Rooted in the pan-Africanist ideals that animated the struggle against colonialism, regional integration has been on the African agenda for six decades. As soon as African countries attained political independence in the 1960s, they were quick to embrace the need for regional integration because of its strategic value.

The following years saw the adoption of various continental initiatives such as the Southern African Development Community, the Economic Community of West African States, the East African Community and the transformation of the Organisation of African Unity into the African Union.

Regional integration, however, remains elusive. The Quest for Unity is a necessary guide towards efforts for regional integration.

With forty accessible essays on the key intellectual contributions to Pan-Africanism, this volume offers readers a fascinating insight into the intellectual thinking and contributions to Pan-Africanism. The book explores the history of Pan-Africanism and quest for reparations, early pioneers of Pan-Africanism as well as key activists and politicians, and Pan-African philosophy and literati. Diverse and key figures of Pan-Africanism from Africa, the Caribbean, and America are covered by these chapters, including: Edward Blyden, W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Amy Ashwood Garvey, George Padmore, Kwame Nkrumah, Franz Fanon, Amilcar Cabral, Arthur Lewis, Maya Angelou, C.L.R. James, Ruth First, Ali Mazrui, Wangari Maathai, Thabo Mbeki, Wole Soyinka, Derek Walcott, and Chimamanda Adichie. While acknowledging the contributions of these figures to Pan-Africanism, these essays are not just celebratory, offering valuable criticism in areas where their subjects may have fallen short of their ideals. -- .

Sir Samuel Baker (1821-93) was one of the most famous Victorian explorers and hunters. First published in two illustrated volumes in 1866, this account of his most celebrated expedition is amongst the most important works of its type. Baker promises 'to take the reader by the hand, and lead him step by step ... through scorching deserts and thirsty sands; through swamp and jungle ... until I bring him, faint with the wearying journey, to that high cliff ... from which he shall look down upon the vast Albert Lake and drink with me from the sources of the Nile!' Volume 1 covers the first two years of the expedition, from Cairo to southern Sudan. Leading a party of 96 people, including his wife, and dealing with Arab duplicity, native aggression, and frequent mutinies amongst his porters, he maintains his resolve and writes with clarity and great colour.

Although it lasted only thirty years, German colonial rule dramatically transformed South West Africa. The colonial government not only committed the first genocide of the twentieth century against the Herero and Nama, but in their efforts to establish a "model colony" and "racial state," they brought about even more destructive and long-lasting consequences. In this now-classic study-available here for the first time in English-the author provides an indispensable account of Germany's colonial utopia in what is present-day Namibia, showing how the highly rationalized planning of Wilhelmine authorities ultimately failed even as it added to the profound immiseration of the African population.

This book is a historical narrative covering various periods in Sierra Leone's history from the fifteenth century to the end of its civil war in 2002. It entails the history of Sierra Leone from its days as a slave harbor through to its founding as a home for free slaves, and toward its political independence and civil war. In 1462, the country was discovered by a Portuguese explorer, Pedro de Sintra, who named it Serra Lyoa (Lion Mountains). Sierra Leone later became a lucrative hub for the Transatlantic Slave Trade. At the end of slavery in England, Freetown was selected as a home for the Black Poor, free slaves in England after the Somerset ruling. The Black Poor were joined by the Nova Scotians, American slaves who supported or fought with the British during the American Revolution. The Maroons, rebellious slaves from Jamaica, arrived in 1800. The Recaptives, freed in enforcement of British antislavery laws, were also taken to Freetown. Freetown became a British colony in 1808 and Sierra Leone obtained political independence from Britain in 1961. The development of the country was derailed by the death of its first Prime Minister, Sir Milton Margai, and thirty years after independence the country collapsed into a brutal civil war.

