The Russian Revolution of 1917 was not just a world-historical event in its own right, but also struck powerful blows against racism and imperialism, and so inspired many black radicals internationally. This edited collection explores the implications of the creation of the Soviet Union and the Communist International for black and colonial liberation struggles across the African diaspora. It examines the critical intellectual influence of Marxism and Bolshevism on the current of revolutionary 'black internationalism' and analyses how 'Red October' was viewed within the contested articulations of different struggles against racism and colonialism. Challenging European-centred understandings of the Russian Revolution and the global left, The Red and the Black offers new insights on the relations between Communism, various lefts and anti-colonialisms across the Black Atlantic - including Garveyism and various other strands of Pan-Africanism. The volume makes a major and original intellectual contribution by making the relations between the Russian Revolution and the Black Atlantic central to debates on questions relating to racism, resistance and social change. -- .

This is a most welcome book, which will fill a gap in the study of early Egypt. The author has sprinkled his narrative with anecdotes from his own archaeological expeditions make the text lively and entertaining, elevating his book from mere description to a highly personal and approachable account. This is a skillful survey which will benefit many different kinds of readers. I highly recommend it., says Ronald J. Leprohon, Professor of Egyptology, University of Toronto. Have you ever wondered who built the pyramids and why? What life was like for the earliest Egyptians? When and how hieroglyphic writing developed? How Egyptian civilization changed through time? and What religion the ancient Egyptians practiced? The answers to all these questions lie deep in Egypt's past. In Ancient Egypt, The Origins, Douglas J.Brewer traces Egypt's history from the Nile Valley's earliest inhabitants through to the building of the first pyramids.

Experts present proven methods and techniques for studying about or in Africa! Research, Reference Services, and Resources for the Study of Africa helps you steer clear of washouts, cave-ins, and dead ends on the road to successful research onor inAfrica. This one-of-a-kind research guide presents practical solutions to frequently occurring problems in the study of Africa, including Internet accessibility problems, errors that will affect a known item search, the imposition of colonial legacy, and dealing with gender and class bias. Unlike most references on Africa that concentrate on collection development, this unique book focuses on the study of Africa, making it a must-have for academic librarians, Africanist scholars, and Africana librarians. Specialists, generalist librarians, and end users all depend on tools designed to provide access to information in libraries and on the web including OPACs databases, and search engines. In this book, these tools, research methods, and the accessibility of information on Africa are examined, offering students and professionals a thorough guide to the most successful researching route. Research, Reference Services, and Resources for the Study of Africa provides assistance in the research process according to a variety of categories including: evaluating OPACs and similar databases for known-item searching using keywords, subject headings, bias, indexing, full-text searching, terminology, cataloguing, user-centered information services, and other search strategies to find what you are looking for using Internet resources to your advantage using the partnerships between the U.S. and African libraries and scholarly institutions to help improve information access using techniques for reference librarians to act as a force increasing women's roles in the study of Africa and much more! Research, Reference Services, and Resources for the Study of Africa offers all the information necessary to avoid research hang-ups that affect the study of Africa, and the necessary information to pass these skills on to students.

This is a study of the evolving relationship between the British colonial state and the copper mining industry in Northern Rhodesia, from the early stages of development to decolonization, encompassing depression, wartime mobilization and fundamental changes in the nature and context of colonial rule. It explores the vital importance of Northern Rhodesian copper to British economic and strategic interests, and to Britain's ambitious post-war plans to integrate its Central African territories. Among the key themes addressed are contemporary debates on the ownership of mineral resources and on the colonial state's responsibility to promote and control mining development and the wealth it generated.

Stretching between the savannah and the equator, Sudan has one leg in the Arab world and the other in Africa. Political developments, however, have failed to reflect the differences within Sudan, resulting in political instability and a lack of national consensus - ultimately leading to long-term civil war.
This useful book provides a comprehensive introduction to contemporary Sudan from a social science perspective, outlining the evolution of the state with emphasis on its post-independence experience. It includes chapters on the history, politics, international relations and economy of the country.

