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Books > Humanities > History > African history > General
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Zanzibar Sultanate became the focal point of European imperial and humanitarian policies, most notably Britain, France, and Germany. In fact, the Sultanate was one of the few places in the world where humanitarianism and imperialism met in the most obvious fashion. This crucial encounter was perfectly embodied by the iconic meeting of Dr. Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley in 1871. This book challenges the common presumption that those humanitarian concerns only served to conceal vile colonial interests. It brings the repression of the East African slave trade at sea and the expansion of empires into a new light in comparing French and British archives for the first time.
Mali is often depicted as a successor state of the Ancient Mali Empire. Since 2012, a lasting political, social, and security crisis has engulfed the country. Non-state armed groups, community militias, and fundamental Islamist fighters, have been wreaking havoc in a state that was praised for its diversity and religious tolerance. Amidst these violent conflicts, various narratives have been employed to mobilize support for Mali. These narratives have not prevented the rise of community-centered strategies for survival. Fula, the largest West African community, has often been associated with narratives related to violent conflict. Subjective appropriations have fueled peacebuilding and warmongering. National Narratives of Mali: Fula Communities in Times of Crisis analyzes the narratives employed in Mali by actors in the field to justify their actions and strategies. Dougoukolo Alpha Oumar Ba Konare studies the reactions from Fula communities that have experienced and created narratives of their own, based on their own senses of identity.
This book is the first English translation of Felice di Michele Brancacci's diary of his 1422 mission to the court of Sultan Al-Ashraf Seyf-ad-Din Barsbay of Egypt. Following the purchase of Port of Pisa in 1421, and the building of a galley system, Florence went on to assume a more active role in Levant trade, and this rich text recounts the maiden voyage of the Florentine galleys to Egypt. The text portrays the transnational experiences of Brancacci including those between the East and West, Christians and Muslims, and the ancient and modern worlds. The accompanying critical introduction discusses the unexpected motifs in Brancacci's voyage, as well as tracing the aftershocks of what was a traumatic Egyptian experience for him. It shows that this aftershock was then measured, captured, and memorialized in the iconic image of Tribute Money, the fresco he commissioned from Masaccio, on his return to his own world in Florence.
The Soviet Union and Egypt, first published in 1993, sheds new light on Soviet policy towards the Middle East after 1945. It seeks to uncover and analyse the events leading to the eventual domination of Egypt and other Arab countries by the Soviet Union. Soviet penetration into the region can only be understood by tracing the roots and motives of Soviet policy after the Second World War. The strengthening of Soviet influence resulted from a process of gradual political and ideological development in Egypt. Special attention is drawn to domestic and foreign developments in both countries, and the book makes extensive use of recently declassified documents and primary sources.
This volume, the fifth in the important Koobi Fora series on human origins, reports archaeological finds from excavations at East Turkana in northern Kenya from 1969-1979. It concentrates on the evidence from the period between 1.9 and 0.7 million years ago for reconstructing the behavior of early human ancestors. During this research study, new interdisciplinary methods of survey, mapping, excavation, experimentation, and analysis were developed. The study investigated the geology, stratigraphy, site formation processes, technology of the stone assemblages, and associated fauna of the region. This book is a unique record for this time period in Kenya, and this work is a benchmark in the field of human evolution.
A single image taken from a high-rise building in inner-city Johannesburg uncovers layers of history-from its premise and promise of gold to its current improvisations. It reveals the city as carcass and as crucible, where informal agents and processes spearhead its rapid reshaping and transformation. In Wake Up, This Is Joburg, writer Tanya Zack and photographer Mark Lewis offer a stunning portrait of Johannesburg and personal stories of some of the city's ordinary, odd, and outrageous residents. Their photos and essays take readers into meat markets where butchers chop cow heads; the eclectic home of an outsider artist that features turrets and full of manikins; long-abandoned gold pits beneath the city, where people continue to mine informally; and lively markets, taxi depots, and residential high-rises. Sharing people's private and work lives and the extraordinary spaces of the metropolis, Zack and Lewis show that Johannesburg's urban transformation occurs not in a series of dramatic, wide-scale changes but in the everyday lives, actions, and dreams of individuals.