Sir John Barrow (1764-1848) was a distinguished British government servant whose diplomatic career took him to China and Africa, and who in forty years as Secretary to the Admiralty was responsible for promoting Arctic and Antarctic exploration, including the voyages of Sir John Ross, Sir William Parry, Sir James Clark Ross and Sir John Franklin. This account of his time in Southern Africa was published in 1801, with a second volume following in 1804. Barrow's exploration of the Cape Colony in 1797-8 coincided with the imposition of British control in 1795 on a former Dutch colony, making this work an important source about this transitional period. Volume 1 begins with the history of the Cape of Good Hope, and its natural features, climate and inhabitants. Barrow then describes his journey inland, through the Karroo desert region, and his encounters with the European and African peoples who lived there.

Millions of people have fled from conflicts and persecution in all parts of this Northeast African country, and many thousands more have been enslaved as human spoils of war. In this book, refugees and abductees recount their escapes from the wars in Darfur and South Sudan, from political and religious persecution, and from abduction by militias. In their own words, they recount life before their displacement and the reasons for their flight. They describe life in the major stations on the "refugee railroads:" in the desert camps of Khartoum, the underground communities of Cairo, the humanitarian metropolis of Kakuma refugee camp, and the still-growing internally displaced persons camps in Darfur. NARRATORS INCLUDE: ABUK, a native of South Sudan now living in Boston, who survived ten years as a slave after being captured by an Arab militia. MARCY AND ROSE, best friends who have spent the vast majority of their lives in a refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya. They remember almost nothing of their former homes in Sudan. MATHOK, who struggled to find opportunities as a refugee in Cairo, but eventually fell into a world of gangs and violence. JOHN, a teacher fighting to keep a school for Sudanese refugees alive in a poverty-stricken slum in Nairobi.

Race and ethnicity continue to be important if unwelcome factors in modern politics. This is evident in East Africa, where the ethnic factor is often dominant in multi-party elections and in Rwanda and Burundi bloodshed and genocidal attacks have been linked to ethnic difference. This book examines the phenomena of race and ethnicity in general, but with particular reference to East Africa. The impact of non-indigenous groups is considered, along with ethnic differences between Africans and the relevance of tourism and religion.

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.

William Holman Bentley (1855 1905) was a missionary who spent twenty-one years in the area of the Congo. Originally published in 1900, these two volumes document the pioneering work of travellers to the area between 1879 and 1899. During that time it progressed from being virtually unexplored to a fully charted region with government officers, traders and missionaries operating far and wide. As the only foreign witness to the entire period, Bentley provides an authoritative account of the dramatic developments he observed in the Congo's geography, culture, religion and commerce. Volume 1 sets the discussion within a historical context, and moves on to recount the missionaries' objectives and their effect on the native tribes. Finishing by revealing the important discovery of a new route to the upper river, it presents a unique and insightful study that remains relevant to geographers, ethnologists and historians alike.

The ongoing assassinations of anti-apartheid activists led to rumours that some kind of third force must be responsible. The South African government flatly denied any involvement. All investigations of the matter were met with stony silence.

The first crack in the wall came with the publication by the Vrye Weekblad newspaper of the extraordinary story of Dirk Coetzee, former Security Branch Captain. His tale of murder, kidnapping, bombing and poisoning provided corroboration of the shocking confessions made by Almond Nofemela on death row. Slowly the dark secret started unravelling under the probing of determined journalists.

In The Heart Of The Whore introduces the reader to the secret underworld of the death squads. It explains when and why they were created, who ran them, what methods they employed, who the victims and perpetrators were. Jacques Pauw was more closely involved with the subject than any other person outside the police and armed forces. In this groundbreaking work he looks at the devastating effect of the secret war on the opponents of apartheid as well as the corrosive effects on the people who committed these crimes.

Jacques Pauw is the author of the bestselling book The President’s Keepers. He is an award-winning journalist, television documentary producer and author. This is NOT an updated edition, just a re-release of the original 1992 book.

