|
Books > Humanities > History > African history > General
Muhidin Maalim Gurumo and Hassan Rehani Bitchuka are two of
Tanzania's most well-known singers in the popular music genre known
as muziki wa dansi (literally, 'music for dancing'), a variation of
the Cuban-based rhumba idiom that has been enormously impactful
throughout central, eastern, and western Africa in the contemporary
era. This interview-based dual biography investigates the lives and
careers of these two men from an ethnomusicological and historical
perspective. Gurumo had a career spanning fifty years before his
death in 2014. Bitchuka has been singing professionally for
forty-five years. The two singers, affectionately called mapacha
("the twins") by their colleagues, worked together as partners for
thirty years from 1973-2003. This study situates these exemplary
individuals as creative agents in a local cultural context,
showcasing interviews, narratives, and nostalgic reminiscences
about musical life lived under Colonialism, state Socialism, and
current politics in the global neoliberal democratic milieu. The
book adds to a growing body of work about popular music in Dar es
Salaam and shines a light on these artists' creative processes, the
choices they have made regarding rare resources, their styles and
efficacy in conflict resolution, and their own memories regarding
the musical art they have created.
Ideal for high school students and undergraduates, this volume
explores contemporary life and culture in Libya. Libya is one of
Africa's largest nations, but its topography is dominated by a huge
southern desert with some of the hottest temperatures recorded
anywhere in the world. Culture and Customs of Libya explores the
daily lives of the 90 million men, women, and children who struggle
to get by in this authoritarian state, where only a fraction of the
land is arable and 90 percent of the people live in less than 10
percent of the area, primarily along the Mediterranean coast. In
this comprehensive overview of modern Libyan life, readers can
explore topics such as religion, contemporary literature, media,
art, housing, music, and dance. They will learn about education and
employment and will see how traditions and customs of the
past-including those from Libya's long domination by the Ottoman
Empire and 40 years as an Italian colony-are kept alive or have
evolved to fit into today's modern age. Two dozen black-and-white
images A glossary of terms
This book examines the active role played by Africans in the
pre-colonial production of historical knowledge in South Africa,
focusing on perspectives of the second king of amaZulu, King
Dingane. It draws upon a wealth of oral traditions, izibongo, and
the work of public intellectuals such as Magolwane kaMkhathini
Jiyane and Mshongweni to present African perspectives of King
Dingane as multifaceted, and in some cases, constructed according
to socio-political formations and aimed at particular audiences. By
bringing African perspectives to the fore, this innovative
historiography centralizes indigenous African languages in the
production of historical knowledge.
A great writer's take on the war of his time
Several famous British novelists at the turn of nineteenth and
twentieth centuries departed from the kinds of books that had
brought them fame to write factual accounts of the momentous events
of their own times. Most were writers of historical fiction and
some were enthusiastic collectors of military history and staunch
supporters of British imperialism, so it was perhaps inevitable
that they would write of the unfolding events of empire. Notable
among these authors were Rudyard Kipling, John Buchan and the
author of this Boer War history, the famous creator of Sherlock
Holmes and Brigadier Gerard, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. One might
expect that Doyle would show a jingoistic bias towards all matters
British and there certainly is an element of that within these
pages, but in the main he took his role as historian seriously and
produced a comparatively well balanced work on the Boer political
position and their abilities as a military force. However,
irrespective of perspective, Conan Doyle's book displays a reliable
skill in penmanship that is both distinctive and entertaining. He
began this substantial book while the war was being fought, but
this edition represents its fourth and final edition completed in
1904 some time after the last shot had been fired. It
comprehensively covers the entire conflict and the text includes
five useful campaign maps. This is an essential addition to the
library of the history of the Boer War as well as for those who
simply enjoy Conan Doyle's craft. Available in softcover and
hardcover with dust jacket.
Lumumba-Kasongo examines those forces that contributed to the
fate of multiparty democracy in Africa. The forces include the
state, political parties, ethnicity, nationalism, religion,
underdevelopment, and the global market.
Multipartyism in Africa is not necessarily democratic. However,
the processes toward multipartyism can produce democratic
discourses if they can be transformed by popular and social
movements. As the author points out, almost all social classes have
demanded some form of democracy. Yet the sociological meanings and
teleological perspectives of those forms of democracy depend on an
individual or group's economic and educational status. The dynamics
of the global context, as reflected in the adoption of the
structural adjustment programs of the World Bank and the stability
programs of the International Monetary Fund, are likely to produce
non-democratic conditions in Africa. Lumumba-Kasongo challenges the
existing paradigms on democracy and development, so the book is of
considerable interest to scholars and policy makers involved with
African politics and socio-economic development.
