books > Humanities > History > African history
The critics of Charles George Gordon accused him of vacillation and of instability of character. His supporters refused to admit that he was inconstant; they took the position that it was the Gladstone Cabinet which manifested a spirit of indecision that was fraught with terrible consequences. General Gordon was a prolific letter-writer, and he also kept a journal. Many official notes and dispatches deal with his final mission to Khartoum. This book, first published in 1933, attempts to get at the truth of Gordon's character and his time in the Sudan through these letters, this journal, these notes and despatches.
Noyes demonstrates the agency of literature in the structuring of
colonial space using a series of colonial texts from German South
West Africa in the period 1884-1915. The social production of space
in colonialization is achieved through establishing and
manipulating boundaries. The production of space is itself an
ordering process, and as such, a process of civilization. However,
the detailed analysis of the colonial discourse reveals how
colonial texts can be used to counter their author's claims to
universal truth and a civilizing mission.
’n Boeiende storie en ’n singbare wysie – dís die elemente wat volksballades nie net in die volksmond lewend hou nie, maar ook tydlose sjarme daaraan verleen. Want soos wat Pieter W. Grobbelaar in dié boek verklaar: “Die volksmens sing liedere nie net stukkend nie; hy wysig hulle soms ten goede.” Kinders van konings is ’n omvattende werk oor die volksballade in Afrikaans. Nie net word die oorsprong en ontwikkeling van hierdie tipe volkskuns op bondige en toeganklike wyse aangebied nie – 69 Afrikaanse volksballades word ook vir die eerste keer met volledige teks en musiek opgeteken. Met ’n spektrum wat strek vanaf die vroegste Middeleeuse volksballades uit Nederlands oorgeërf, tot ballades wat eers teen 1970 ontstaan het, word ’n omvattende blik gegee op meer as die verloop van die geskiedenis: ook die ontwikkeling van Afrikaans as skryftaal word langs hierdie weg duidelik geïllustreer. Die feit dat elke balladeteks van ’n volledige melodielyn (en kitaardrukke) voorsien, en met bykomende agtergrondinligting toegelig word, maak dit meer as ’n statiese leeservaring: Lesers sal sommer wil saamneurie met ou bekende deuntjies soos “Ou tante Koba” en “Een aand op ’n trein na Pretoria” en “Die kat kom weer” – terwyl amper vergete kultuurskatte soos “Die jonge Dupree”, “Skoon Isabel” en “Amakeia” terselfdertyd vir die nageslag behoue bly.
There is nothing wrong with the tribe just as there is nothing wrong with the nation. After all, modern nations are macro-tribes and tribes are micro-nations. So, if there is national obligation then there can be tribal obligation. Ethnos Oblige: Theory and Evidence outlines how these ethnic obligations of individuals manifest and determine positive and negative outcomes to them, their organizations, and societies. Focusing on psychological perspectives and proposing a new theoretical approach to help understand why individuals behave the way they do, both in work and non-work contexts, Ethnos Oblige offers readers a new perspective to reconsider ethnicity. Taking as its primary focus management practices based on extensive empirical evidence from primary and secondary data gathered from across Africa, the book investigates the cultural context through the lens of different ethnic groups, and the lingering effects of colonial legacy as manifested in post-colonial behaviors across differing industrial and cultural sectors. Dr. Zoogah presents revelatory findings on the drivers of ethnic identity and related contingencies, as well as suggestions for organizational implications for employee relations, organization behavior, institutional entrepreneurship and overall business strategy.
A study of apartheid and the changes which have taken place in South Africa since 1981. The author argues that vested interests and ideologies existing behind the pattern of property ownership survive the abolition of apartheid laws and that beyond race, class and ethnicity continue to divide urban life. Apartheid as legislated racial separation substantially changed the South African urban scene. Race "group areas" remodelled the cities, while the creation of "homelands" mini-states and the "pass laws" controlling population migration constrained urbanization itself. In the mid-1980s the old system - having proved economically inefficient and politically divisive - was replaced by a new policy of "orderly urbanization". This sought to accelerate industrialization and cultural change by relaxing the constraints on urbanization imposed by state planning. The result was further political instability and quarter of the black (or African) population housed in shanty towns. Negotiations between the Nationalist government and the African National Congress are working towards the end of the old apartheid system. Yet the negation of apartheid is only the beginning of the creation of a new
First published in 1862, this is a narrative of the life led in the islolated Ethiopia of a century ago.
John Hargreaves examines how the British, French, Belgian, Spanish and Portuguese colonies in tropical Africa became independent in the postwar years, and in doing so transformed the international landscape. African demands for independence and colonial plans for reform - central to the story - are seen here in the wider context of changing international relationships.
