The directors and films studied here set out to re-image Africa - and offer Western viewers the opportunity to re-imagine the continent and its people. Two additional, very successful films on Africa, one from Hollywood, the other from apartheid South Africa, serve to highlight African directors' altogether different perspectives. The interpretation considers the financial and technical difficulties of African film production, the intended audiences, the constraints on distribution, and critical reception. The films featured cover a wide range of topics, from new perspectives on Africa prior to the intrusion of the West, to the struggle against colonialism and white minority rule, to post-colonial issues of authoritarian rule, neo-colonialism, corruption, inequality and the condition of the peasantry, with the position of women a recurrent theme. The discussions are accompanied by reproductions of posters, of photos of the directors during the shooting, and film frames illustrating key elements in the analysis. Introductions to the thematic topics provide the historical, cultural, political, and economic context of the films. Four of the films are based on novels, two more on a play or an epic, and the transformation involved in bringing the written page, or the griot's recitation, to the screen receives special attention. Throughout, the discussion extends to other African films and literary works. North America: Indiana U Press

This is the first study to cover cinemas from Iran to Morocco. Nine essays present the region's major national cinemas, devoting special attention to the work of directors who have given image and voice to dissent from political regimes, from patriarchal customs, from fundamentalist movements, and from the West. These country essays are complemented by in-depth discussions of eighteen films that have been selected for both their excellence and their critical engagement with pressing current issues. The introduction provides a comprehensive overview of filmmaking throughout the region, including important films produced outside the national cinemas. The long history of Iranian cinema, its international renown, and the politics of directors confronting the state, earns it a special place in this volume. The other major emphasis is on the Israel/Palestine conflict, featuring films by Palestinian directors, Israelis, and an Egyptian working in Syria. Nineteen authors collaborated on this book, among them Walter Armbrust, Roy Armes, Kevin Dwyer, Eric Egan, Nurith Gertz, Lina Khatib, Florence Martin, and Nadia Yaqub. About half of the contributors are film scholars; the others range across literary studies and the social sciences to two film directors and a novelist. Beyond differences in disciplinary orientation, there is considerable variation among contributors in the perspectives that inform their writing. They offer an illuminating range of approaches to the cinemas of the region. The book is richly illustrated with posters of the featured films, photos of their directors at work, and stills illustrating critical arguments in the film essays.

Ten Arab Filmmakers provides an up-to-date overview of the best of Arab cinema, offering studies of leading directors and in-depth analyses of their most important films. The filmmakers profiled here represent principal national cinemas of the Arab world-Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, and Syria. Although they have produced many of the region's most-renowned films and gained recognition at major international festivals, with few exceptions these filmmakers have received little critical attention. All ten share a concern with giving image and voice to people struggling against authoritarian regimes, patriarchal traditions, or religious fundamentalism-theirs is a cinema engage. The featured directors are Daoud Abd El-Sayed, Merzak Allouache, Nabil Ayouch, Youssef Chahine, Mohamed Chouikh, Michel Khleifi, Nabil Maleh, Yousry Nasrallah, Jocelyne Saab, and Elia Suleiman.

Ten Arab Filmmakers provides an up-to-date overview of the best of Arab cinema, offering studies of leading directors and in-depth analyses of their most important films. The filmmakers profiled here represent principal national cinemas of the Arab world—Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, and Syria. Although they have produced many of the region's most-renowned films and gained recognition at major international festivals, with few exceptions these filmmakers have received little critical attention. All ten share a concern with giving image and voice to people struggling against authoritarian regimes, patriarchal traditions, or religious fundamentalism—theirs is a cinéma engagé. The featured directors are Daoud Abd El-Sayed, Merzak Allouache, Nabil Ayouch, Youssef Chahine, Mohamed Chouikh, Michel Khleifi, Nabil Maleh, Yousry Nasrallah, Jocelyne Saab, and Elia Suleiman.

Providing an original perspective on world cities and the impact of globalization upon them, leading authorities contribute to this dedicated study of major cities in countries outside the industrialized West: Bangkok, Mumbai, Cairo, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Mexico City, Moscow, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Shanghai and Singapore. All play important global and regional roles, and the contributors compare their historical paths to their present world positions and problems.

Originally published in 1978 as part of the Urbanization in Developing Countries series, this is an interdisciplinary study of rapid urban growth in West Africa. Gugler and Flanagan first explore the history of the cities of the early West African empires and they draw on the work of social anthropologists and sociologists, as well as demographers, economists, geographers, historians, political scientists and social psychologists. They then describe the urban explosion that the region experienced after World War II. They explore the implications of widespread urban unemployment and underemployment, the housing crisis and the emergence of metropolitan areas such as Lagos. The literature on urbanization and social change in Black Africa in general, and West Africa in particular, expanded at a fast pace in the years preceding publication. This critical review of the disparate findings filled a gap in African Studies and threw light on the understanding of Third World urbanization.

Josef Gugler brings together leading authorities from four continents to provide the first dedicated study of major cities in countries outside the industrialized West: Bangkok, Mumbai, Cairo, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Mexico City, Moscow, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Shanghai and Singapore. Fourteen contributors from diverse backgrounds bring their expertise to bear on these world cities and consider, for the first time, the major regional and global roles they play in economic, political and cultural life. Conveying how these cities have followed various historical pathways to their present position, they offer multiple perspectives on the interplay between internal and external forces and they demonstrate that any comprehensive discussion of world cities has to engage a multiplicity of perspectives. With an introduction from Josef Gugler and afterword from Saskia Sassen, this substantial volume makes a major contribution to world cities literature and provides an important new impetus for further analysis.