I am an African American male who has had to deal with the racism and prejudice in this country, so the history that we were deprived of as children is where my expertise lies. There are hundreds of facts and events that are very important to the enrichment and growth of the black nation. We've come very far without knowing our history; imagine, if we were grounded in our roots, how far we'd be. You can handcuff my wrists, you can shackle my feet, you can bind me in your chains, you can throw me in your deepest darkest dungeon ...but you can't enslave my thinking, for it is free like the wind. Jaye Swift has sold over 40,000 CDs on the streets by himself. His music is the epitome of hip hop, and his name has been recognized by some of the greatest in music. His credibility in music is flawless, and he has refused to record with mindless artists who have no substance or integrity. It is only to his credit that But You Can't Enslave My Thinking ...has been written with the same impeccable consistency and wisdom. It's designed to enlighten the minds of non-African Americans and enrich the lives of all African Americans.

The prize was great -- not just land, but the riches it held, in the form of diamonds and gold. What became a country called South Africa was, until 1910, a vast and untamed land where great fortunes could be made (and lost); where great battles were fought (and lost); and where great men had their reputations forged, or dashed, or sometimes both.

Martin Meredith's follow-up to his magisterial The State of Africais an equally epic new history of the making of South Africa. Covering the extraordinarily eventful four decades leading up to the establishment of the Union of South Africa in 1910, it covers some of the most iconic tales of imperial history. The Zulus at Rorke's Drift; the Jameson Raid; the diamond and gold rushes at Kimberley and Witwatersrand; the Boer wars; the titanic struggle between the arch-imperialist Cecil Rhodes and his Boer rival, Paul Kruger -- DIAMONDS, GOLD AND WARbrings all of these and more together in a stunningly coherent and compelling narrative.

History, somehow, just isn't as colourful any more.

A reinterpretation of the history of Sokoto that provides a new assessment of its leaders and their visions for the Muslim state. Sokoto was the largest and longest lasting of West Africa's nineteenth-century Muslim empires. Its intellectual and political elite left behind a vast written record, including over 300 Arabic texts authored by the jihad's leaders: Usman dan Fodio, his brother Abdullahi and his son, Muhammad Bello (known collectively as the Fodiawa). Sokoto's early years are one of the most documented periods of pre-colonial African history, yet current narratives pay little attention to the formative role these texts played in the creation of Sokoto, and the complex scholarly world from which they originated. Far from being unified around a single concept of Muslim statecraft, this book demonstrates how divided the Fodiawa were about what Sokoto could and should be, and the various discursive strategies they used to enrol local societies into their vision. Based on a close analysis of the sources (some appearing in English translation for the first time) and an effort to date their intellectual production, the book restores agency to Sokoto's leaders as individuals with different goals, characters and methods. More generally, it shows how revolutionary religious movements gain legitimacy, and how the kind of legitimacy they claim changes as they move from rebels to rulers.

In ancient Egypt, one of the primary roles of the king was to maintain order and destroy chaos. Since the beginning of Egyptian history, images of foreigners were used as symbols of chaos and thus shown as captives being bound and trampled under the king's feet. The early 18th dynasty (1550-1372 BCE) was the height of international trade, diplomacy and Egyptian imperial expansion. During this time new images of foreigners bearing tribute became popular in the tombs of the necropolis at Thebes, the burial place of the Egyptian elite. This volume analyses the new presentation of foreigners in these tombs. Far from being chaotic, they are shown in an orderly fashion, carrying tribute that underscores the wealth and prestige of the tomb owner. This orderliness reflects the ability of the Egyptian state to impose order on foreign lands, but also crucially symbolises the tomb owner's ability to overcome the chaos of death and achieve a successful afterlife. Illustrated with colour plates and black-and-white images, this new volume is an important and original study of the significance of these images for the tomb owner and the functioning of the funerary cult.

Now combined into a single volume, these three brief history texts provide a concise and eye-opening overview of the history of the Middle East. Each is written by a leading expert, and all have been hailed as outstanding introductions for the general reader. These texts have been widely translated and adopted at universities in Turkey, Norway, Italy, and Germany, as well as throughout North America.