What makes people act against their own national identity?How real are the concepts of nationalism and patriotism? In what ways does the media control our perception of history in the making?This ground-breaking work addresses these important questions through an examination of the Algerian war of 1954-62 and the significant French resistance to their own leaders during the bitter conflict. Through the use of extensive interviews, it provides powerful insights into the clash of values that accompanied the war. In exploring the events and experiences that led a small minority of French people to reject colonialism in the wake of the Algerian conflict, Memories of Resistance focuses on the importance of political allegiances and ideologies, and the motivations for resisting them. The complex issues of identity and shared memory are examined to provide an indispensable analysis of loyalty and self-identity in the wider political context of the world. The book also debates the changing ways in which the media influences perceptions of, and attitudes towards, world events. Third World liberation ideas, personal experiences of French colonialism, memory and the significance of anti-Nazi resistance and political allegiances are all discussed in this wide-ranging and illuminating study.Memories of Resistance represents a major contribution to the theory and practice of oral history, which is fast becoming one of the most popular and dynamic areas of historical research and will be essential reading for anyone studying French colonial history.

First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This volume examines how African indigenous popular music is deployed in democracy, politics and for social crusades by African artists. Exploring the role of indigenous African popular music in environmental health communication and gender empowerment, it subsequently focuses on how the music portrays the African future, its use by African youths, and how it is affected by advanced broadcast technologies and the digital media. Indigenous African popular music has long been under-appreciated in communication scholarship. However, understanding the nature and philosophies of indigenous African popular music reveals an untapped diversity which can only be unraveled by the knowledge of myriad cultural backgrounds from which its genres originate. With a particular focus on scholarship from Nigeria, Zimbabwe and South Africa, this volume explores how, during the colonial period and post-independence dispensation, indigenous African music genres and their artists were mainstreamed in order to tackle emerging issues, to sensitise Africans about the affairs of their respective nations and to warn African leaders who have failed and are failing African citizenry about the plight of the people. At the same time, indigenous African popular music genres have served as a beacon to the teeming African youths to express their dreams, frustrations about their environments and to represent themselves. This volume explores how, through the advent of new media technologies, indigenous African popular musicians have been working relentlessly for indigenous production, becoming champions of good governance, marginalised population, and repositories of indigenous cultural traditions and cosmologies.

In the period between the outbreak of World War II in 1939 and the enactment of university apartheid by the Nationalist Government in 1959, the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (Wits) developed as an ‘open university’, admitting students of all races. This, the second volume of the history of Wits by historian Bruce Murray, has as its central theme the process by which Wits became ‘open’, the compromises this process entailed, and the defence the University mounted to preserve its ‘open’ status in the face of the challenges posed by the Nationalist Government.

The University’s institutional autonomy is highlighted by Yunus Ballim in his preface to the centenary edition of WITS: The ‘Open’ Years. He writes: ‘The emerging posture of a university willing to rise in defence of academic freedom was important because this was to become infused into the institutional culture of Wits.’

The book looks at the University’s role in South Africa’s war effort, its contribution to the education of ex-volunteers after the war, its leading role in training job-seeking professionals required by a rapidly expanding economy, and the rise of research and postgraduate study. Students feature prominently through their political activities, the flourishing of a student intelligentsia, the heyday of the Remember and Give (Rag) parade, rugby intervarsity, and the stunning success of Wits sportsmen and women. Wits: The ‘Open’ Years paints a vivid picture of the range of personalities who enlivened the campus – among them some well-known figures in the new South Africa.

The book includes chapters by Alf Stadler, who was Professor of Political Studies at Wits and the author of The Political Economy of Modern South Africa, and Jonty Winch, former Sports Officer at Wits and the author of Wits Sport.

Why violence in the Congo has continued despite decades of international intervention Well into its third decade, the military conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been dubbed a "forever war"-a perpetual cycle of war, civil unrest, and local feuds over power and identity. Millions have died in one of the worst humanitarian calamities of our time. The War That Doesn't Say Its Name investigates the most recent phase of this conflict, asking why the peace deal of 2003-accompanied by the largest United Nations peacekeeping mission in the world and tens of billions in international aid-has failed to stop the violence. Jason Stearns argues that the fighting has become an end in itself, carried forward in substantial part through the apathy and complicity of local and international actors. Stearns shows that regardless of the suffering, there has emerged a narrow military bourgeoisie of commanders and politicians for whom the conflict is a source of survival, dignity, and profit. Foreign donors provide food and urgent health care for millions, preventing the Congolese state from collapsing, but this involvement has not yielded transformational change. Stearns gives a detailed historical account of this period, focusing on the main players-Congolese and Rwandan states and the main armed groups. He extrapolates from these dynamics to other conflicts across Africa and presents a theory of conflict that highlights the interests of the belligerents and the social structures from which they arise. Exploring how violence in the Congo has become preoccupied with its own reproduction, The War That Doesn't Say Its Name sheds light on why certain military feuds persist without resolution.