NIGERIAN WOMEN OF DISTINCTION, HONOUR AND EXEMPLARY PRESIDENTIAL
QUALITIES; EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALL GENDERS The book identifies
scores of Nigerian revered women who match the most dignified women
world-wide. Their wonderful attributes can lead Nigeria to the
'Promised Land' sooner than expected if given equal leadership
opportunities. They abound in all professions including those
exclusively left for men and they perform with excellence. It
highlights socio-political activism of Chief Abigail Olufunmilayo
Ransom-Kuti (25/10/1900-13/4/1978); Chief Hannah Awolowo's
successes and unflinching support for her husband's course, Chief
Obufemi Awolowo, first Premier of Western Nigeria, her revered
Yorubaland eldership; and unparalleled antecedents of Dr. Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala; Professor Dora Akunyili; Chief Olubunmi Etteh, first
female Nigerian House Speaker; Chief Farida Waziri, EFCC
ex-Chairperson and many others comprising 190 Nigerian women (past
and present) with great and wonderful antecedents. Behind
successful men are great women. When women are trained, knowledge
spreads and impacts entire community. Women have inherent powers of
accomplishments, invincibility and indispensability. Ironically,
physically and economically powerful male chauvinists think they
control everything, but their wives or girl-friends really take
charge and control everything remotely including the powerful men.
Imagine the world without women; it will be dull, boring, wifeless,
motherless, childless and uninteresting without love, care,
romance, beauty, affection, attractiveness, happiness and child
production. It condemns discrimination, domestic violence, women
and child abuse world-wide. Women can lead exemplarily if given
equal opportunities as men. GOD BLESS NIGERIAN WOMEN
This collection, arranged and edited by Beverly G. Hawk,
examines media coverage of Africa by American television,
newspapers, and magazines. Scholars and journalists of diverse
experience engage in debate concerning U.S. media coverage of
current events in Africa. As each African crisis appears in the
headlines, scholars take the media to task for sensational and
simplistic reporting. Journalists, in response, explain the
constraints of censorship, reader interest, and media economics.
Hawk's book demonstrates that academia and the press can inform
each other to present a fuller and more sensitive picture of Africa
today.
This volume will be of interest to scholars and practitioners in
African studies, African politics, journalism, and international
relations.
John Brown Russwurm and African American Settlement in West Africa
examines Russwurm's intellectual accomplishments and significant
contributions to the black civil rights movement in America from
1826 - 1829, and more significantly explores the essential
characteristics that distinguished his thoughts and endeavours from
other black leaders in America, Liberia and Maryland in Liberia.
Not surprisingly, the most controversial of Russwurm's ideas was
his unwavering support of the American Colonization Society (ACS)
and the Maryland State Colonization Society (MSCS), two
organizations that most civil rights activists found racist and
pro-slavery. Beyan probes the social and intellectual sources,
underlying motives and the legacies of Russwurm's thoughts and
endeavours, all in an attempt to dissect why Russwurm acted and
made the choices that he did.
Forests have been at the fault lines of contact between African
peasant communities in the Tanzanian coastal hinterland and
outsiders for almost two centuries. In recent decades, a global
call for biodiversity preservation has been the main challenge to
Tanzanians and their forests.
Thaddeus Sunseri uses the lens of forest history to explore some
of the most profound transformations in Tanzania from the
nineteenth century to the present. He explores anticolonial
rebellions, the world wars, the depression, the Cold War, oil
shocks, and nationalism through their intersections with and
impacts on Tanzania's coastal forests and woodlands. In "Wielding
the Ax," forest history becomes a microcosm of the origins, nature,
and demise of colonial rule in East Africa and of the first fitful
decades of independence.
"Wielding the Ax "is a story of changing constellations of power
over forests, beginning with African chiefs and forest spirits,
both known as "ax-wielders," and ending with international
conservation experts who wield scientific knowledge as a means to
controlling forest access. The modern international concern over
tropical deforestation cannot be understood without an awareness of
the long-term history of these forest struggles.
Africa in Europe, in two volumes, meticulously documents Europe's
African presence from antiquity to the present. It incorporates
findings from areas of study as diverse as physical anthropology,
linguistics, social history, social theory, international
relations, migrational studies, and globalization. In contrast to
most other works focusing on Eurafrican relationships that largely
revolve around Atlantic and trans-Atlantic developments since the
Age of Global Exploration, this work has a much broader perspective
which takes account of human evolution, the history of religion,
Judaic studies, Byzantine studies, the history of Islam, and
Western intellectual history including social theory. While the
issue of racism in its variant manifestations receives thorough
treatment, African in Europe is also about human connections across
fluid boundaries that are ancient as well as those that date to the
Age of Exploration, the Age of Revolution, and continue until the
present. Hence, it brings new clarity to our understanding of such
processes as acculturation and assimilation while deepening our
understanding of interrelationships among racism, violence, and
social identities. This work is full of new insights, fresh
interpretations, and highly nuanced analyses relevant to our
thinking about territoriality, citizenship, migration, and
frontiers in a world that is increasingly globalized. The author
moves across boundaries of time and space in ways that result in an
encyclopedic work that is an integrated and programmatic whole as
well as one in which each chapter is a complete module of
scholarship that is self-contained.
