Showing titles in Africa

The empires of the ancient Sumerians, Akkadians, Greeks, Romans, and Chinese were underpinned by slavery, where one person could be owned by another, and their obedience and labor were forced by the threat of violence or even death. Some of these people were prisoners captured during wars, some were sold into slavery to pay debts, while others were born into slavery. In many ancient empires, slaves accounted for anything from one-third to half of the total population.

Known in the Dominican Republic and Togo as Vodu, in Benin as Vodún, and in Haiti as Vodou, West African religion has, for hundreds of years, served as a repository of sacred knowledge while simultaneously evolving in response to human experience and globalization. Spirit Service: Vodún and Vodou in the African Atlantic World explores this dynamic religion, its mobility, and its place in the modern world.

Give Us More Guns, based on hundreds of interviews with police, experts, and the gangsters themselves, tells the story of this callous crime for the first time. Mark Shaw explores how the guns get into the hands of South Africa’s crime bosses and describes the bloodshed that ensues. He also uncovers accounts of rampant corruption within the police and in the state’s gun-licensing system, probing the government failure that has been instrumental in arming the country’s gangsters.

In A Man Apart Richard Steyn once again brings to life a South African icon. Louis Botha was the first Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, a union he did much to create in the decade after the devastation of the Anglo-Boer War. During the war Botha was a brilliant young Boer general who through his battlefield strategy won significant victories over the British in the early stages of the war.

The modern history of Africa was, until very recently, written on behalf of the indigenous races by the white man, who had forcefully entered the continent during a particularly hubristic and dynamic phase of European history. In 1884, Prince Otto von Bismark, the German chancellor, brought the plenipotentiaries of all major powers of Europe together to deal with Africa's colonization in such a manner as to avoid provocation of war. This event - known as the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 - galvanized a phenomenon that came to be known as the Scramble for Africa.

The ancient Egyptians are an enduring source of fascination - mummies and pyramids, curses, and rituals have captured the imagination of generations. We all have a mental picture of ancient Egypt, but is it the right one? How much do we really know about this great civilization? This second edition of Ancient Egypt: A Very Short Introduction explores the history and culture of pharaonic Egypt, including ideas about Egyptian kingship, ancient Egyptian writing systems, and the history of Egyptology.

The nice thing about African mythology is that it is rooted in such ancient traditions. And although the west hasn’t fully embraced some of these interesting stories, they have been told by many and remembered by some, enough to write them down and discover what they are all about. Different regions have different traditions, of course, and you’ll learn more about many of them in this book.

King Leopold II of Belgium emerges from the pages of history as a curious character. He was a member of a privileged clique of European monarchs, bereft of power but rich, indulgent, and indolent. Leopold certainly availed himself of all the pleasures of court life, but he was also shrewd, astonishingly competent, and avaricious to an almost unimaginable degree.

Africa in the 13th century lay in ruins due to countless civil wars and the ensuing famine. Amid the hopelessness arose a man who began to rebuild the ravaged diaspora. He instituted a government that was so efficient at managing the country of Mali that soon it was the most progressive nation on the continent. Not long after, one by one, the neighboring countries began to join the fold, until all of West Africa constituted a single empire.

It was in the nature of Belgium’s withdrawal from Africa that power was essentially handed over to the first in line to receive it. Very little of the careful preparation that characterized the British withdrawal from Africa was evident in Congo. As it turned out, the first in line to take power was a tall, stern-featured ideologue by the name of Patrice Lumumba. This audiobook looks at one of the most important African leaders of the 20th century.

Whilst it’s impossible to capture the essence of Nigeria in one story, its writers have given listeners the opportunity to experience the many different parts that make up Africa’s most populous nation. In Of This Our Country, acclaimed and award-winning Nigerian writers go a step further and describe their Nigeria, sharing personal essays about a country that holds so much more than any one perspective could. Through the words of these writers, a living portrait of Nigeria is woven, one that is as beautiful as it is complex.

As the world progressed through medieval times, great empires rose and fell across Europe and Africa. However, in the 15th century, trans-oceanic voyages were allowing imperialism to reach distant shores. This new form of control became rampant, and untamed capitalism put the slave trade at its core.

At the end of a steep gravel road in one of the remotest corners of Lusikisiki in the old Transkei lies the village of Ithanga. Home to a few hundred villagers, the majority of them unemployed, it is inconceivably poor. In the broader world, most would consider it entirely inconsequential. It is to here that award-winning author Jonny Steinberg travels to explore the lives of a community caught up in a battle to survive the ravages of HIV/AIDS.

They say that one is subjected to a sobering sample of what can only be described as an existential crisis when traversing the golden and seemingly infinite terrain of the Sahara Desert. It is easy to see why people might feel helplessly small and insignificant, especially when thrust into and lost in such a hauntingly beautiful, but perilous and apparently fathomless landscape. The smattering of flora and fauna stingily peppered throughout the immense slab of barren land would do little to pacify a fluttering stomach.

CAPE TOWN’S POPULAR high-end night spots attract an array of clientele, from young partygoers to politicians, models to moguls. In parallel with this is a sleazy underworld where control of the lucrative nightclub-security scene is the ultimate prize, for which some are prepared to pay using extortion and murder as the main currencies. South Africa’s private-security sector is massive, an informal police force increasingly relied on as confidence in traditional policing wanes. But it’s an industry tainted by ties to underworld figures and events.

The birth of South Sudan was celebrated the world round. But the celebration would not last: South Sudan's freedom-fighters soon plunged their new nation back into chaos, shattering the promise of liberation and exposing the hubris of their American backers. Drawing on extraordinary personal stories of identity, liberation, and survival, this narrative tells an epic story of paradise won and then lost. Zach Vertin's firsthand accounts, from deadly war zones to the halls of Washington power, bring listeners on an extraordinary journey into the rise and fall of the world's newest state.

Serially betrayed by the people who promised to care for him, Asad lived his childhood at a sceptical remove from the adult world, his relation to others wary and tactical. By the time he had reached the cusp of adulthood, Asad had honed an array of wily talents. At the age of 17, in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, he made good as a street hustler. He also courted the famously beautiful Foosiya and, to the astonishment of his peers, married her.

Africa has been known as "the cradle of mankind", and its recoverable history stretches back to the Pharaohs. But the idea of studying African history is itself new, and the authors show why it is still contested and controversial. This VSI, the first concise work of its kind, will prove essential for anyone interested in the African continent and the diversity of human history.

Abernethy’s 1910 book The Jew a Negro has been analyzed by numerous modern authors studying race relations in earlier times in America. Arthur Talmage Abernethy, PH. D., (1872 –1956) was a professor, Methodist pastor in New York and North Carolina, and a Democratic candidate for congress in North Carolina. He was a gifted speaker and author a score of historical books, as well as being the youngest son of the founder of Rutherford College. He was elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science and became the poet laureate of North Carolina.

In the second volume of his three-part history, a monumental trilogy that began with Parting the Waters, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, Taylor Branch portrays the Civil Rights Movement at its zenith, recounting the climactic struggles as they commanded the national stage. Beginning with the Nation of Islam and conflict over racial separatism, Pillar of Fire takes the listener to Mississippi and Alabama: Birmingham, the murder of Medgar Evers, the "March on Washington," the Civil Rights Act, and more.