Download or read book In Search of Africa written by Manthia Diawara and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "There I was, standing alone, unable to cry as I said goodbye to Sidimé Laye, my best friend, and to the revolution that had opened the door of modernity for me--the revolution that had invented me." This book gives us the story of a quest for a childhood friend, for the past and present, and above all for an Africa that is struggling to find its future. In 1996 Manthia Diawara, a distinguished professor of film and literature in New York City, returns to Guinea, thirty-two years after he and his family were expelled from the newly liberated country. He is beginning work on a documentary about Sékou Touré, the dictator who was Guinea's first post-independence leader. Despite the years that have gone by, Diawara expects to be welcomed as an insider, and is shocked to discover that he is not. The Africa that Diawara finds is not the one on the verge of barbarism, as described in the Western press. Yet neither is it the Africa of his childhood, when the excitement of independence made everything seem possible for young Africans. His search for Sidimé Laye leads Diawara to profound meditations on Africa's culture. He suggests solutions that might overcome the stultifying legacy of colonialism and age-old social practices, yet that will mobilize indigenous strengths and energies. In the face of Africa's dilemmas, Diawara accords an important role to the culture of the diaspora as well as to traditional music and literature--to James Brown, Miles Davis, and Salif Kéita, to Richard Wright, Spike Lee, and the ancient epics of the griots. And Diawara's journey enlightens us in the most disarming way with humor, conversations, and well-told tales.
Download or read book The Search for Africa written by Basil Davidson and published by Crown. This book was released on 1994 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of short essays various aspects of African history, culture and modern politics.
Download or read book My Life in Search of Africa written by John Henrik Clarke and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author, one of the foremost scholars on Africa, fought to legitimise African history for more than 60 years. This book finally uncovers the tumultuous life of this great figure. Through a series of autobiographical essays, Clarke looks back on his lifelong struggle to restore African history to its proper place in the context of world history.
Download or read book The Search for Africa written by Basil Davidson and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comprises essays published between 1953 and 1992 which " illuminate... the reinstallation of Africa's peoples within the culture of the world."
Download or read book In Search of Ancient North Africa written by Barnaby Rogerson and published by Haus Publishing. This book was released on 2018-03-15 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For forty years, Barnaby Rogerson has travelled across North Africa, making sense of the region’s complex and fascinating history as both a writer and a guide. Throughout that time there have always been a handful of stories he could not pin into neat, tidy narratives; stories that were not distinctly good or bad, tragic or pathetic, selfish or heroic, malicious or noble. This book, neither a work of history nor travel writing, is a journey into the ruins of a landscape in an attempt to make sense of those stories through the lives of six historical figures, five men and one woman: A sacrificial refugee (Queen Dido); a prisoner of war who became a compliant tool of the Roman Empire (King Juba II); an unpromising provincial who, as Emperor, brought the Roman Empire to its dazzling apogee (Septimius Severus); an intellectual careerist who became a bishop and a saint (St Augustine); the greatest general the world has ever known (Hannibal); and the Berber Cavalry General who eventually defeated him (Masinissa). All six of these lives are surrounded with as much myth as fact, but the destinies of these North African figures remain highly relevant today. Their descendants are faced with many of the same choices: Should you stay pure to your own culture and fight against the power of the West, or should you study and assimilate to this other culture, and utilize its skills? Will it greet you as an ally only to own you as a slave? In between these life stories, Rogerson explores the ruins of ancient sites, which tell their own tales, and reveals the multiple interconnections that bind the culture of this region with the wider world, particularly the spiritual traditions of the ancient Near East.
Download or read book Bitter Roots written by Abena Dove Osseo-Asare and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-01-13 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over a century, plant specialists worldwide have sought to transform healing plants in African countries into pharmaceuticals. And for equally as long, conflicts over these medicinal plants have endured, from stolen recipes and toxic tonics to unfulfilled promises of laboratory equipment and usurped personal patents. In Bitter Roots, Abena Dove Osseo-Asare draws on publicly available records and extensive interviews with scientists and healers in Ghana, Madagascar, and South Africa to interpret how African scientists and healers, rural communities, and drug companies—including Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Unilever—have sought since the 1880s to develop drugs from Africa’s medicinal plants. Osseo-Asare recalls the efforts to transform six plants into pharmaceuticals: rosy periwinkle, Asiatic pennywort, grains of paradise, Strophanthus, Cryptolepis, and Hoodia. Through the stories of each plant, she shows that herbal medicine and pharmaceutical chemistry have simultaneous and overlapping histories that cross geographic boundaries. At the same time, Osseo-Asare sheds new light on how various interests have tried to manage the rights to these healing plants and probes the challenges associated with assigning ownership to plants and their biochemical components. A fascinating examination of the history of medicine in colonial and postcolonial Africa, Bitter Roots will be indispensable for scholars of Africa; historians interested in medicine, biochemistry, and society; and policy makers concerned with drug access and patent rights.
