Cecil John Rhodes lived from 1853 to 1902, a brief span, and was the renowned and world-famous founder of Rhodesia (1890-1980), the leading personality and figure in the Victorian world’s late nineteenth-century Africa empire.

Rhodes’ endeavours shaped the domains of late nineteenth- and twentieth-century Zambesia, and set down the trajectories marking southern Africa, while the Great Powers’ record of empire in Africa proved greatly inferior to Rhodesia’s. Zambesia’s long history of continuous turbulence on a troubled plateau was reversed by Rhodes’ Pioneer Column in 1890 when the ‘First Rhodesians’ arrived following five decades of itinerant white presence in Zambesia. The Occupation of Mashonaland in 1890, conquest of Matabeleland in 1893 and the end of native rebellions in 1896-97 set the stage for decades of enduring prosperity in Rhodesia, Rhodes’ most enduring legacy. Pax Rhodesiana lasted ninety years, ending in a civil war.

Then, Rhodes’ memorabilia and many memorials were subjected to modern cultural cleansing, the inheritor state in time eroding and declining into a failing state.

This is a biography of Sir Humphrey Gibbs, an upper-class Englishman who settled in Southern Rhodesia soon after it became a self-governing colony. He was a leading farmer and churchman, an MP, and eventually Governor of the country. In 1964 the Rhodesian Front declared UDI, but he remained at his post in Government House for a further five years, and was a conduit for negotiations between the British Government and the rebel regime.

Mazrui examines the importance of Africa--historically, culturally, and economically--in the development of the West, particularly the United States. And he contrasts this demonstrable importance with the combination of neglect and malice directed at Africa and those of African descent by the West and by the United States in particular. As Mazrui illustrates throughout, this is a tale of two Edens: Africa as the Eden of Lost Innocence and America as the Eden of Current Power and Future Fulfillment. People of African ancestry have been part of the vanguard for the Edenization of America. But America is also influencing the first Eden: Africa. America is a major force in the liberalization of black people in Africa; and black people are a major force in the democratization of all people in America.

This book constitutes a major reassessment of the mortuary remains from the two X-Group royal cemeteries at Qustul and Ballana in Lower Nubia (c. AD 380-500). Since their excavation more than seventy years ago, and the subsequent flooding of the sites following the building of the Aswan High Dam, and despite the spectacular nature of the finds, the sites have received remarkably little scholarly attention. This book offers the first interpretation of social life at these key sites, and proposes a series of innovative, theoretically informed frames for exploring the significance of the material remains found there. In doing so, it sheds new light on a culture which, although less well known than the Meroitic Empire that preceded it and the subsequent development of the Christian Kingdoms of the Sudan, is nevertheless of considerable archaeological and historical significance. The sites present a series of archaeologically unique monumental tumuli and multi-chambered tomb structures containing evidence of human and animal sacrifice, as well as a highly sophisticated material culture. The interpretations presented here draw on the emergent field of sensory archaeology to address the key issue of identity formation. It makes a case for the heretofore unrecognised significance of an 'aesthetic' identity mediated by material culture. It approaches X-Group culture as a materially complex indigenous culture that created and altered identities through time via the manipulation of materials, colours and patterns (the 'aesthetic' basis of identity). This study explores the relationships between humans, animals, and artefacts. It demonstrates how a less stable society, which based control on aggressive public displays, became a more stable state, as power was mediated by magico-ritual performances, festal occasions, and the rise of certain individuals. The interpretations put forward here are based on a systematic quantitative analysis of the archaeological material from the sites. These analyses draw on complex typologies differentiating objects according to use, ware, colour, decoration method, designs, surface finish, contents, grafitto, location in a tomb, location near a body, etc. Such a quantification and synthesis of tens of thousands of individual pieces of data enabled the identification of key trends in the dataset--the empirical basis for the modelling of socio-political change undertaken here. The study was undertaken to combat the limited and unsatisfactory set of questions posed by previous debates about the activities at Qustul and Ballana. It constitutes a significant departure from previous work which restricted the discussion of life at the sites to a limited debate about the identity of tribal groups and the chronology of activity at the sites. In contrast, this research demonstrates that the way in which the X-Group(s) dynamically created, maintained, and altered their identity through various forms of praxis. The book is essential reading for anybody researching ancient Sudanese civilisations. It has a wider appeal for researchers and graduate students interested in new developments in approaches to the archaeology of North-East Africa. It also has a broader appeal to all those interested in the theorisation of identity, the practical application of archaeological theory to the study of material culture and the human relationship to the sensory nature of the sensory world.