An essential resource for students or general readers interested in post-colonial Africa, this encyclopedia provides coverage of different regions, countries, wars, battles, factions, leaders, and foreign powers. Armed conflict represents a substantial part of African history since around 1960, yet this history is either insufficiently taught or overshadowed by negative stereotypes about African "tribal warfare." In an effort to introduce this vital topic to students and general readers alike, this one-volume encyclopedia provides concise historical information on conflicts that occurred in postcolonial Africa. The entries cover all the regions of Africa (North, West, Central, East, and Southern); the Cold War and post-Cold War periods; a range of important leaders; various types of conflicts from civil wars and insurgencies to conventional military engagements; involvement of foreign powers; and such themes as airpower, women and war, and genocide. Includes more than 150 entries on various individuals, events, movements, and organizations Presents further reading sources at the end of each entry in order to further aid readers in their study of the topic Offers a chronology of the events discussed throughout the encyclopedia Features contributions from key scholars in the fields of African history and military studies
Expanded third edition of this key text on the complex underlying conditions of the civil war from the 1960s to the present day, including a new chapter on the current wars in Sudan's new south and South Sudan. Sudan's post-independence history has been dominated by political and civil strife. Most commentators have attributed the country's recurring civil war either to an age-old racial divide between Arabs and Africans, or to recent colonially constructed inequalities. This book attempts a more complex analysis, briefly examining the historical, political, economic and social factors which have contributed to periodic outbreaks of violence between the state andits peripheries. In tracing historical continuities, it outlines the essential differences between the modern Sudan's first civil war in the 1960s and today, including an analysis of the escalation of the Darfur war, implementation of the 2005 peace agreement and implications of the Southern referendum in 2011 and the new war in Sudan's new south and South Sudan. The author also looks at the series of minor civil wars generated by, and contained within, the major conflict, as well as the regional and international factors - including humanitarian aid - which have exacerbated civil violence. This introduction is aimed at students of North-East Africa, and of conflict and ethnicity. It will be essential reading for those in aid and international organizations who need a straightforward analytical survey which will help them assess the prospects for a lasting peace in Sudan. Douglas H. Johnson isan independent scholar and former international expert on the Abyei Boundaries Commission.
First published in 1978 Nasser and His Generation is one of the most important books on modern Egyptian history. It goes much further than a simple history of the Nasser regime or a psychobiography of the Egyptian ruler. It examines his personality, attitudes and beliefs and how these were informed or acquired and seeks to explain what and who he was. But it also considers Nasser to be a representative of a generation of Egyptians, many of whom rode on his bandwagon to power, serve him, and then more or less promptly forgot him. The first two parts set the scene for the emergence of the military regime, highlighting the disintegration of the old political order which the Free Officers overthrew in 1952. Part Three deals with Nasser in his several capacities as absolute ruler of Egypt and his relations with Arabs, Israel and the rest of the world. Part Four provides a depiction of Nasser as the absolute ruler and Part Five attempts a general assessment of Nasser's personality and his impact on Egypt. Based on archival sources and extensive interviews with many of his associates, closest members of his family and his deepest enemies, this volume is a must read for any student of political history, African studies, Middle East studies and political science.
examines the life and work of Mazisi Kunene explores how 'oraliterature' and cultural traditions informed Kunene's poetry draws on a range of interviews and comparative studies, the book situates Kunene's work in a wider conversation about South African social struggles. This book is an important contribution to our understanding of one of the giants of African literary history. As such, it will be of interest to researchers across African literary and postcolonial studies.
The African Red Sea Littoral, currently divided between Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Djibouti, is one of the poorest regions in the world. But the pastoralist communities indigenous to this region were not always poor-historically, they had access to a variety of resources that allowed them to prosper in the harsh, arid environment. This access was mediated by a robust moral economy of pastoralism that acted as a social safety net. Steven Serels charts the erosion of this moral economy, a slow-moving process that began during the Little Ice Age mega-drought of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and continued through the devastating famines of the twentieth century. By examining mass sedentarization after the Second World War as merely the latest manifestation of an inter-generational environmental and economic crisis, this book offers an innovative lens for understanding poverty in northeastern Africa.
