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.

The book examines, compares, and contrasts the African American and Oromo movements by locating them in the global context, and by showing how life chances changed for the two peoples and their descendants as the modern world system became more complex and developed. Since the same global system that created racialized and exploitative structures in African American and Oromo societies also facilitated the struggles of these two peoples, this book demonstrates the dynamic interplay between social structures and human agencies in the system. African Americans in the US and Oromos in the Ethiopian Empire developed their respective liberation movements in opposition to racial/ethnonational oppression, cultural and colonial domination, exploitation, and underdevelopment. By going beyond its focal point, the book also explores the structural limit of nationalism, and the potential of revolutionary nationalism in promoting a genuine multicultural democracy.

A largely untold story of an extraordinary historical figure, this biography sheds light on the life of William Sheppard, a 19th-century African American who, for more than 20 years, defied segregation and operated a missionary run by black Americans in the Belgian Congo. This work shows how Sheppard returned to United States periodically, and traveled the country telling tales of his adventures to packed auditoriums. An anthropologist, photographer, big-game hunter, and art collector, the man billed as the "Black Livingstone" helped expose the atrocities that occurred under the reign of King Leopold, and this stirring work tells how he eventually helped to break Belgium's hold on the Congo.

The future of mining in South Africa is hotly contested. Wide-ranging views from multiple quarters rarely seem to intersect, placing emphasis on different questions without engaging in holistic debate.

This book aims to catalyse change by gathering together fragmented views into unifying conversations. It highlights the importance of debating the future of mining in South Africa and for reaching consensus in other countries across the mineral-dependent globe.

It covers issues such as the potential of platinum to spur industrialisation, land and dispossession on the platinum belt, the roles of the state and capital in mineral development, mining in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the experiences of women in and affected by mining since the late 19th century and mine worker organising: history and lessons and how post-mine rehabilitation can be tackled.

It was inspired not only by an appreciation of South Africa’s extensive mineral endowments, but also by a realisation that, while the South African mining industry performs relatively well on many technical indicators, its management of broader social issues leaves much to be desired. It needs to be deliberated whether the mining industry can play as critical a role going forward as it did in the evolution of the country’s economy.

In a masterful and unique manner, Dr. Ben uses Black Man of the Nile to challenge and expose "Europeanized" African history. Order Black Man of the Nile here.

This book examines conflicting historical interpretations of the origins, evolution, and ending of apartheid. Lipton argues & provides detailed supporting evidence that apartheid was ended by a relatively non-violent process of reform that began around 1970, and culminated in the negotiations following President de Klerk's release of Nelson Mandela from prison, and his reinstatement of the African National Congress and other organizations, in February 1990.

One night in the year 411/1021, the powerful ruler of the Fatimid empire, al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, rode out of the southern gates of Cairo and was never seen again. Was the caliph murdered, or could he have decided to abandon his royal life, wandering off to live alone and anonymous? Whatever the truth, the fact was that al-Hakim had literally vanished into the desert. Yet al-Hakim, though shrouded in mystery, has never been forgotten. To the Druze, he was (and is) God, and his disappearance merely indicated his reversion to non-human form. For Ismailis, al-Hakim was the sixteenth imam, descended from the Prophet, and infallible. Jews and Christians, by contrast, long remembered him as their persecutor, who ordered the destruction of many of their synagogues and churches. Using all the tools of modern scholarship, Paul Walker offers the most balanced and engaging biography yet to be published of this endlessly fascinating individual.
To some, al-Hakim was God incarnate, to others an infallible imam, to still others he was a capricious tyrant. This book examines myth and fact, document and opinion, to present the most complete and detailed history yet written of the life and times of one of the medieval Islamic world's most controversial figures.

For the first time, the 92-metre frieze of the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria, one of the largest historical narratives in marble, has been made the subject of a book.

The pictorial narrative of the Boer pioneers who conquered South Africa’s interior during the ‘Great Trek’ (1835-1852) represents a crucial period of South Africa’s past. Forming the concept of the frieze both reflected on and contributed to the country’s socio-political debates in the 1930s and 1940s when it was made. The frieze is unique in that it provides rare evidence of the complex processes followed in creating a major monument.

