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.

From trailblazing political activist Angela Y. Davis, a major new collection of essays and interviews that argue for a radical rethinking of our prison systems

An icon of revolutionary politics, Angela Y. Davis has been at the forefront of collective movements for prison abolition for over fifty years. Abolition: Politics, Practices, Promises, the first of two important new volumes, brings together an essential collection of Davis’s essays, conversations, and interviews over the years, showing how her thinking has sharpened and evolved even as she has remained uncompromising in her commitment to collective liberation.

Davis traces a genealogy of the penal system, from slavery to the prison industrial complex, offering a trenchant analysis of the relationship between the prison system and capitalism, both in the US and on a global scale. Combining decades of analytical brilliance and lessons from organising both inside and beyond prison walls, Davis addresses the history of abolitionist practice, details the unique contributions of women to abolitionist struggles, and offers the radical tools we need for revolutionary change.

Powerful and rewarding, filled with insight and provocation, Abolition: Politics, Practices, Promises, is essential reading for anyone seeking to imagine a world without prisons.

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

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: Immigration and Migration, a collection of 20 previously out-of-print titles, features some key research on a multitude of subject areas. Integration, assimilation, multi-culturalism, historical and modern migration, questions on culture, language, labour and law - all are covered here, forming a snapshot of the immigrant experience across the world.

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.

When the Anglo-Boer War began at the end of 1899, Germans protested profusely. Everybody, from the Conservatives to the Social Democrats took a united stand against the "arch enemy", Britain, and her war in the South of Africa. Only when the South African Union was founded in 1910 did the German public interest in South Africa decrease. This interest left a great number of German publications, which is a reminder of the fact that the general public of the German Reich supported, with great interest, an important world historic event overseas, which remains unprecedented in its intensity and extent.

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.

Apartheid and its resistance come to life in this memoir making it a vital historical document of its time and for our own. In 1969, while a student in South Africa, John Schlapobersky was arrested for opposing apartheid and tortured, detained and eventually deported. Interrogated through sleep deprivation, he later wrote secretly in solitary confinement about the struggle for survival. Those writings inform this exquisitely written book in which the author reflects on the singing of the condemned prisoners, the poetry, songs and texts that saw him through his ordeal, and its impact. This sense of hope through which he transformed his life guides his continuing work as a psychotherapist and his focus on the rehabilitation of others. "[T]hetale of an ordinary young man swept one day from his life into hell, testimony to the wickedness a political system let loose in its agents and, above all, an intimate account of how a man became a healer."-Jonny Steinberg, Oxford University From the introduction: I was supposed to be a man by the time I turned 21, by anyone's reckoning. By the apartheid regime's reckoning, I was also old enough to be tortured. Looking back, I can recognize the boy I was. The eldest of my grandchildren is now approaching this age, and I would never want to see her or the others - or indeed anyone else - having to face any such ordeal. At the time my home was in Johannesburg, only some thirty miles from Pretoria, where I was thrown into a world that few would believe existed, populated by creatures from the darkest places, creatures of the night, some in uniform. I was there for fifty-five days, and never went home again.

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.

This book examines French motivations behind the decolonisation of Tunisia and Morocco and the intra-Western Alliance relationships. It argues that changing French policy towards decolonisation brought about the unexpectedly quick process of independence of dependencies in the post-WWII era.

A Commonwealth of Knowledge addresses the relationship between social and scientific thought, colonial identity, and political power in nineteenth- and twentieth-century South Africa. It hinges on the tension between colonial knowledge, conceived of as a universal, modernizing force, and its realization in the context of a society divided along complex ethnic and racial fault-lines. By means of detailed analysis of colonial cultures, literary and scientific institutions, and expert historical thinking about South Africa and its peoples, it demonstrates the ways in which the cultivation of knowledge has served to support white political ascendancy and claims to nationhood. In a sustained commentary on modern South African historiography, the significance of `broad' South Africanism - a political tradition designed to transcend differences between white English- and Afrikaans-speakers - is emphasized. A Commonwealth of Knowledge also engages with wider comparative debates. These include the nature of imperial and colonial knowledge systems; the role of intellectual ideas and concepts in constituting ethnic, racial, and regional identities; the dissemination of ideas between imperial metropole and colonial periphery; the emergence of amateur and professional intellectual communities; and the encounter between imperial and indigenous or local knowledge systems. The book has broad scope. It opens with a discussion of civic institutions (eg. museums, libraries, botanical gardens and scientific societies), and assesses their role in creating a distinctive sense of Cape colonial identity; the book goes on to discuss the ways in which scientific and other forms of knowledge contributed to the development of a capacious South Africanist patriotism compatible with continued membership of the British Commonwealth; it concludes with reflections on the techno-nationalism of the apartheid state and situates contemporary concerns like the `African Renaissance', and responses to HIV/AIDS, in broad historical context.

Drawing on previously inaccessible and overlooked archival sources, The Herero Genocide undertakes a groundbreaking investigation into the war between colonizer and colonized in what was formerly German South-West Africa and is today the nation of Namibia. In addition to its eye-opening depictions of the starvation, disease, mass captivity, and other atrocities suffered by the Herero, it reaches surprising conclusions about the nature of imperial dominion, showing how the colonial state's genocidal posture arose from its own inherent weakness and military failures. The result is an indispensable account of a genocide that has been neglected for too long.

This book opens up histories of childhood and youth in South African historiography. It looks at how childhoods changed during South Africa's industrialisation, and traces the ways in which institutions, first the Dutch Reformed Church and then the Cape government, attempted to shape white childhood to the future benefit of the colony.

This collection gathers together 31 previously out-of-print titles focusing on revolution - the political, economic, military and social aspects of the overthrow of state power. Ranging from nineteenth-century France to late-twentieth-century Caribbean, these books analyse the forms of revolt and the aftermaths of revolution, examining the types of government that result and the reactions of international opinion.