Drawing heavily on material from the archives of the governments of colonial Zimbabwe, this invaluable reference tool examines administrative policy concerning issues such as land conservation, community development, and land apportionment to Africans. Much of the original documentation collected here was destroyed by the Rhodesian Front government before Zimbabwean independence in 1980. As a source book, containing circulars, directives, legislation, official reports, and minutes from office holders, "Hidden Conflict" provides an inside look at administrative policy in colonial Zimbabwe and the intentions behind it. Through her examination of these documents, Passmore highlights the roles played by colonial civil servants in influencing events in Zimbabwe. The issues, controversies, and concerns the author depicts in her book remain relevant for postcolonial Zimbabwe and many other African countries today.
In 1978, the South African activist and novelist Alex La Guma (1925-1985) published A Soviet Journey, a memoir of his travels in the Soviet Union. Today it stands as one of the longest and most substantive first-hand accounts of the USSR by an African writer. La Guma's book is consequently a rare and important document of the anti-apartheid struggle and the Cold War period, depicting the Soviet model from an African perspective and the specific meaning it held for those envisioning a future South Africa. For many members of the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party, the Soviet Union represented a political system that had achieved political and economic justice through socialism-a point of view that has since been lost with the collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War. This new edition of A Soviet Journey-the first since 1978-restores this vision to the historical record, highlighting how activist-intellectuals like La Guma looked to the Soviet Union as a paradigm of self-determination, decolonization, and postcolonial development. The introduction by Christopher J. Lee discusses these elements of La Guma's text, in addition to situating La Guma more broadly within the intercontinental spaces of the Black Atlantic and an emergent Third World. Presenting a more expansive view of African literature and its global intellectual engagements, A Soviet Journey will be of interest to readers of African fiction and non-fiction, South African history, postcolonial Cold War studies, and radical political thought.
Twenty years ago, Jaabe So founded an independent farmers' association among the Soninke towns in Senegal. Since then, much of Adrian Adams's and So's lives have been spent in struggling to defend the existence of that association against a state development corporation funded by development aid. This is a narrative of that struggle and of three centuries of Senegalese history. This extraordinary book, much of which was written first in an African language, will be invaluable reference for those who believe that Africans may yet redeem a future free from the false promises of development by drawing on an inherited past.
This volume, written by leading African and Western specialists, is among the first to provide a broad interdisciplinary view of African culture that allows contemporary Africa to be understood on its own terms--freed from Western ethnocentric preconceptions and values. The book begins with an overview of current African scholarship, followed by Philip Curtin's historical essay on Africa's 400-year relationship with European culture, with special emphasis on the mass migrations brought about by the slave trade. Discussions of indigenous cultural symbols and religious belief systems reveal a rich and continuing heritage and deepen our understanding of modern African society. Several chapters are devoted to the intellectual and cultural life of Francophone Africa--its major writers and scholars and the deep cultural conflict experienced by French-speaking African elites. A chapter by Leopold Senghor, former president of Senegal and a leading cultural figure in Francophone Africa, offers an eloquent statement of the post-colonial African world view. A new form of imperialism--the control of the mass media by powerful industrial nations--and the dangers it poses to African identity and autonomy are examined. Other topics covered are the evolution of African legal and judicial systems and recent developments in African musicology.
This volume is a collection of chapters about contemporary issues within African philosophy. They are issues African philosophy must grapple with to demonstrate its readiness to make a stand against some of the challenges society faces in the coming decade such as xenophobia, Afro-phobia, extreme poverty, democratic failure and migration. The text covers new methodical directions and there is focus on the conversationalist, complementarist and consolationist movements within the field as well as the place of the Indigenous Knowledge System.The collection speaks to African philosophy's place in intellectual history with coverage of African Ethics and African socio-political philosophy. Contributors come from a variety of different backgrounds, institutions and countries. Through their innovative ideas, they provide fresh insight and intellectual energy. The book appeals to philosophy students and researchers.
Originally published in 1989 and written by a long-time peacemaker who commanded respect from most political camps in South Africa, this book advocated constructive intervention in the South African conflict. It showed the growing element of pragmatic flexibility in the white leadership and argued that this more rational approach, combined with moral reform among the white population, promised reasonable prospects for the constructive accommodation of conflict in South Africa. In 1984 the author arrange the first meetings between government supporters and the ANC in exile in Lusaka, breaking a 24-year deadlock and significantly influencing public opinion in South Africa.
