africa history

Softcover. Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1st pbk, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, yellow wrappers, 258 pages. Examines the unique religious brotherhoods of Morocco, tracing their origins to two saints from the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Sidi Ali ben Hamdush and Sidi Ahmed Dghughi. Known for their dramatic and sometimes controversial rituals, such as trance dances and acts of self-mutilation, the Hamadsha are healers who address spiritual and psychogenic ailments through symbolic and therapeutic practices. Their activities, deeply rooted in the Moroccan cult of saints, reflect a complex interplay of Islamic mysticism, local traditions, and social dynamics. Through these rituals, the Hamadsha incorporate patients into their brotherhoods, providing them with new roles and a symbolic framework to articulate and resolve personal and societal tensions. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, historical analysis, and psychoanalytic perspectives, this study explores the Hamadsha's history, their organizational structure, and their relationship with Moroccan culture and religion. It examines the saints' tombs as focal points of veneration, the social dynamics of the brotherhoods, and their therapeutic methods, including pilgrimages and trance dances. Clean copy.

Softcover. NY, Red Sea Press, 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 321 pages. This book tells the story about an African Jewish community known as the Beta Israel that used to live in the northern part of Ethiopia. They were repatriated to Israel in many waves with the aid of the Israeli government and the Jewish Diaspora. The Beta Israel had struggled and faced hardships in order to live out their destiny which was to migrate to the Promised Land. However, their struggle did not stop there. They have had to struggle again to overcome unexpected and new challenges after their long anticipated migration. The book is organized around these two issues. The early chapters of the book describe the quest for Beta Israel identity within Ethiopia and explore their origins. The discussion on this topic is based on mainly textual analyses of previous works on the Beta Israel. It outlines their history and explores their origins. It examines whether the different types of oppressive Ethiopian regimes have contributed to their decision to leave for the Promised Land. It sketches the socio-economic background of the twentieth-century Aliyah, and briefly analyses the impact of the political upheavals in Ethiopia between 1974 and 1991 when the Derg, the post Haile Selassie military regime, was in power.

Hardcover. Berkeley, University Of California Press, 1st, 1984, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 278 pages. History of the Pedi's struggle to keep the land that belonged to them in South Africa. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1st, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 64 pages. Yarbrough weaves a beautiful story in picture-book format about the role of music in the lives of Africans and shows how it was transformed on American and Caribbean soil. The tale revolves around a "Roots of Rhythm and Blues" concert attended by a sister and brother and their parents, great grandmother, and elderly neighbor. At the park, the father tells his children about slavery and the "culture baggage" the slaves carried with them from Africa. With a compelling delivery that echoes the rhythmic chanting of the griot, the man speaks about concepts such as spirit power and the tree of life that at first are hard for his young son to grasp. The performance begins with a song of praise for the strength and endurance of a transplanted people. By the end, the youngsters understand more about their heritage and the role spirituals played and continue to play in it. Geter's pencil-and-charcoal illustrations are richly imaginative, evoking images of Africa, slavery, roots, and soaring trees. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Harper and Row, 1st, 1983, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 309 pages. Library Edition with spine sticker (NOT EX-LIB). Complete number row. Horn Book review, 1983: "The author interweaves black folklore with her own family history in a tale remarkable for its total integration of the novel with the imaginative possibilities of legend." An African god-child and her older brother travel as albatrosses on a slave ship to Georgia, witnessing two centuries of history in two god-days! Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, Chatto & Windus, 1st, 1965, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket with a faded spine. 451 pages, 14 illustrations, 3 maps. A comprehensive history of Tanganyika. Previous owner's signature, date on front fly leaf.

Hardcover. NY, The Century Co., 1st, 1925, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 355 pages, frontis, 64 plates from photos, two colored folding maps each showing author's route, index. . The author, a popular travel writer and explorer, traveled from the Indian Ocean, across Tanganyika and the Congo to the Atlantic, and described the peoples, tribes and nature in some detail. The photographs are by Rexford W Barton and by the author. Corners bumped, fading to gilt on spine, rear hinge cracked.

Hardcover. Ithaca NY, Cornell University Press, 1st, 1968, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 387 pages. A study of nationalisms of the modern world on all continents. Includes Black Nationalism in Africa. Name on front fly leaf otherwise clean.

Softcover. UK, Penguin Books, reprint, 1983, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 317 pages. The roots of apartheid. The book relates the history of a small people, the Afrikaners, and their attempts to remake their particular world according to a rational plan from the radical Right. First published in 1975. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 3rd pr., 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 362 pages including index and bibliography. Map. Footnotes. Illustrations. This was the first comprehensive and thoroughly documented study of the political evolution of these two then emerging nations of tropical Africa. Basing his analysis on a variety of primary sources, including interviews with many leading figures, the author traces the origins of the full-fledged political parties in both Malawiand Zambia and describes the formation and development of the early Congresses which were to become the dominant movements during their struggles for independence.

Softcover. Tema Ghana, Ghana Publishing Corp. , 1st, 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 83 pages, b&w illustrations. Part of a doctoral thesis accepted by the University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. A study of the wooden stools and their religious meaning in the culture of the Akan people of Ghana. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Toronto, McClelland & Stewart, 1st, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 321pages, b&w illustrations. The Sharpeville Six were six South African protesters convicted of the murder of Deputy Mayor of Sharpeville, Kuzwayo Jacob Dlamini, and sentenced to death. On September 3, 1984, a protest march in Sharpeville turned violent (some of the crowd threw stones at Dlamimi's house, he responded by firing a gun and a riot ensued and the Deputy Mayor was murdered. Mojalefa Sefatsa, Theresa Ramashamola, Reid Mokoena, Oupa Diniso, Duma Khumalo and Francis Don Mokhesi were arrested in the following months, found guilty of murder under the "Common purpose" doctrine and sentenced to death by hanging on December 12, 1985. Christian Mokubung and Gideon Mokone were also sentenced to eight years in prison. All were represented by lawyer Prakash Diar, the author of this book.