This analysis of French colonial ideology and interest in Morocco delineates the manner in which the agents of the protectorate regime sought to conquer the country and control its indigenous inhabitants. Numerous comparative perspectives are offered, placing the French policy towards Morocco in a wider context, making this study relevant to not only North Africa, but also to other parts of the post-colonial world.
A Human Being Died That Night recounts an extraordinary dialogue. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, a psychologist who grew up in a black South African township, reflects on her interviews with Eugene de Kock, the commanding officer of state-sanctioned death squads under apartheid. Gobodo-Madikizela met with de Kock in Pretoria's maximum-security prison, where he is serving a 212-year sentence for crimes against humanity. In profoundly arresting scenes, Gobodo-Madikizela conveys her struggle with contradictory internal impulses to hold him accountable and to forgive. Ultimately, as she allows us to witness de Kock's extraordinary awakening of conscience, she illuminates the ways in which the encounter compelled her to redefine the value of remorse and the limits of forgiveness.
A study of slave memory in South Africa using feminist, postcolonial and memory studies. Much has been made about South Africa's transition from histories of colonialism, slavery and apartheid. 'Memory' features prominently in the country's reckoning with its pasts. While there has been an outpouring of academic essays, anthologies and other full-length texts which study this transition, most have focused on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). What Is Slavery To Me? is the first full-length study of slave memory in the South African context, and examines the relevance and effects of slave memory for contemporary negotiations of South African gendered and racialised identities. It draws from feminist, postcolonial and memory studies and is therefore interdisciplinary in approach. It reads memory as one way of processing this past, and interprets a variety of cultural, literary and filmic texts to ascertain the particular experiences in relation to slave pasts being fashioned, processed and disseminated. Much of the material surveyed across disciplines attributes to memory, or 'popular history making', a dialogue between past and present whilst ascribing sense to both the eras and their relationship. In this sense then, memory is active, entailing a personal relationship with the past which acts as mediator of reality on a day to day basis. The projects studies various negotiations of raced and gendered identities in creative and other public spaces in contemporary South Africa, by being particularly attentive to the encoding of consciousness about the country's slave past. This book extends memory studies in South Africa, provokes new lines of inquiry, and develops new frameworks through which to think about slavery and memory in South Africa.
First published in 1971. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
There has been relatively little written on the history of urban planning in North Africa, despite the wealth of towns and cities in this region which date back to Antiquity. The book explores the history of urban planning in North Africa and the challenges confronting contemporary urban planning in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia. It examines the transnational flow of planning ideas during the colonial period, namely through the French, British, and Italian colonial presence, and the Portuguese and Spanish influences as well, and discusses key challenges currently confronting urban planning in the major urban centers in the region. The fifteen chapters that constitute the book offer an informed analysis of the history of urban planning in North Africa, covering the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial periods.
In the late 1950s, like tens of thousands of young men of his generation, Pierre Bourdieu, having recently passed the agr gation in philosophy, found himself immersed in the Algerian war. Motivated by an impulse that, as he himself says, was civic rather than political', nothing seemed more important to him than to understand the Algerian situation and provide the elements that would enable others to come to an informed judgement about it. In extremely tough conditions and along with a small group of students, Bourdieu undertook a series of studies across an Algeria that was tightly patrolled by the army, leading him to discover the shocking reality of the resettlement camps and to analyse the mechanisms of destruction of Algerian society of which they were emblematic. To achieve the objectives he had set himself, Bourdieu had to carry out a genuine intellectual conversion, acquiring an ethnographic understanding of Algerian society, learning sociological analysis at a breakneck pace and inventing new instruments - both theoretical and empirical - that would enable him to understand the relations of domination specific to colonialism. These new tools also enabled him to analyse the nature of the crisis that the war had both produced and manifested. This unique volume brings together the first texts written by Bourdieu in the midst of the Algerian conflict, as well as later writings and interviews in which he returns to the topic of Algeria and the decisive role it played in the development of his work.
A timely examination of African politics during the formative years of Zimbabwean nationalism. The Urban Roots of Democracy and Political Violence in Zimbabwe details a democratic tradition developed in the 1940s and 1950s, and a movement that would fall victim to an increasingly elitist and divisive political culture by the 1960s. Providing biographical sketches of key personalities within the genealogy of nationalist politics, Timothy Scarnecchia weaves an intricate narrative that traces the trajectories of earlier democratic traditions inZimbabwe, including women's political movements, township organizations, and trade unions. This work suggests that intense rivalries for control of the nationalist leadership after 1960, the "sell-out" politics of that period, andCold War funding for rival groups contributed to a unique political impasse, ultimately resulting in the largely autocratic and violent political state today. The author further proposes that this recourse to political violence,"top-down" nationalism, and the abandonment of urban democratic traditions are all hallmarks of a particular type of nationalism equally unsustainable in Zimbabwe then as it is now. Timothy Scarnecchia is assistant professor of African history at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio.