Based on unpublished documents, drawings and models, these processes are unfolded step by step, from the earliest discussions of the purpose and content of the frieze through all the stages of its design to its shipping to post-war Italy to be copied into marble and final installation in the Monument. The book examines how visual representation transforms historical memory in what it chooses to recount, and the forms in which it depicts this. It also investigates the active role the Monument played in the development of apartheid, and its place in post-apartheid heritage.

The second volume, to be published later this year, expands on the first, considering each of the twenty-seven scenes in depth, providing new insights into not only the frieze, but also South Africa’s history.

In "Moving the Maasai" Lotte Hughes tells the scandalous story of how the Maasai people of Kenya lost the best part of their land to the British in the 1900s. Drawing upon unique oral testimony and extensive archival research, she describes the many intrigues surrounding two enforced moves that cleared the highlands for European settlers, and a 1913 lawsuit in which the Maasai attempted to reclaim their former territory, and explains why recent events have brought the story full circle.

Burning the veil draws upon sources from newly-opened archives, exploring the 'emancipation' of Muslim women from the veil, seclusion and perceived male oppression during the Algerian War of decolonisation. The claimed French liberation was contradicted by the violence inflicted on women through rape, torture and destruction of villages. This book examines the roots of this contradiction in the theory of 'revolutionary warfare', and the attempt to defeat the National Liberation Front by penetrating the Muslim family, seen as a bastion of resistance. Striking parallels with contemporary Afghanistan and Iraq, French 'emancipation' produced a backlash that led to deterioration in the social and political position of Muslim women. This analysis of how and why attempts to Westernise Muslim women ended in catastrophe has contemporary relevance and will be important to students and academics engaged in the study of French and colonial history, feminism and contemporary Islam. -- .

Examining American foreign policy towards the Horn of Africa between 1945 and 1991, this book uses Ethiopia and Somalia as case studies to offer an evaluation of the decision-making process during the Cold War, and consider the impact that these decisions had upon subsequent developments both within the Horn of Africa and in the wider international context. The decision-making process is studied, including the role of the president, the input of his advisers and lower level officials within agencies such as the State Department and National Security Council, and the parts played by Congress, bureaucracies, public opinion, and other actors within the international environment, especially the Soviet Union, Ethiopia and Somalia. Jackson examines the extent to which influences exerted by forces other than the president affected foreign policy, and provides the first comprehensive analysis of American foreign policy towards Ethiopia and Somalia throughout the Cold War. This book offers a fresh perspective on issues such as globalism, regionalism, proxy wars, American aid programmes, anti-communism and human rights. It will be of great interest to students and academics in various fields, including American foreign policy, American Studies and Politics, the history of the Cold War, and the history of the Horn of Africa during the modern era.

This extraordinary, candid account of James Kilgo's African sojourn conveys the untamed beauty of the bush country with the attention of a seasoned naturalist and the wonder of a first-time visitor. With startling immediacy Kilgo recalls what Zambia's Luangwa River valley revealed to him: its voices, scents, textures, and, most meaningfully, colors. Hues like sienna, ochre, and umber forged a visceral link between the people, animals, and landscapes Kilgo encountered and the muted palette of ancient rock paintings in caves and overhangs across southern Africa. Kilgo barely knew the man who invited him to Africa. A further complication: the trip was a big-game safari, which conjured troubling images of privilege and excess. Yet he went, as an observer, for Africa had enthralled him since boyhood. Kilgo's recollections of his fellow travelers and the safari staff - their forays into the bush, visits to nearby villages, and long evening talks about nature, family, and faith - are all informed by a growing awareness of Africa's complexities and contradictions. As he reflects on the swirl of customs and beliefs all around him, as he and his traveling companions draw closer together, Kilgo measures what he has learned firsthand about Africa against his readings of those who came before him, including explorer and missionary David Livingstone, writers Ernest Hemingway and Isak Dinesen, and environmentalists Mark and Delia Owens. Kilgo thinks often about hunting: about the days - long initiatory rites of local native hunters; the motivations, beyond money, that can drive a poacher; the carnage the animals visit on each other nightly just outside the walls of the idyllic safari compound. Near the end of his stay, he is offered the chance to hunt a kudu, the great antelope of storied elusiveness. Pondering this unexpected opportunity, Kilgo wonders: Has he connected sufficiently with this remarkable place to justify his participation in the hunt? Is he ready and, above all, is he worthy?