In Europeans and Africans Michal Tymowski analyses the first contacts between the Portuguese and other Europeans and Western Africans in the 15th and early 16th centuries, the cultural and psychological as well as the organizational aspects of contacts. The territorial scope of the research encompasses the West African coast. Michal Tymowski describes and analyses the feelings and emotions which accompanied the contacts, of both Africans and Europeans, analyses the methods in which both parties communicated and organized the first encounters as well as the influence of these contacts on the cultures of both sides. The work is based on a variety of source material, written sources and works of African art, in which Africans' opinions and emotions are reflected.

Over twenty years ago, Sven Lindqvist, one of the great pioneers of a new kind of experiential history writing, set out across Central Africa. Obsessed with a single line from Conrad's The Heart of Darkness - Kurtz's injunction to 'Exterminate All the Brutes' - he braided an account of his experiences with a profound historical investigation, revealing to the reader with immediacy and cauterizing force precisely what Europe's imperial powers had exacted on Africa's peoples over the course of the preceding two centuries. Shocking, humane, crackling with imaginative energies and moral purpose, Exterminate All the Brutes stands as an impassioned, timeless classic. It is essential reading for anybody ready to come to terms with the brutal, racist history on which Europe built its wealth.

This is the only available book on the Congo war, the most important current conflict in Africa. Two chapters situate the war in its historical and theoretical context, while others survey the interests of the Congolese government, of the rebel groups, and of intervening states in the war. These chapters reveal the underlying sources of the war and explain the strategies of the various combatants. Other chapters examine the impact of the war on neighboring countries, individual citizens, refugees, and other non-state actors in the zone of conflict and beyond.

This handy guide to Egyptian mythology explores how the ancient Nile-dwellers explained the world around them. It delves into the origins of life, the creation and evolution of the world, and the reigns of the gods on earth, before introducing us to the manifestations of Egypt's deities in the natural environment; the inventive ways in which the Egyptians dealt with the invisible forces all around them; and the trials and tribulations of the life hereafter. This is the perfect introduction for modern readers to the mysteries of Egyptian mythology.

David Livingstone was a doctor from Scotland, trained at the University of Glasgow and sent to South Africa by the London Missionary Society. He attended to both the spiritual and physical needs of people as he met them, but he also aimed to help people by being more strategic - trying to end slavery and promote trade. These quests caused him to be the first European to cross the African Continent. It should be noted that Livingstone's words are of his time and would be seen as racist by today's standards. He uses the terms and the science that were available to him, which were flawed, but is fascinated by the people that he meets and approaches them as fellow human beings. He writes with delicious humor and captivates the reader. This is book that both fascinates and enthrals.

Wits: The Early Years is a history of the University up to 1939.

First established in 1922, the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg developed out of the South African School of Mines in Kimberley circa 1896. Examining the historical foundations, the struggle to establish a university in Johannesburg, and the progress of the University in the two decades prior to World War II, historian Bruce Murray captures the quality and texture of life in the early years of Wits University and the personalities who enlivened it and contributed to its growth.

Particular attention is given to the wider issues and the challenges which faced Wits in its formative years. The book examines the role Wits came to occupy as a major centre of liberal thought and criticism in South Africa, its contribution to the development of the professions of the country, the relationship of its research to the wider society, and its attempts to grapple with a range of peculiarly South African problems, such as the admission of black students to the University and the relations of English- and Afrikaans speaking white students within it.

The Liberal Party of South Africa was founded in 1953 to promote nonracial democratic liberalism in opposition to white supremacist apartheid. Under Alan Paton, it quickly moved into the extra-parliamentary field and won considerable black support, competing with Communism and black nationalism. Growing influence brought heavy government attack, and the 'banning' of nearly 50 of its leaders, black and white. Despite forced dissolution in 1968, the Liberals' ideas have triumphed over those of left and right in the 'new South Africa'.