Originally published in 1972, this book covers South African history from the earliest times up to 1968. After portraying the land itself, its people and their migrations, it describes what early travellers found and the arrival of the first white settlers in 1652 under the aegis of the Dutch East India Company. The arrival of the British in 1795, the period of expansion, Wars of Dispossession, the founding of the Boer republics, discovery of gold and diamonds, the Anglo-Boer war and Union are all discussed. Showing that the roots of Apartheid lay deep in South Africa's history, which repeated itself again and again, the author concludes 'The tragedy and shame of it is that for so long there was such a fiercely glowing faith in British rule and British justice; yet when Britain had the power to check and control discrimination she did not.'
Emirs in London recounts how Northern Nigerian Muslim aristocrats who traveled to Britain between 1920 and Nigerian independence in 1960 relayed that experience to the Northern Nigerian people. Moses E. Ochonu shows how rather than simply serving as puppets and mouthpieces of the British Empire, these aristocrats leveraged their travel to the heart of the empire to reinforce their positions as imperial cultural brokers, and to translate and domesticate imperial modernity in a predominantly Muslim society. Emirs in London explores how, through their experiences visiting the heart of the British Empire, Northern Nigerian aristocrats were enabled to define themselves within the framework of the empire. In doing so, the book reveals a unique colonial sensibility that complements rather than contradicts the traditional perspectives of less privileged Africans toward colonialism.
Cape of Torments, first published in 1983, is a detailed examination of slavery in the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope. It describes the reactions of the slaves to their conditions of slavery, concentrating on those aspects of their lives which their masters considered criminal, and above all on the large numbers of occasions when slaves ran away in an attempt to start a new life elsewhere. The book examines Cape society and slave organization; the complex relations between slaves and the other groups of population at the Cape - Khoisan, Xhosa, Sotho-Tswana, Dutch East India Co servants and sailors - and the opportunities for escape; major uprisings and rebellions. The major theme of the book is the extent to which the Cape slaves were able to build a culture of their own, and the legacy of slavery to their descendants in modern South Africa.
Forced Migration, first published in 1982, examines the impact of the slave trade on Africa. There has been much debate over recent years about the effect of the Atlantic slave trade on Africa, with some authorities claiming that there were huge figures involved, and that these set back Africa's development for many years. Other historians reach lower estimates of the figures involved in the Atlantic trade, and hence argue that the effects on the political economy of Africa were more limited. Had widespread slavery existed long before the growth of the European slave trade? How important was the trans-Saharan traffic? Dr Inikori is the most authoritative voice in Africa to take part in this controversial international debate. He has done much original research into records, and here has made and introduced a selection of key papers. He has added elucidating editorial comments that place each paper in its context and link it to the other contributions.
Africa's Slaves Today, first published in 1975, examines the question of the persistence of slavery in modern Africa. It concludes that slavery is by no means dead in certain regions, but that at the same time clear-cut definitions of 'slave' and 'free' are often impossible to establish. In the Sahara particularly centuries of tradition involving slavery or semi-slavery have ensured a persistence of the status quo in all but name. Recent instances of Africans sold into slavery in Arabia are discussed, together with a detailed survey of slavery throughout North Africa and Ethiopia. At what stage forced labour becomes slavery is a difficult question raised by the discussion of the white South. The whole subject of slavery is put into perspective by contrasting examinations of the historical situation throughout the book.
This book rethinks the Armenian people as significant actors in the context of Mediterranean and global history. Spanning a millennium of cross-cultural interaction and exchange across the Mediterranean world, essays move between connected histories, frontier studies, comparative literature, and discussions of trauma, memory, diaspora, and visual culture. Contributors dismantle narrow, national ways of understanding Armenian literature; propose new frameworks for mapping the post-Ottoman Mediterranean world; and navigate the challenges of writing national history in a globalized age. A century after the Armenian genocide, this book reimagines the borders of the "Armenian," pointing to a fresh vision for the field of Armenian studies that is omnivorously comparative, deeply interconnected, and rich with possibility.
Since 1954, Japan has become home to a vibrant but little-known tradition of Black Studies. Transpacific Correspondence introduces this intellectual tradition to English-speaking audiences, placing it in the context of a long history of Afro-Asian solidarity and affirming its commitments to transnational inquiry and cosmopolitan exchange. More than six decades in the making, Japan's Black Studies continues to shake up commonly held knowledge of Black history, culture, and literature and build a truly globalized field of Black Studies. |
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