Focussing on the problems of change and resistance to change that mark the African sub-continent, this book examines Africa's place in the world from earliest times. It considers the nature of its peoples in their prehistoric development, the ways in which their cultures were oriented, and the ways in which these cultures guided their reactions to European ideas. It also assesses the human responses to industrial, technological and economic changes and the re-discovery by the Africans of African culture. Originally published in 1962.

This book explores the process, effects, and results of codification of Egyptian personal status laws as seen through the eyes of the 'ulama'. The codification process began in the mid-1800s and continued until the abolishment of the Shari'a courts in 1955 with the absorption of personal status statutes into the newly drafted civil code and the national courts that administered them.

The book traces the end of hostilities and the often acrimonious, sometimes naive, but always laboured negotiations towards peace and elections in Mozambique. There is careful examination of the many international factors involved from the covert intervention of South Africa, the reaction of one African state, the role of the United Nations and that of humanitarian and religious groups. The lessons for conflict resolution and peacekeeping for Africa and beyond are discussed.

This book evaluates the historical factors that produced the Boer people, and the political, religious and economic forces that maintain modern Afrikaner Nationalism. This last trek brings the Afrikaner back into multi-racial integrating industrial society. Originally published in 1957.

With an introduction by author Anne Enright. Shortlisted for the Guardian First Book award, a story of civil war and a family's unbreakable bond. How you see a country depends on whether you are driving through it, or live in it. How you see a country depends on whether or not you can leave it, if you have to. As the daughter of white settlers in war-torn 1970s Rhodesia, Alexandra Fuller remembers a time when a schoolgirl was as likely to carry a shotgun as a satchel. This is her story - of a civil war, of a quixotic battle with nature and loss, and of a family's unbreakable bond with the continent that came to define, scar and heal them. Shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, Alexandra Fuller's classic memoir of an African childhood is suffused with laughter and warmth even amid disaster. Unsentimental and unflinching, but always enchanting, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight is the story of an extraordinary family in an extraordinary time.

In this comprehensive examination of the one of the world's most ancient societies, Talhami describes Egypt's quest for a sense of national identity and the factors that have affected the Egyptian identity. Generally polarized over the identity issue since the nineteenth century, Egyptians debated the significance of Sudanese bonds as a definer of Egypt's historic and national development before they debated the significance of Arab, particularly Palestinian, involvement. Nasser's rise to power, Talhami argues, amounted to an inevitable swing in the direction of pan-Arabism because of the strategic developments surrounding the rise of Israel. The author also examines Egypt's foreign policy in light of the identity question. The major conclusion of this study is that Egypt is destined to face northwards and reject isolationism because of strategic developments related to the rise of Israel. Economic and Arab leadership considerations will always impel Egypt to seek a larger role in the Arab world, but this cannot be done without sponsorship of the Palestinian issue. These conclusions challenge the accepted wisdom regarding the Camp David agreements. Those who believe that Egypt can find safety and security by linking itself with a great power while ignoring the historically-proven strategic relevance of the northeast region will find this book startling.

Although the identity debate often becomes a tool of the practicing politician, the historian, the ideologue, and the military strategist, its outcome is most likely to be determined by historical events. Egypt was bound to search for a modern sense of identity. What makes this book unique is its use of the work of literary figures, historians and politicians to investigate the cumulative impact of the changes which occurred during the Sadat period. Talhami's work places the Camp David era against the historical background of the identity debate. The fact that this debate remains unresolved today is a measure of Egypt's uncertain future as a nation and as a political community. While the majority of Egyptians recognize the inevitability of Palestinian involvement, they do not agree on the best course of action. The Persian Gulf War and Egypt's decision to side with the United States in this inter-Arab dispute constitute yet another onslaught on the Palestinians and on Arab identity. Scholars focusing on the Arab world and on Middle Eastern history and politics will find this book provocative and essential reading.