Long regarded as disturbing remnants of the Atlantic slave trade, the European forts and castles of West Africa have attained iconic positions as universally significant historical monuments and world heritage tourist destinations. This volume of original contributions by leading Africanists presents extensive new historical views of the forts in Ghana and Benin, providing both impetus and a scholarly basis for further research and fresh debate about their historical and geographical contexts; their role in the slave trade; the economic and political connections, centred on the forts, between the Europeans and local African polities; and their place in variously focused heritage studies and endeavours. Contributors are Hermann W. von Hesse, Daniel Hopkins, Jon Olav Hove, Ole Justesen, Ineke van Kessel, Robin Law, John Kwadwo Osei-Tutu, Jarle Simensen, Selena Axelrod Winsnes, Larry Yarak.

President Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia was an Arab leader greatly admired in the West for his moderation and level headedness. He led his small country to independence after a prolonged struggle against the French coloniser. He suffered long periods of deprivation and imprisonment before he acceded to supreme rule. His country has much to thank him for but he ruled too long and ended his reign in the tragedy of senility and absolutism. This book is a sympathetic study of a long and fascinating life.

This volume advances extant reflections on the state constituted as the Ur-Power in society, particularly in Africa. It analyzes how various agents within the Nigerian society 'encounter' the state - ranging from the most routine form of contact to the spectacular. While many recent collections have reheated the old paradigms - of the perils of federalism; corruption; ethnicity etc, our focus here is on 'encounter', that is, the nuance and complexity of how the state shapes society and vice-versa. Through this, we depart from the standard state versus society approach that proves so limiting in explaining the African political landscape.

The Shining Path was one of the most brutal insurgencies ever seen in the Western Hemisphere. Political Violence and the Authoritarian State in Peru explores the devastating effects of insurgent violence and the state's brutal counterinsurgency methods on Peruvian civil society.

This volume presents a vast number of monuments and documents from almost all levels of Egyptian society during the long reign of Ramesses II. They range across social categories from grand viziers, viceroys of Nubia, chiefs of treasury and granaries, high priests and leading clerics of Egypt's principal gods, army generals and elite corps, through the high, middle and lower ranks of Egyptian society to the workmen who cut the royal tombs.

While many monuments are formal, even outwardly banal, they contain a mass of data on family geneaologies enabling us to trace the careers of many people. Some of these documents give unrivalled glimpses into the social and official life of early Ramesside Egypt; the Deir el-Medina material sheds much light on the organisation from construction of the royal tombs in the Valleys of the Kings and Queens. In all sections, a great many of these monuments and documents appear in English for the first time (for some, the first appearance in any modern language).

This volume, like its predecessors, gives a wide public full access to a vast range of inscriptions previously only intelligible to a few specialists.

An ancient Egyptian statuette is found on a tiny island in the Central Mediterranean in 1713. It disappears for a century before resurfacing as the centrepiece of an archaeological exhibition. Archaeological investigators, including authors Anton Mifsud and Marta Farrugia are mystified by the find. What in the world was this statuette doing on Malta well before Napoleon and the tomb raiders following in his wake? Dedicated to an unusual triad of Egyptian gods, the statuette belonged to a humble tomb painter in the Valley of the Kings at the time of Rameses the Great. In a bid to unravel the statuette's mystery, Mifsud and Farrugia begin researching the other artefacts that the tomb painter commissioned. As they unravel details about the statuette, they also unravel some unusual details about the tomb painter's life, work and family. But the mystery deepens when they discover the statuette is not what it appears to be in I Painted for Pharaoh. "All objects surviving from ancient Egypt have a story to tell. When and why were they made and how have they survived until the present day? The authors here reveal after long and detailed research, the origins and history of one statuette, investigating why and how it ended in Malta, but also uncovering a fascinating story of more modern intrigue". [Review paragraph by Robert Partridge, editor of Ancient Egypt]

*Based on new sources in Republic of South Africa. *Shows extensive relations with African states - totally opposed to apartheid - during apartheid period and how relations were based on essentially olitical, and not merely economic, factors. *Shows the development of South Africa from pariah status to acceptable African state and superpower. South Africa's contacts with the neighbouring African states during the apartheid years are well documented. But here is a unique study based on hitherto un-explored primary sources behind the apartheid screen exposing extensive contact even with the the countries further north during these years. These relations paved the way for South Africa's emergence as a middle power acceptable to its fellow African states.

This book presents a series of essays by leading English and French scholas examining the politics, economics, international relations and defects of the literary scene of France and the former territories of francophone West Africa since 1965. The approach is emphatically a thematic one rather than a country-by-country analysis.