Download or read book Chasing the Devil written by Tim Butcher and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The audacious, gripping travelogue of a writer chasing the ghost of Graham Greene into the heart of Africa.
Download or read book The Gates of Africa written by Anthony Sattin and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2004 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The highly acclaimed author of "The Pharaoh's Shadow" offers a true account of the explorers who uncovered Africa's mysteries. Two 8-page color photo inserts.
Download or read book Chad written by Mario Azevedo and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-08-28 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chad, the fifth largest country in Africa, has experienced great difficulties politically, economically, and socially. During the 1980s and early 1990s, Chad briefly held international attention because of its warring with Libya. This situation underlines Chad's potential for drawing its neighbors-Libya, Sudan, Cameroon, and Nigeria in particular-a
Download or read book Africa in Modern History written by Basil Davidson and published by London : Allen Lane. This book was released on 1978 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Search for Origins written by Trefor Jenkins and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2007-10-01 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the 'Cradle of Humanity and its history. The 'Cradle of Humankind' (COH), bordering Gauteng and the North-West Province, was declared a World Heritage Site for the wealth of the human and animal fossils found there. Research based on fossils found in the area as well as signs of early human habitation have shed new light on the evolution of humankind and on the significant role that southern Africa played in the development of modern humans. A Search for Origins aims to provide an overview of the history of the COH, and of the important discoveries that have been made there, for a non-specialist audience. A number of general accounts have been written which have concentrated on the palaeontological discoveries made there. No systematic account written by specialists in their disciplines has, however, been published about the wider history of the COH and surrounding areas. In particular, no overview spanning the evolution of early plant and animal life, human development and recent and colonial history as reflected in discoveries linked to the COH, has been attempted. This edited volume frames the scientific advances that have been made in the COH against the intellectual and political background out of which they emerged. The multi-disciplinary approach - from a wide range of specialists -is innovative and ground-breaking.
Download or read book Africa s Third Liberation written by Greg Mills and published by Penguin Random House South Africa. This book was released on 2014-06-02 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Africa has experienced two liberations: the first from colonial and racist regimes, and the second from the autocrats who often followed foreign rule. African countries now have the potential to undertake a third liberation - from political economies characterised by graft, crony capitalism, rents-seeking, elitism and social inequality. This third liberation will open up the economic space in which business can compete - a necessary condition for expanding employment. During the 2000s, the continent had its best growth decade on record since independence. High commodity prices offer a launch pad for sustained growth and employment creation. Now is the moment for African countries to act. This book asks how Africa's political leaders and interest groups can promote economic growth in their countries. Drawing on studies of countries outside Africa, Jeffrey Herbst and Greg Mills identify the factors separating the performers from the laggards worldwide. Aside from the need to create an enabling environment for business through good governance, provision of infrastructure and improvements in education, most critical is the need for a laser-like development focus by governments. In Africa's Third Liberation, Jeffrey Herbst and Greg Mills show why a new African political debate is necessary to make progress in accelerating growth and creating jobs.
Download or read book In Search of Brightest Africa written by Jeannette Eileen Jones and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2011-11-01 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the decades between the Berlin Conference that partitioned Africa and the opening of the African Hall at the American Museum of Natural History, Americans in several fields and from many backgrounds argued that Africa had something to teach them. Jeannette Eileen Jones traces the history of the idea of Africa with an eye to recovering the emergence of a belief in “Brightest Africa”—a tradition that runs through American cultural and intellectual history with equal force to its “Dark Continent” counterpart. Jones skillfully weaves disparate strands of turn-of-the-century society and culture to expose a vivid trend of cultural engagement that involved both critique and activism. Filmmakers spoke out against the depiction of “savage” Africa in the mass media while also initiating a countertradition of ethnographic documentaries. Early environmentalists celebrated Africa as a pristine continent while lamenting that its unsullied landscape was “vanishing.” New Negro political thinkers also wanted to “save” Africa but saw its fragility in terms of imperiled human promise. Jones illuminates both the optimism about Africa underlying these concerns and the racist and colonial interests these agents often nevertheless served. The book contributes to a growing literature on the ongoing role of global exchange in shaping the African American experience as well as debates about the cultural place of Africa in American thought.
