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Books > Humanities > History > African history > General
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.
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
How did news from the East-carried in ship logs and mariners'
reports, journals, and correspondence-shape early Americans'
understanding of the world as a map of dangerous and incoherent
sites? Winner of the John Lyman Book Award by the North American
Society for Oceanic History Freed from restrictions of British
mercantilism in the years following the War of Independence, Yankee
merchants embarked on numerous voyages of commerce and discovery
into distant seas. Through the news from the East, carried in
mariners' reports, ship logs, journals, and correspondence,
Americans at home imagined the world as a map of dangerous and
deranged places. This was a world that was profoundly disordered,
hobbled by tyranny and oppression or steeped in chaos and anarchy,
often deadly, always uncertain, unpredictable, and unstable, yet
amenable to American influence. Focusing on four representative
arenas-the Ottoman Empire, China, India, and the Great South Sea
(collectively, the East Indies, Oceana, and the American
continent's Northwest coast)-Eastward of Good Hope recasts the
relationship between America and the world by examining the early
years of the republic, when its national character was particularly
pliable and its foundational posture in the world was forming.
Drawing on recent scholarship in global ethnohistory, Dane A.
Morrison recounts how reports of cannibal encounters, shipboard
massacres, shipwrecks, tropical fever, and other tragedies in
distant seas led Americans to imagine each region as a distinct set
of threats to their republic. He also demonstrates how the concept
of justification through self-doubt allowed for aggressive
expansionism and for the foundations of imperialism to develop.
Morrison reconsiders American ideas about the world through three
questions: How did British Americans imagine the world before
independence allowed them to travel "Eastward of Good Hope"? What
were the signal encounters that filled the public sphere in their
early years of global encounter? And finally, how did Americans'
contacts with other peoples inflect their ideas about the world and
their place in it? Written in a lively, engaging style, Eastward of
Good Hope will appeal to scholars and the general public alike.
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.
The most comprehensive, profound, and accurate book ever written in
the history of modern Sudan, Integration and Fragmentation of the
Sudan: An African Renaissance, is an encyclopedia of ancient and
modern history as well as the politics of Sudan. It is a library of
data that discusses Sudan from its economic, political, and social
standpoint since the Arab discovery and use of the term Bilad es
Sudan up through the modern republic of the Sudan after which South
and North Sudan collided in 1947. Although written to correct
fabrications, this book is a foundation on which future Sudans
shall live on. It is full of useful information that discusses and
provides feasible solutions to the fundamental problem of the Sudan
that ruptured the country from the Berlin Conference to the
post-independence era. For centuries, Sudanese and the
international community have been fed with idealistic information
as if Sudan started with the coming of the Arabs in the fourteenth
century. This persisted due to the lack of resources and formal
education among African natives. Khartoum's unreasonable diversion
of genuine history is one among the many causes of mistrust and
division in Sudan. The indigenous Africans found themselves
peripheral to Khartoum where economic and political power is
concentrated. Integration and fragmentation of Sudan: An African
Renaissance is a great source of knowledge for the public and
students of Sudanese politics. With the referendum and popular
consultation approaching, this book is a head-start for the
marginalized Black Africans to make an informed decision between
oppression and liberty. Examples and testimonies provided in the
text are reasons for the affected regions to permanently determine
their future. For freedom diehards this book lays the foundation on
which to celebrate the birth of Africa's newest sovereign nation
along the Nile River.
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.
The height of colonial rule on the African continent saw two
prominent religious leaders step to the fore: Desmond Tutu in South
Africa, and Abel Muzorewa in Zimbabwe. Both Tutu and Muzorewa
believed that Africans could govern their own nations responsibly
and effectively if only they were given the opportunity. In
expressing their religious views about the need for social justice
each man borrowed from national traditions that had shaped policy
of earlier church leaders. Tutu and Muzorewa argued that the
political development of Africans was essential to the security of
the white settlers and that whites should seek the promotion of
political development of Africans as a condition of that future
security. Desmond Tutu and Abel Muzorewa were both motivated by
strong religious principles. They disregarded the possible personal
repercussions that they might suffer as a result of their efforts
to alter the fundamental bases of their colonial governments. Each
man hoped to create a new national climate in which blacks and
whites could cooperate to build a new nation. Each played a part in
eventual independence for Zimbabwe in 1980 and for South Africa in
1994. Mungazi's examination of their efforts reveals how
individuals with strong convictions can make a difference in
shaping the future of their nations.