This book offers broad-gauged analyses of the causes, nature, and changing patterns of armed conflict in Africa as well as the reasons for these patterns. It also situates conflicts that have been haunting the African continent since the time of decolonization within the various theoretical schools such as "new war," "economic war," "neo-patrimonial," and "globalization." It begins with the premise that conflict constitutes one of the major impediments to Africa's socio-economic development and has made the continent's future looks relatively bleak. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the international community has, once again, treated Africa as a hopeless continent. This is due, in part, to a number of political, military, and socio-economic problems, which have made the continent miss the path towards sustainable development. From the period of political independence in the 1960s to the immediate post-Cold War period, the African political landscape was dotted with many conflicts of different natures and intensity (low-intensity conflicts, civil wars, mass killings, and large-scale political violence). During the first four decades of political independence, there were about 80 forceful changes of government in Sub-Saharan Africa, while a large number of countries in that region witnessed various forms of conflicts. This collection assembles the work of distinguished African scholars who offer valuable new insights into the problem of political instability.

Liberia has a strong connection to the United States in that it was founded by former slaves in 1822. Although Liberia had existed as an independent African nation and a symbol of hope to the African peoples under the rule of various colonial powers, its recent history has been bedeviled by a prolonged upheaval following a military coup d'etat in 1980. In this context, the narrative highlights the distinctiveness of Liberians in their negotiation of traditional indigenous and modern practices, and the changes wrought by Christianity and Western influences.

In this work translations of four texts are provided from Ghadamis and from Mali. The first is a biography of the Ghadamisi scholar 'Abdallah b. Abi Bakr al-Ghadamisi (1626-1719 AD), written by the eighteenth-century author Ibn Muhalhil al-Ghadamisi. A second text is "The History of al-Suq", concerning al-Suq, the historic town of Tadmakka and the original home of the Kel-Essouk Tuareg. The third text is "The Precious Jewel in the Saharan histories of the 'People of the Veil'" by Muhammad Tawjaw al-Suqi al-Thani, a contemporary Tuareg author. It pertains to the Kel-Essouk and their historical ties with the Maghreb and West Africa. The final text is a description of the Tuareg from the book "Ghadamis, its features, its images and its sights" by Bashir Qasim Yusha', published in Arabic in 2001 AD.

Examines the creation and implementation of South Africa's National Peace Accord and this key transitional phase in the country's history, and its implications for peace mediation and conflict resolution. It is now 30 years since the National Peace Accord (NPA) was signed in South Africa, bringing to an end the violent struggle of the Apartheid era and signalling the transition to democracy. Signed by the ANC Alliance, the Government, the Inkatha Freedom Party and a wide range of other political and labour organizations on 14 September 1991, the parties agreed in the NPA on the common goal of a united, non-racial democratic South Africa, and provided practical means for moving towards this end: codes of conduct for political organizations and for the police, the creation of national, regional and local peace structures for conflict resolution, the investigation and prevention of violence, peace monitoring, socio-economic reconstruction and peacebuilding. This book, written by one of those involved in the process that evolved, provides for the first time an assessment and in-depth account of this key phase of South Africa's history. The National Peace Campaign set up under the NPA mobilized the 'silent majority' and gave peace an unprecedented grassroots identity and legitimacy. The author describes the formulation of the NPA by political representatives, with Church and business facilitators, which ended the political impasse, constituted South Africa's first experience of multi-party negotiations, and made it possible for the constitutional talks (Codesa) to start. She examines the work of the Goldstone Commission, which prefigured the TRC, as well as the role of international observers from the UN, EU, Commonwealth and OAU. Exploring the work of the peace structures set up to implement the Accord - the National Peace Committee and Secretariat, the 11 Regional Peace Committees and 263 Local Peace Committees, and over 18,000 peace monitors - Carmichael provides a uniquely detailed assessment of the NPA, the on-the-ground peacebuilding work and the essential involvement of the people at its heart. Filling a significant gap in modern history, this book will be essential reading for scholars, students and others interested in South Africa's post-Apartheid history, as well as government agencies and NGOs involved in peacemaking globally.