In Dissimilar Coffee Frontiers Sven Van Melkebeke compares the divergent development of coffee production in eastern Congo and western Rwanda during the colonial period. The Lake Kivu region offers a remarkable case-study to investigate diversity in economic development. In Rwanda, on the eastern side of the lake, coffee was mainly cultivated by smallholder families, while in the Congo, on the western side of the lake, European plantations were the dominant mode of production. Making use of a wide array of largely untapped archival sources, Sven Van Melkebeke convincingly succeeds in moving the manuscript beyond a case-study of colonizers to a more nuanced history of interaction and in presenting an innovative new social history of labor and land processes.

A fresh analysis of the post-colonial war in Mozambique that contributes to debates about conflict, peacebuilding, development and nationalism and offers insights into the nature of contemporary politics and the current conflict. The 1976-1992 civil war which opposed the Government of Frelimo and the Renamo guerrillas (among other actors) is a central event in the history of Mozambique. Aiming to open up a new era of studies of the war, this book re-evaluates this period from a number of different local perspectives in an attempt to better understand the history, complexity and multiple dynamics of the armed conflict. Focusing at local level on either a province or a single village, the authors analyse the conflict as a "total social phenomena" involving all elements of society and impacting on every aspect of life across the country. The chapters examine Frelimo and Renamo as well as private, popular and state militias, the Catholic Church, NGOs and traders. Drawing on previously unexamined sources such as local and provincial state archives, religious archives, the guerrilla's own documentation and interviews, the authors uncoveralternative dimensions of the civil war. The book thus enables a deeper understanding of the conflict and its actors as well as offering an explanatory framework for understanding peacemaking, the nature of contemporary politics,and the current conflict in the country. Eric Morier-Genoud is a Lecturer in African history at Queen's University Belfast; Domingos Manuel do Rosario is Lecturer in electoral sociology and electoral governance at Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo, Mozambique; Michel Cahen is a Senior Researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) at Bordeaux Political Studies Institute and at the Casa de Velazquez in Madrid.

This book" "breaks new ground in understanding how modern society has shaped women's knowledge system in Africa and deconstructs long-held myths about the position of ordinary women in the construction of knowledge. Using case studies, it historicizes the experiences of ordinary women in Tanzania and looks at how empowerment is used to, paradoxically, eviscerate women's knowledge systems.

This book is about Angolan literature and culture. It investigates a segment of Angolan history and literature, with which even Portuguese-speaking readers are generally not familiar. Its main purpose is to define the features and the literary production of the so-called 'creole elite', as well as its contribution to the early manifestations of dissatisfaction towards colonial rule patent during a period of renewed Portuguese commitment to its African colonies, but also of unrealised ambitions, economic crisis, and socio-political upheaval in Angola and in Portugal itself. Nineteenth-century Angolan society was characterised by the presence of a semi-urbanised commercial and administrative elite of Portuguese-speaking creole families--white, black, some of mixed race, some Catholic and others Protestant, some old established and others cosmopolitan--who were based in the main coastal towns. As well as their wealth, derived from the functions performed in the colonial administrative, commercial and customs apparatus, their European-influenced culture and habits clearly distinguished them from the broad native population of black peasants and farm workers. In order to expand its control over the region, Portugal desperately needed the support of this kind of non-coloniser urban elite, which was also used as an assimilating force, or better as a source of dissemination of a relevant model of social behaviour. Thus, until the 1850s great creole merchants and inland chiefs dealt in captive slaves, bound for export to Brazil via Cape Verde and Sao Tome: the tribal aristocracy and the creole bourgeoisie thrived on the profits of overseas trade and lived in style, consuming imported alcoholic beverages and wearing European clothes. After the abolition, however, their social and economic position was eroded by an influx of petty merchants and bureaucrats from Portugal who wished to grasp the commercial and employment opportunities created by a new and modern colonial order, anxious to keep up with other European colonial powers engaged in the partition of the African continent. This book thus considers the first intellectuals, the early printed publications in the country, and the pioneers of Angolan literature who felt the need to raise their roots to higher dignity. Thus, they wrote grammar, dictionaries, poetry, fiction, and of course, incendiary articles denouncing exploitation, racism, and the different treatment afforded by the colonial authorities to Portuguese expatriates and natives.