Routledge Library Editions: Colonialism and Imperialism is a
51-volume collection of previously out-of-print titles that examine
the history, practice and implications of Western colonialism
around the globe. From the earliest contact by European explorers
to the legacies that remain today, these books look at various
aspects of the topic that, taken together, form an essential
reference collection. Two of the titles study colonialism in
Southeast Asia by non-Western states, and provide a counterpoint in
the European-focused study of worldwide colonialism.
With the summer of 2012 marking half a century of independence for
Algeria, the Algerian War has been brought into discussions in
France once more, where parallels between the past and present are
revealed. This analysis takes an in-depth look at the war from 1954
to 1962 and the response from the French left. Drawing from
documents and interviews, it offers a full account of not only the
role of the revolutionary left in giving political and practical
solidarity to the Algerian liberation struggle, but also that of
the Trotskyists during that period. Including a section on how the
war has been reflected in fiction, this volume is sure to interest
academics across various fields.
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
Witty, bawdy, and vicious, Yusuf al-Shirbini's Brains Confounded
pits the "coarse" rural masses against the "refined" urban
population. In Volume One, al-Shirbini describes the three rural
"types"-peasant cultivator, village man-of-religion, and rural
dervish-offering anecdotes testifying to the ignorance, dirtiness,
and criminality of each. In Volume Two, he presents a hilarious
parody of the verse-and-commentary genre so beloved by scholars of
his day, with a 47-line poem supposedly written by a peasant named
Abu Shaduf, who charts the rise and fall of his fortunes. Wielding
the scholarly tools of elite literature, al-Shirbini responds to
the poem with derision and ridicule, dotting his satire with
digressions into love, food, and flatulence. Volume Two of Brains
Confounded is followed by Risible Rhymes, a concise text that
includes a comic disquisition on "rural" verse, mocking the
pretensions of uneducated poets from Egypt's countryside. Risible
Rhymes also examines various kinds of puzzle poems, which were
another popular genre of the day, and presents a debate between
scholars over a line of verse by the fourth/tenth-century poet
al-Mutanabbi. Together, Brains Confounded and Risible Rhymes offer
intriguing insight into the intellectual concerns of Ottoman Egypt,
showcasing the intense preoccupation with wordplay, grammar, and
stylistics and shedding light on the literature of the era. An
English-only edition.
British Captives from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, 1563-1760
provides the first study of British captives in the North African
Atlantic and Mediterranean, from the reign of Elizabeth I to George
II. Based on extensive archival research in the United Kingdom,
Nabil Matar furnishes the names of all captives while examining the
problems that historians face in determining the numbers of early
modern Britons in captivity. Matar also describes the roles which
the monarchy, parliament, trading companies, and churches played
(or did not play) in ransoming captives. He questions the emphasis
on religious polarization in piracy and shows how much financial
constraints, royal indifference, and corruption delayed the return
of captives. As rivarly between Britain and France from 1688 on
dominated the western Mediterranean and Atlantic, Matar concludes
by showing how captives became the casus belli that justified
European expansion.
When Italian forces landed on the shores of Libya in 1911, many in
Italy hailed it as an opportunity to embrace a Catholic national
identity through imperial expansion. After decades of acrimony
between an intransigent Church and the Italian state, enthusiasm
for the imperial adventure helped incorporate Catholic interests in
a new era of mass politics. Others among Italian imperialists -
military officers and civil administrators - were more concerned
with the challenges of governing a Muslim society, one in which the
Sufi brotherhood of the Sanusiyya seemed dominant. Eileen Ryan
illustrates what Italian imperialists thought would be the best
methods to govern in Muslim North Africa and in turn highlights the
contentious connection between religious and political authority in
Italy. Telling this story requires an unraveling of the history of
the Sanusiyya. During the fall of Qaddafi, Libyan protestors took
up the flag of the Libyan Kingdom of Idris al-Sanusi, signaling an
opportunity to reexamine Libya's colonial past. After decades of
historiography discounting the influence of Sanusi elites in Libyan
nationalism, the end of this regime opened up the possibility of
reinterpreting the importance of religion, resistance, and Sanusi
elites in Libya's colonial history. Religion as Resistance provides
new perspectives on the history of collaboration between the
Italian state and Idris al-Sanusi and questions the dichotomy
between resistance and collaboration in the colonial world.