In 1894 Jesus appeared in a dream to Rainisoalambo during a period of intense national crisis shortly before the French colonial invasion of Madagascar. An educated member of the southern highlands aristocracy, Rainisoalambo was also a traditional medicine man who had fallen into grave difficulty. Being stricken with a case of then-rampant leprosy, his business had vanished and he and his family were starving. In this vision, Jesus told Rainisoalambo to put away his sampy, the small idols and charms he used for his traditional divining and healing. When he awoke, he found that he was healed. He quickly got rid of his charms and began a new life of fervent prayer, witnessing to his neighbors about what had happened, and reading the gospels with new eyes, as current reality rather than ancient reports of the far-away dealings of the white man's god. A group of believers soon gathered around him. Within a year of intense activity they had formally organized themselves at Soatanna into what we would now call a base community, the Disciples of the Lord. Their simple rules called them to lives of economic sharing and self-sufficiency, cleanliness and orderliness in their persons, houses, and lands, learning to read the Bible, daily communal prayers and study, and sending out apostles and evangelists to establish other such households and communities. This was the beginning of what is now called the Fifohazana, or Awakening. More than a century later the movement comprises several tobys, or base communities, following the appearance of several more prophets, female and male, and their miracle-working. The members of the movement, or mpiandry, live throughout the island, some in the tobys butmost in the cities and villages as members of a variety of churches. The Fifohazana continues to stress spiritual healings, exorcisms, personal service to the poor and sick, cleanliness, prayer, Bible study, and witnessing. This volume provides the reader with a very clear understanding of what the Fifohazanamovement is all about historically, theologically, in terms of the main characters involved, its tremendous contributions to what a Christian healing ministry might ideally be, and as it relates to the larger world of church and society. The book is strengthened by the contributions of a diverse international group of scholars and participants in the movement. This has fostered the creation of an authentic piece of research, which combines the actual voices of participants within the movement itself along with the perspectives of scholars, who analyze the movement from the external periphery. This is the first book-length treatment of the Fifohazana in English. Editor Cynthia Holder Rich has gathered contributions from authors from five countries, including several members of the movement, to offer several perspectives onto the history and current life of the movement. Articles include analysis of major movement leaders, the place of healing in the movement, history of the conflict between the missions and the movement, the significance of oral expression in proclamation and as a means of revival, the role of women as leaders in the movement, and theological issues. The Fifohazana is one of the most intriguing current instances of indigenous Christianity in the world. While the movement has greatly evolved and changed in over a century, Jesus continues to appear and raise up newleaders. Various branches of the movement have developed a variety of institutions, but the movement has not lost its power of transformation and change. The Fifohazana: Madagascar's Indigenous Christian Movement is an important volume for research libraries, universities, African studies institutions and theological schools.

A century ago, one of the five most recognizable names in the world was arguably that of Paul Kruger, president of the Transvaal Republic-a small Southern African country inhabited by a white tribe-who took on the overwhelming superiority of the mighty British Empire in defense of his people's sovereign independence. It was a David and Goliath story. As most of the world-including the US-cheered the Boers on, they fought a desperate war to the bitter end (1899-1902) against colonialism, until their country lay smoldering in ruins and an estimated 27, 929 Boer women and children, as well as an untold number of blacks, had died in British concentration camps.Yet within little more than half a century, those same Afrikaners had squandered their political capital and gone from being the world's favorite underdog to one of the most reviled names in history. Their subsequent social engineering project known as apartheid became an abhorrent concept in the eyes of the international community. Bernard Botes Kruger is a fifth-generation descendant of the wartime president, Paul Kruger. He is an Afrikaner who lived most of his life in the turmoil and conflict that has dominated his country's history. His new historical novel, A Battlement of Spears, tells the remarkable story of how not only the Afrikaners, but also the many other former sovereign nations within the redrawn borders of the postwar South Africa struggled to come to terms with a common identity, often with devastating consequences. "What cruel twist of tectonic irony caused the deepest scar on the earth's surface across the face of that continent that would also suffer the most appalling of human tragedies?" the author asks. Set against the backdrop of the timeless mountain called in Zulu uKhahlamba (Barrier of Spears), a dramatic geographic boundary that divided nations throughout history, A Battlement of Spears is an epic story spanning twenty-four years and two continents, of two young men with similar interests but vastly different cultural backgrounds who become unlikely friends. In a tragic series of events they will discover what sacrifices are exacted from those who would dwell in the symbolic no man's land of the summit, where fog often obscures the vision and deprivation dulls the senses, until it becomes all too easy to drift into hostile territory or stumble into the jaws of the precipice. In the process they will become separated, spending a lifetime before finding each other again a world away, on a different continent. But in the course of their respective journeys, they will also learn that barriers are not always what they seem, and that choices are sometimes inevitable, with far-reaching consequences. In that hauntingly beautiful land it is never merely about survival, but about the things that make it truly worthwhile, such as loyalty, friendship and honor, regardless of the price. Written in a style that endeavors to entertain while enlightening the uninformed about South Africa's long road to democracy, the book provides extensive background explanations (yes, footnotes) to those interested in the historical, anthropological or linguistic aspects of a 'rainbow nation, ' which today recognizes eleven official languages and several royal families, besides a multitude of unofficial languages and dialects. And while A Battlement of Spears is a work of fiction, based, according to the author, on "countless true stories," it becomes evident within the first few pages that many of the events portrayed are too detailed and specific not to have been experienced by someone. Some elements of the story are unmistakably autobiographical, but much of it simply represents the collective consciousness of a people struggling to find solutions.