This book explores the life of Robert Lyall, surgeon, botanist,
voyager, British Agent to the court of Madagascar. Born the year of
the French Revolution, Lyall grew up in politically radical
Paisley, Scotland, before studying medicine, in Edinburgh,
Manchester, and subsequently St. Petersburg, Russia. His criticism
of the Tsar and Russian aristocracy led to an abrupt departure for
London where Lyall became the voice of liberalism and calls for
political reform, before appointed British Resident Agent in
Madagascar in 1827, representing the interests of the Tory
establishment that he had hitherto so roundly castigated. However,
Lyall discovered that the Malagasy crown had turned against the
British alliance of 1820, his scientific pursuits alienated the
local elite, and his efforts to re-establish British influence
antagonized the queen, Ranavalona I, who accused Lyall of sorcery
and forced him and his burgeoning family to leave for Mauritius
where he died an untimely death, of malaria, in 1831.
 |
Lahun
(Hardcover)
British School of Archaeology in Egypt; Egyptian Research Account, Guy Brunton
|
R796
Discovery Miles 7 960
|
Ships in 10 - 15 working days
|
|
Whispers from the depths is more than just the story of the
building of the Kariba Dam in the mid-1950s. Built in just five
years against overwhelming odds, the dam is a monument to
engineering excellence. Shrouded in political undertones, the
construction of the dam was vital for the hydro-electric power it
would provide for Zambia’s burgeoning copper industry. Little
thought, however, appears to have been given to the future of the
human and animal populations who lived in the valley that would be
inundated when the dam was completed. The question has to be asked:
Was this awe-inspiring man-made creation achieved at too high a
cost in terms of the human suffering and environmental devastation
it caused? Central to the story of Kariba was the fate of the Tonga
people who had for centuries lived in the Gwembe valley, due to be
flooded when the sluice gates were finally closed to halt the flow
of the mighty Zambezi River. Approximately 57 000 people were
forced to move from their ancestral homes, abandoning family graves
and spiritual sites to the depths of Kariba's water. They became a
dispersed people who have never been able to reunite as a cohesive
society, never again been able to live peacefully on the banks of
the river which gave them life. Animals, too, perished in their
thousands despite the gallant efforts of wildlife personnel who
mounted a hastily planned rescue mission known as Operation Noah.
Whispers from the depths gives a voice to the all but forgotten
BaTonga. It celebrates their unique culture but deplores the price
they paid for progress – a price from which they themselves derived
no benefit whatsoever.
This study critically examines for the first time the unlikely
friendship between apartheid South Africa and non-white Japan. In
the mid-1980s, Japan became South Africa's largest trading partner,
while South Africa purportedly treated Japanese citizens in the
Republic as honorary whites under apartheid. Osada probes the very
different foreign policy-making mechanisms of the two nations and
analyzes their ambivalent bilateral relations against the
background of postcolonial and Cold War politics. She concludes
that these diplomatic policies were adopted not voluntarily or
willingly, but out of necessity due to external circumstances and
international pressure.
Why did Japan exercise sanctions against South Africa in spite
of their strong economic ties? How effective were these sanctions?
What did the sensational term honorary whites actually mean? When
and how did this special treatment begin? How did South Africa get
away with apparently treating the Japanese as whites but not
Chinese, other Coloureds, Indians, and so forth? By using Japan's
"sanctions" against South Africa and South Africa's "honorary
white" treatment of the Japanese as key concepts, the author
describes the development of bilateral relations during this unique
era. The book also covers the fascinating historical interaction
between the two countries from the mid-17th century onward.
This book is the most complete, accessible, and up-to-date resource
for Ethiopian geography, history, politics, economics, society,
culture, and education, with coverage from ancient times to the
present. Ethiopia is a comprehensive treatment of this ancient
country's history coupled with an exploration of the nation today.
Arranged by broad topics, the book provides an overview of
Ethiopia's physical and human geography, its history, its system of
government, and the present economic situation. But the book also
presents a picture of contemporary society and culture and of the
Ethiopian people. It also discusses art, music, and cinema; class;
gender; ethnicity; and education, as well as the language, food,
and etiquette of the country. Readers will learn such fascinating
details as the fact that coffee was first domesticated in Ethiopia
more than 10,000 years ago and that modern Ethiopia comprises 77
different ethnic groups with their own distinct languages. Sidebars
provide brief encapsulations of topics relevant to Ethiopian
history, society, and culture Figures and tables summarize
statistics quoted in the text, offering up-to-date data on the
economy of the country and other aspects of Ethiopian life A
reference section provides extensive information such as addresses,
telephone numbers, and websites of major institutions and
businesses and economic, cultural, educational, exchange,
government, and tourist bureaus An annotated bibliography
facilitates in-depth research
A bright portrait of modern Africa that pushes back against harmful stereotypes to tell a more comprehensive story.
You already know these stereotypes. So often Africa is depicted simplistically as an arid red landscape of famines and safaris, uniquely plagued by poverty and strife.
In this funny and insightful book, Dipo Faloyin offers a much-needed corrective. He examines each country's colonial heritage, and explores a wide range of subjects, from chronicling urban life in Lagos and the lively West African rivalry over who makes the best Jollof rice, to the story of democracy in seven dictatorships and the dangers of stereotypes in popular culture.
By turns intimate and political, Africa Is Not A Country brings the story of the continent towards reality, celebrating the energy and fabric of its different cultures and communities in a way that has never been done before.
|
|