Violence was endemic to rural South African society from the late
nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. But acts of
violence were not inherent in African culture; rather, violence
resulted from the ways in which Africans navigated the hazardous
social and political landscape imposed by white rule. Focusing on
the Eastern Cape province, Sean Redding investigates the rise of
large-scale lethal fights among men, increasingly coercive
abduction marriages, violent acts resulting from domestic troubles
and witchcraft accusations within families and communities, and
political violence against state policies and officials. Many
violent acts attempted to reestablish and reinforce a moral,
social, and political order among Africans. However, what
constituted a moral order changed as white governance became more
intrusive, land became scarcer, and people reconstructed their
notions of "traditional" culture. State policies became obstacles
around which Africans had to navigate by invoking the idea of
tradition, using the state's court system, alleging the use of
witchcraft, or engaging in violent threats and acts. Redding's use
of multiple court cases and documents to discuss several types of
violence provides a richer context for the scholarly conversation
about the legitimation of violence in traditions, family life, and
political protest.
The Facet of Black Culture is a very unique book that talks about
culture of the black people, the birth of a person to his final
departure to our ancestors and how his property will be shared if
he or she has any. This book begins with the brief history of some
ethnic groups in Africa, particularly Ghana. In this chapter you
will learn how some of the ethnic groups moved from their original
geographical locations to present-day Ghana after which you will
move to the next chapter, which talks about birth and naming
ceremony in Africa. Chapter 2 basically talks about how naming
ceremonies are performed in some parts of Africa. One will also
learn about the first religion in Africa in this book; the features
and beliefs of the traditional religion are found in this book.
Marriage is the dream of every young man and woman in Africa; how
marriage rites are performed Africa can also be found this book.
The meals and preparations, the art and craft, music and dance,
celebrations and festivals, death and funeral rites among black
people are all tactically discussed in The Facet of Black Culture.
A study of peasant land-owning and its attendant social and
economic changes during the making of modern Egypt. This digital
edition was derived from ACLS Humanities E-Book's (http:
//www.humanitiesebook.org) online version of the same title
A key book on Zimbabwe's industrial policy and the relationship
between manufacturing, the state, and economic interest groups.
Under pressure from local manufacturers, and recognising that
industrial policy was a legitimate instrument for development, on 1
July 2016, to boost domestic production, the Government of Zimbabwe
passed Statutory Instrument 64 which limited imports and foreign
manufactures, allowing local producers satisfy demand. Zimbabwe's
neighbours immediately protested that this flouted the Southern
Africa Development Community (SADC)'s Protocol on Trade, which
aimed to increase trade across borders at regional and national
levels. This matter revived the conversation about protectionism as
an instrument of industrial policy. Protectionism in Africa is
neither limited to Zimbabwe, nor is it a new phenomenon. This book
brings a historical perspective to the conversation by exploring
the policy proposals and political pressure exerted by
manufacturing businesses on the trajectory of industrialisation in
colonial Zimbabwe, and reveals that the major point of contention
between the state, industry, and other economic interest groups in
this period was protection. Tracing changing attitudes to the
country's political economy, the author examines the way in which
industrialists advanced their interests through the Association of
Rhodesian Industries (ARnI) and other trade bodies, and shows how
this pitted them not only against the state but other blocs of
capital - farmers, miners and commerce. He examines the impact of
the post-war Customs Union Agreement with South Africa,
manufacturing strategy under UDI, and examines the impact of
Southern Rhodesia's development on its trading partners in South
Africa, Zambia and Malawi. Casting new light on the continuing
debate on regional trade, this important book adds to our
understanding of the settler colony's economic, business, and
political history.
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