First Published in 1973. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
The emerging literature on the so-called 'Arab Spring' has largely focused on the evolution of the uprisings in cities and power centres. In order to reach a more diversified and inner understanding of the 'Arab Spring', this edited book examines how peripheries have reacted and contributed to the historical dynamics at work in the Middle East and North Africa. It rejects the idea that the 'Arab Spring' is a unitary process and shows that it consists of diverse Springs which differed in terms of opportunity structure, strategies of a variance of actors, and outcomes. This book looks at geographical, religious, gender and ethnical peripheries, conceptualizing periphery as a dynamic structure which can expand and contract. It shows that the seeds for changing the face of politics and polities are within peripheries themselves. Focusing on the voices of peripheries can therefore be a powerful tool to 'de-simplify' the reading of the Arab Spring and to reshape the paradigmatic schemes through which to look at this part of the world. This book was published as a special issue of Mediterranean Politics.
On 20 January 1973, the Bissau-Guinean revolutionary Amilcar Cabral was killed by militants from his own party. Cabral had founded the PAIGC in 1960 to fight for the liberation of Portuguese Guinea and Cape Verde. The insurgents were Bissau- Guineans, aiming to get rid of the Cape Verdeans who dominated the party elite. Despite Cabral's assassination, Portuguese Guinea became the independent Republic of Guinea- Bissau. The guerrilla war that Cabral had started and led precipitated a chain of events that would lead to the 1974 Carnation Revolution in Lisbon, toppling the forty-year-old authoritarian regime. This paved the way for the rest of Portugal's African colonies to achieve independence. Written by a native of Angola, this biography narrates Cabral's revolutionary trajectory, from his early life in Portuguese Guinea to his death at the hands of his own men. It details his quest for national sovereignty, beleaguered by the ethnic-based identity conflicts the national liberation movement struggled to overcome. Through the life of Cabral, Antonio Tomas critically reflects on existing ways of thinking and writing about the independence of Lusophone Africa.
Since its construction in the early 1960s, the hydroelectric Akosombo Dam across the Volta River has exemplified the possibilities and challenges of development in Ghana. Drawing upon a wealth of sources, A Dam for Africa investigates contrasting stories about how this dam has transformed a West African nation, while providing a model for other African countries. The massive Akosombo Dam is the keystone of the Volta River Project that includes a large manmade lake 250 miles long, the VALCO aluminum smelter, new cities and towns, a deep-sea harbor, and an electrical grid. On the local level, Akosombo has meant access to electricity for people in urban and industrial areas across southern Ghana. For others, Akosombo inflicted tremendous social and environmental costs. The dam altered the ecology of the Lower Volta, displaced 80,000 people in the Volta Basin, and affected the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Ghanaians. In A Dam for Africa, Stephan Miescher explores four intersecting narratives: Ghanaian debates and aspirations about modernization in the context of decolonization and Cold War; international efforts of the US aluminum industry to benefit from Akosombo through cheap electricity for their VALCO smelter; local stories of upheaval and devastation in resettlement towns; and a nation-wide quest toward electrification and energy justice during times of economic crises, droughts, and climate change.
Although nineteenth-century Egyptian Jewry was an active and creative part of society, this work from 1969 is the main comprehensive work devoted to an analysis and appraisal of its activities. The period under review commences with the fall of the Mamluk regime in Egypt, and the incipient modernization of the state, with the resulting increase in Jewish activity. It terminates with the end of World War I and the new era in the history of modern Egypt, an era of extreme nationalism that led to the undermining of the Jewish community.
First published in 1990. This volume is essentially a study in decolonization. The approach of the author is of a conflict resolution process taken from the perspective of 1974 as the chosen point. Following the decolonization of the Portuguese colonial empire, the uniqueness of the decolonization of Rhodesia became more apparent and the conflict began to realize its full potential. The author has taken three analytical concepts- the goals' continuum, the strategic options' continuum and the interaction within and between the three levels of the conflict system.
A comprehensive and balanced volume which juxtaposes the views of statesmen with those of military leaders that fought the war.
This work shows the extent to which the shipping of Africans to the Americas continued after the Abolition Act of 1807.
What happens when two ordinary South Africans ask some of our greatest personalities - from politicians to pop stars - to share what it was that inspired them to become who they are? Funny, serious, revealing, the responses reflect the personal experiences and philosophies that have shaped the contributors - against a shared historical canvas reaching back over the past decades. All that I am is a fingerprint of the times, reflecting the strength of character, tenacity and wit of some of the best-known of South Africa's home-grown.
The Women of Cairo: Scenes of Life in the Orient, first published in 1926, describes the trip to Egypt and other locations in the Ottoman Empire taken by French Romanticist Gerard de Nerval. The book focuses on both reinforcing and dispelling the old ways in which people saw the Orient, as well as examining their old and new customs. This book is perfect for those studying history and travel. |
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