The defeat of Apartheid and triumph of non-racial democracy in South Africa was not the work of just a few individuals. Ultimately, it came about through the actions – large and small – of many principled, courageous people from all walks of life and backgrounds.

Some of these activists achieved enduring fame and recognition and their names today loom large in the annals of the anti-apartheid struggle. Others were engaged in a range of practical, hands-on activities outside of the public eye. These were the loyal foot soldiers of the liberation Struggle, the unsung workers at the coal face who, largely behind the scenes, made a difference on the ground and helped to bring about meaningful change.

Even though Apartheid was aimed at entrenching white power and privilege, a number of whites rejected that system and instead joined their fellow South Africans in opposing it. Of these, a noteworthy proportion came from the Jewish community.

Mensches in the Trenches tells the hitherto unrecorded stories of some of these activists and the essential, if seldom publicised role that they and others like them played in bringing freedom and justice to their country.

"The Changing Face of African Literature" combines both the large picture - a synopsis of current trends in African literature - and the small: studies of individual texts and of themes across several texts. The large and the small are linked by recurring themes, such as gender and sexuality, the nation-state and its collapse, AIDS, war, and suffering. The volume is comparative, bringing together literature in at least five languages and from at least ten national literatures. Such a large, comparative frame is implied by most discussion of African literature but is too seldom seen. At the same time, the collection also problematizes the comparison: the goal is to make clear what African literatures have in common but also where they diverge. What difference do distinct literary traditions, readerships, and publishing patterns make to literatures which share a common thematic and so many of the same questions and needs? By juxtaposing contemporary texts form several traditions, the intention of this collection is to bring out the themes that are currently dominant in African literatures generally. After a preface by Liz Gunner and a wide-ranging introduction by the editors, the collection presents keynote essays on new paradigms in African literature, before treating specific themes - recent crime fiction, the Afrikaans and anglophone novel, feminist literature, 'migritude' - and studies of recent works by individual authors such as Andre Brink, Henri Djombo, Pie Tshibanda, Bessora, Nadine Gordimer, and Paulina Chiziane, as well as the South African television series "Yizo Yizo."

Selena Axelrod Winsnes has been engaged, since 1982, in the translation into English, and editing of Danish language sources to West African history, sources published from 1697 to 1822, the period during which Denmark-Norway was an actor in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. It comprises five major books written for the Scandinavian public. They describe all aspects of life on the Gold Coast Ghana], the Middle Passage and the Danish Caribbean islands US Virgin Islands], as seen by five different men. Each had his own agenda and mind-set, and the books, both singly and combined, hold a wealth of information - of interest both to scholars and lay readers. They provide important insights into the cultural baggage the enslaved Africans carried with them to the America's. One of the books, L.F.Rmer's A Reliable Account of the Coast of Guinea was runner-up for the prestigious international texts prize awarded by the U.S. African Studies Association. Selena Winsnes lived in Ghana for five years and studied at the University of Ghana, Legon. Her mother tongue is English; and, working free-lance, she resides premanently in Norway with her husband, four children and eight grandchildren. In 2008, she was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters for distinguished scholarship by the University of Ghana, Legon