The life of English explorer William Cotton Oswell (1818-93) was marked by adventures and discoveries. At nineteen, he left Essex for Madras, where he worked for the East India Company and became a renowned elephant catcher. Due to poor health, he was sent to South Africa, the 'empire of wild sport', where he specialised in hunting and exploration. He discovered the River Zouga and Lake Ngami during an expedition across the Kalahari desert, and travelled to the Zambezi River with Scottish missionary David Livingstone. Originally published in 1900, this two-volume biography was written by Oswell's eldest son. Since Oswell kept no diary, his life is here reconstructed through the many letters he sent to his family and friends. Volume 2 opens with Oswell's return to England in 1852, and includes an account of his journey to the Crimean front, where he worked in hospitals between 1854 and 1855.

In one of the first ever environmental histories of the Ottoman Empire, Alan Mikhail examines relations between the empire and its most lucrative province of Egypt. Based on both the local records of various towns and villages in rural Egypt and the imperial orders of the Ottoman state, this book charts how changes in the control of natural resources fundamentally altered the nature of Ottoman imperial sovereignty in Egypt and throughout the empire. In revealing how Egyptian peasants were able to use their knowledge and experience of local environments to force the hand of the imperial state, Nature and Empire in Ottoman Egypt tells a story of the connections of empire stretching from canals in the Egyptian countryside to the palace in Istanbul, from the forests of Anatolia to the shores of the Red Sea, and from a plague flea's bite to the fortunes of one of the most powerful states of the early modern world.

The Acta Alexandrinorum are a fascinating collection of texts, dealing with relations between the Alexandrians and the Roman emperors in the first century AD. This was a turbulent time in the life of the capital city of the new province of Egypt, not least because of tensions between the Greek and Jewish sections of the population. Dr Harker's was the first in-depth study of these texts since their first edition half a century ago, and it examines them in the context of other similar contemporary literary forms, both from Roman Egypt and the wider Roman Empire. This study of the Acta Alexandrinorum, which was genuinely popular in Roman Egypt, offers a more complex perspective on provincial mentalities towards imperial Rome than that offered in the mainstream elite literature. It will be of interest to classicists and ancient historians, but also to those interested in Jewish and New Testament 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.

This book explores British post-colonial foreign policy towards Kenya from 1963 to 1980. It reveals the extent and nature of continued British government influence in Kenya after independence. It argues that this was not simply about neo-colonialism, and Kenya's elite had substantial agency to shape the relationship. The first section addresses how policy was made and the role of High Commissions and diplomacy. It emphasises contingency, with policy produced through shared interests and interaction with leading Kenyans. It argues that British policy-makers helped to create and then reinforced Kenya's neo-patrimonialism. The second part examines the economic, military, personal and diplomatic networks which successive British governments sustained with independent Kenya. A combination of interlinked interests encouraged British officials to place a high value on this relationship, even as their world commitments diminished. This book appeals to those interested in Kenyan history, post-colonial Africa, British foreign policy, and forms of diplomacy and policy-making.

This edited collection is the first book-length project to undertake a multidisciplinary study of democratization and human security in the post war nation of Sierra Leone. The overarching theme is there is synergy of democratization and human security which makes it imperative for the state to foster and enhance the realization of these concepts in postwar Sierra Leone. The book is divided into two broad thematic sections. The first section deals with democratization with a critical examination of the creation and instrumentality of institutions largely considered a necessity for democracy to take hold in a country. The second section delineates human security or the lack thereof in key areas of political, social and economic life. Though the book is specific to Sierra Leone, African countries and indeed countries transitioning to democracy around the world, scholars and practitioners of postwar or democratic transition studies would benefit from the concepts expounded in this collection.

A captivating account of an interracial jazz opera that took apartheid South Africa by storm and marked a turning point in the nation's cultural history. In 1959, King Kong, an interracial jazz opera, swept across South Africa and became a countrywide phenomenon. Its performances sold out, its LP record was widely heard, and its cast became recognized celebrities. Featuring an African composer, cast, and orchestra but predominantly white directors and producers, this interracial production seemed completely distinct from any other theatrical production in the country's history. Despite being staged over a decade after the enacting of apartheid, the interracial collaboration met widespread acclaim that bridged South Africa's racial, political, ethnic, and class fissures. Widely considered a watershed moment within the history of South African theater and music, King Kong encapsulated key currents within South African cultural history. Author Tyler Fleming's gripping narrative unpacks the life of the musical, from the emergence of the heavyweight boxer "King Kong" Dlamini to the behind-the-scenes dynamics of rehearsals to the musical's 1961 tour of Britain and the later experience of cast members living in exile for their opposition to apartheid. Opposing Apartheid on Stage: "King Kong" the Musical explores the history of this jazz opera and its enduring legacy in both South African history and global popular culture.