Contents:
Preface
Introduction
1. The Maatian Ideal: A Conceptual Framework
2. The Maatian Ideal: From the Old Kingdom to the Middle Kingdom
3. The Maatian Ideal: From the New Kingdom to the Late Period
4. The Declarations of Innocence: Text and Moral Theology
5. Maatian Ontology
6. Maatian Anthropology
7. Maatian Social Practice I
8. Maatian Social Practice II
9. Summary

Apartheid and its resistance come to life in this memoir making it a vital historical document of its time and for our own. In 1969, while a student in South Africa, John Schlapobersky was arrested for opposing apartheid and tortured, detained and eventually deported. Interrogated through sleep deprivation, he later wrote secretly in solitary confinement about the struggle for survival. Those writings inform this exquisitely written book in which the author reflects on the singing of the condemned prisoners, the poetry, songs and texts that saw him through his ordeal, and its impact. This sense of hope through which he transformed his life guides his continuing work as a psychotherapist and his focus on the rehabilitation of others. "[T]hetale of an ordinary young man swept one day from his life into hell, testimony to the wickedness a political system let loose in its agents and, above all, an intimate account of how a man became a healer."-Jonny Steinberg, Oxford University From the introduction: I was supposed to be a man by the time I turned 21, by anyone's reckoning. By the apartheid regime's reckoning, I was also old enough to be tortured. Looking back, I can recognize the boy I was. The eldest of my grandchildren is now approaching this age, and I would never want to see her or the others - or indeed anyone else - having to face any such ordeal. At the time my home was in Johannesburg, only some thirty miles from Pretoria, where I was thrown into a world that few would believe existed, populated by creatures from the darkest places, creatures of the night, some in uniform. I was there for fifty-five days, and never went home again.

The Mayor of Mogadishu tells the story of one family's epic journey through Somalia's turmoil, from the optimism of independence to its spectacular unravelling.Mohamud 'Tarzan' Nur was born a nomad, and became an orphan, then a street brawler in the cosmopolitan port city of Mogadishu - a place famous for its cafes and open-air cinemas. When Somalia collapsed into civil war, Tarzan and his young family joined the exodus from Mogadishu, eventually spending twenty years in North London. But in 2010 Tarzan returned to the unrecognisable ruins of a city largely controlled by the Islamist militants of Al-Shabaab. For some, the new Mayor was a galvanising symbol of defiance. But others branded him a thug, mired in the corruption and clan rivalries that continue to threaten Somalia's revival.The Mayor of Mogadishu is an uplifting story of survival, and a compelling examination of what it means to lose a country and then to reclaim it.

The French Army's war in Algeria has always aroused passions. This book does not whitewash the atrocities committed by both sides; rather it shifts the focus to the conflict itself, a perspective assisted by the French republic's belated official admission in 1999 that what happened in Algeria was indeed a war. Each contributor made use of the increasingly liberalised French archives of the war since the early 1990s. The book re-evaluates counter-terrorism in the cities; the methods used in the "battle for hearts and minds" in the villages of the interior; the hitherto neglected roles of French air and naval power in supporting the army's counter-insurgency offensives against the Armee de Liberation Nationale; and the battles that France decisively lost for both world opinion and for support from her major Western allies.
For years, with few exceptions, writers have overwhelmingly examined the Algerian crisis through the prism of French party politics, personal testimony and more recently, memory. But, far from being "a war with no name" the fighting in Algeria was on a massive scale involving some two million French soldiers. This collection, published for the 40th anniversary of the war's end, firmly situates the battles they fought in strategy, operations and diplomacy.

In the story of the The Golden Republic, Bulpin sets a stage on which we meet some of the strangest characters that fate had ever attached to the puppet strings of destiny. The grim Mzilikazi; the hot-headed Hendrik Potgieter and his trekkers; prospectors like Charlie the Reefer; gaudy rogues like Gunn of Gunn and his Highlanders; bandits, highwaymen, rand lords, gold rushers, to name just a few. He tells of leaders like Pretorius and Kruger, and many others who each played a part in establishing the Republic of the Transvaal – a seemingly impossible task considering all the small wars and skirmishes on the veld and the rumble of arguments rising out of each farmhouse. In his remarkably engaging style of writing he sketches scenes of rough but beautiful land, which must have been fascinating to explorers who roamed about the old Transvaal with all its scenic novelties where every turn yielded some marvel for the geologist, the botanist, or the zoologist. The Golden Republic tells of the adventure that raised the Republic to its peak and the complex intrigues that brought it down to the dust; of misfortune and riches, and despair of such magnitude that the birth of a Republic seemed inevitable considering the economic disaster it at times experienced … Until gold poked out its shiny head and gave hope again. The characters who crowded into diggers’ towns were some of the wildest and most colourful ever known in the Transvaal. From all over South Africa they flocked to the scene, in the hope of finding fortune. Most of them were just opportunists, who knew nothing about gold except how to spend it. This is a brilliant book of the birth, life and death of the old Republic written in the tell-tale style Bulpin does so well.