Download or read book Brother in the Bush written by John Slaughter and published by Agate Publishing. This book was released on 2009-03-01 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brother in the Bush is a coming-of-awareness memoir of what the experience of Africa can mean for a 21st-century African American. John Slaughter, a successful stockbroker, has “made it” as a black man in America, but his life is full of constant reminders of how violently fragile existence here really is. Not long after his Baltimore townhouse is invaded—and Slaughter confronts, shoots, and kills the intruder with his shotgun—he embarks on a series of trips to Africa that unfold over almost a decade. Along the way he discovers a way of life that transforms and deepens his identity as an African American. Seduced and humbled by the contrasting realities, beauties and dangers he discovers in East Africa, Slaughter encounters different ways of life that begin to change his conceptions of life’s purpose and meaning. Slaughter’s vivid, blunt, and erudite narrative voice moves back and forth from his past growing up in the sixties and seventies to the present-tense of his journeys. Brother in the Bush unearths, probes and assesses the truths that Africa helps teach Slaughter about his life—and all of our lives—here in today’s America.
Download or read book In Search Of Africa written by Frank Coates and published by HarperCollins Australia. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two countries in turmoil, two lives betrayed and one love that links them. Kip Balmain, a young Australian boy taken to a small town in Africa, finds himself caught up in the violence of colonial Kenya. As the country struggles towards independence, Kip also struggles to understand his mother's vindictive hatred of the father he has never met - and resolves to uncover the mystery of his parentage. In Uganda, Rose Nasonga, a girl at risk after her idyllic village life becomes a nightmare of civil war, uses her beauty to escape into the world of fashion, but learns that her new life can be equally destructive.Out of the horrors of war, across the boundaries of time and race, Kip and Rose discover that their lives are mysteriously linked. And that the paths they travel alone, and ultimately together, lead them inexorably to their greatest discovery. 'robust adventure ... Coates does a fine job suffusing his novel with Eastern Africa's postwar history' tHE AGE 'powerfully recreates the turbulent past' COURIER-MAIL
Download or read book In Search of Africa s written by Souleymane Bachir Diagne and published by Polity. This book was released on 2020-05-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This important book by two leading scholars of Africa examines a series of issues that are central to the question of the postcolonial. The postcolonial paradigm, and the more recent decolonial paradigm, raise the issue of the universal: is the postcolonial the first phase of a new universalism, one which would be truly universal because it would be fully inclusive, or is it on the contrary the denial of all universalism, the triumph of the particular and of fragmentation? In addressing this issue Diagne and Amselle also tackle many related themes, such as the concepts of race, culture and identity, the role of languages in philosophy as practised in different cultural areas, the various conceptions of Islam, especially in West Africa, and the outlines of an Africa which can be thought of at the same time as singular and as plural. Each thinker looks back at his writings on these themes, comparing and contrasting them with those of his interlocutor. While Amselle seeks to expose the essentialist and culturalist logics that might underlie postcolonial and decolonial thought, Diagne consistently refuses to adopt the trappings of the Afrocentrist and particularist thinker. He argues instead for a total decentring of all thought, one that rejects all ‘centrisms’ and highlights instead branchings and connections, transfers, analogies and reciprocal influences between cultural places and intellectual fields that may be distant but are not distinct in space and time. This volume is a timely contribution to current debates on the postcolonial question and its new decolonial form. It will be of great interest to students and scholars in a variety of fields, from African studies and Black studies to philosophy, anthropology, sociology and cultural studies, as well as to anyone interested in the debates around postcolonial studies and decolonial thought
Download or read book Africas of the Americas written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2008-03-31 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The anthropology and history of African American religious formations has long been dominated by approaches aiming to recover and authenticate the historical transatlantic continuities linking such traditions to identifiable African source cultures. While not denying such continuities, the contributors to this volume seek to transcend this research agenda by bracketing "Africa" and "African pasts" as objective givens, and asking instead what role notions of "Africanity" and "pastfulness" play in the social and ritual lives of historical and contemporary practitioners of Afro-Atlantic religious formations. The volume’s goal is to open up contextually salient claims to "African origins" to empirical scrutiny, and so contribute to a broadening of the terms of debate in Afro-Atlantic studies.