An essential gift for every history buff, this boldly illustrated book maps out the events that have shaped our world - from the dawn of human civilization to the present day. A comprehensive and accessible guide to the history of human civilisation, World History profiles everything from the emergence of Homo Sapiens to the Greek and Roman empires, through Chinese dynasties, the rise of the Vikings, and the Renaissance, to the Industrial Revolution and World War I and II. Offering a concise and insightful overview of key historical milestones that have occurred over the course of the last century, the book also covers more recent events such as the rise of ISIS, the Arab Spring, and Brexit and populism in the Western world.

This intriguing memoir details in a quiet and restrained manner with what it meant to be a committed black intellectual activist during the apartheid years and beyond. Few autobiographies exploring the 'life of the mind' and the 'history of ideas' have come out of South Africa, and N Chabani Manganyi's reflections on a life engaged with ideas, the psychological and philosophical workings of the mind and the act of writing are a refreshing addition to the genre of life writing. Starting with his rural upbringing in Mavambe, Limpopo, in the 1940s, Manganyi's life story unfolds at a gentle pace, tracing the twists and turns of his journey from humble beginnings to Yale University in the USA. The author details his work as a clinical practitioner and researcher, as a biographer, as an expert witness in defence of opponents of the apartheid regime and, finally, as a leading educationist in Mandela's Cabinet and in the South African academy. Apartheid and the Making of a Black Psychologist is a book about relationships and the fruits of intellectual and creative labour. Manganyi describes how he used his skills as a clinical psychologist to explore lives - both those of the subjects of his biographies and those of the accused for whom he testified in mitigation; his aim always to find a higher purpose and a higher self.

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 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.

Thomas Sankara, often called the African Che Guevara, was president of Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries in Africa, until his assassination during the military coup that brought down his government. Although his tenure in office was relatively short, Sankara left an indelible mark on his country's history and development. An avowed Marxist, he outspokenly asserted his country's independence from France and other Western powers while at the same time seeking to build a genuine pan-African unity. He is held in high esteem by Julius Malema and the Economic Freedom Fighters. Ernest Harsch traces Sankara's life from his student days to his recruitment into the military, early political awakening, and increasing dismay with his country's extreme poverty and political corruption. As he rose to higher leadership positions, he used those offices to mobilise people for change and to counter the influence of the old, corrupt elites. Sankara and his colleagues initiated economic and social policies that shifted away from dependence on foreign aid and toward a greater use of the country's own resources to build schools, health clinics, and public works. Although Sankara's sweeping vision and practical reforms won him admirers both in Burkina Faso and across Africa, a combination of domestic opposition groups and factions within his own government and the army finally led to his assassination in 1987. This is the first English-language book to tell the story of Sankara's life and struggles, drawing on the author's extensive first-hand research and reporting on Burkina Faso, including interviews with the late leader. Decades after his death, Sankara remains an inspiration to young people throughout Africa for his integrity, idealism, and dedication to independence and self-determination.

Darfur s Sorrow is the first general history of Darfur to be published in any language. The book surveys events from before the founding of the Fur sultanate in the sixteenth century through the rise and establishment of the Fur state and its incorporation into the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan in 1916. The narrative continues with detailed coverage of the brief but all-important colonial period (1916 1956) and Darfur s history as a neglected peripheral region since independence. The political, economic, environmental, and social factors that gave rise to the current humanitarian crisis are discussed in detail, as are the course of Darfur s rebellion, its brutal suppression by the Sudanese government, and the lawless brigands known as janjawid. The second edition of the book brings the story up to date and includes an analysis of attempts to save Darfur s embattled people and to bring an end to the fighting.