Hardcover. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 386 pages. The first narrative history of the Civil War told by the very people it freed. Groundbreaking, compelling, and poignant, The Slaves' War delivers an unprecedented vision of the nation's bloodiest conflict. An acclaimed historian of nineteenth-century and African-American history, Andrew Ward gives us the first narrative of the Civil War told from the perspective of those whose destiny it decided. Woven together from hundreds of interviews, diaries, letters, and memoirs, here is the Civil War as seen from not only battlefields, capitals, and camps, but also slave quarters, kitchens, roadsides, farms, towns, and swamps. Speaking in a quintessentially American language of wit, candor, and biblical power, army cooks and launderers, runaways, teamsters, and gravediggers bring the war to vivid life. From slaves' theories about the causes of the war to their frank assessments of such major figures as Lincoln, Davis, Lee, and Grant; from their searing memories of the carnage of battle to their often startling attitudes toward masters and liberators alike; and from their initial jubilation at the Yankee invasion of the slave South to the crushing disappointment of freedom's promise unfulfilled, The Slaves' War is a transformative and engrossing vision of America's Second Revolution. Clean copy.

Hardcover. San Francisco, Chronicle Books, 1st thus, 2003, Book: Very Good, Hardcover, illustrated in color by Christopher Bing. A remarkable celebration from the Caldecott Honor-winning artist! A clever young boy outwits a band of voracious tigers and returns home in triumph to a splendid feast of a yard-high stack of pancakes. The story, penned by Helen Brodie Bannerman for her two daughters in 1889, has captured the imagination of readers around the world and across many generations. But the pictures which accompanied her text were crudely stereotypical and hurtful to many. Caldecott Honor-winning artist Christopher Bing has spent almost fifteen years rediscovering the joy and energy of the original story. He respects that Bannerman was writing in an Indian setting and with Indian animals-after all, there are no tigers in Africa-and faithfully adheres to the original text. However, recognizing that the image of Sambo has been used as a symbol of repression of Africans and African-Americans, Christopher Bing celebrates Sambo as proudly African, a child of beauty and joy, wit and resourcefulness.

Softcover. Kingston, Ian Randle Publishers, 1st pbk, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, pictorial wrappers, 434 pages with index. The book traces the African ancestral line of Black Jamaicans through to the influence of Asian, European & Spanish rule of the island throughout the ages, culminating with early English white settlers, forging 2-types of Jamaican People. Clean, like new.

Hardcover. NY, Africana Publishing, 1st US, 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 419 pages, 6 maps, appendix, bibliog., index. Based on many original & unpublished materials, this book examines the impact of Omani rule & trade and the growing involvement of Western powers in Zanzibar politics in the first half of the 19th century. Owner's signature on front fly leaf, college bookplate on inside front cover. About 10 pages with light underlining.

Hardcover. London, Secker & Warburg, reprint, 1955, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Fair, Hardcover in a very worn, chipped dust jacket, 255 pages, fold-out chart in rear. A blow by blow account of the Mau Mau leader's trial that lasted for over 100 days, "one of the most dramatic and important this century". In 1952, Kenyatta was arrested in Kenya by the British colonial authorities and charged with masterminding the anti-colonial Mau Mau Uprising. Although protesting his innocence, a view shared by later historians, he was convicted. He remained imprisoned at Lokitaung until 1959 and was then exiled to Lodwar until 1961. Appears to be a book club edition. Overall clean copy but cheap paper is tanning.

Hardcover. NY, Versify/Houghton, reprint, 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. a poignant and powerful ode to the resilience and strength of black life and history in America. Originally performed for ESPN's The Undefeated in 2016, the poem adopts a picture book format with a new title, accompanied by stunning oil paintings in Nelson's trademark photorealistic style. The evocative illustrations stand out against stark white backgrounds and vary in their composition. On some spreads, the focus is on a single expressive portrait; others feature collages of African American icons from various disciplines, or refer to significant historical moments. The art functions in perfect harmony with the poet's spare, striking verse to electrify the Black American experience, and to celebrate black athletes, writers, musicians, activists, and heroes. Clean copy. Caldecott Winner 2020

Hardcover. NY, Dodd Mead, 3rd pr., 1943, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, bright red cloth stamped in black. Endpapers map, b&w photographs. 410 pages. The widow of Carl Akeley, naturalist, tells the story back of the exhibits for which he was responsible in the Natural History Museum in New York. This is virtually a biography, with that as a focus; it is a record of the uphill struggle to get the chance to do the thing for which he was gifted and trained; the experiences securing his speciments, adventures in the wilderness, African jungles, the Belgian Congo, the Uganda frontier -- and the immense concentration on details to get the exhibits together and to present them with complete fidelity. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Farrar Straus Giroux, 1st, 2023, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 530 pages, b&w illustrations. The dramatic story of W. E. B. Du Bois's reckoning with the betrayal of Black soldiers during World War I-and a new understanding of one of the great twentieth-century writers. When W. E. B. Du Bois, believing in the possibility of full citizenship and democratic change, encouraged African Americans to "close ranks" and support the Allied cause in World War I, he made a decision that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Seeking both intellectual clarity and personal atonement, for more than two decades Du Bois attempted to write the definitive history of Black participation in World War I. His book, however, remained unfinished. In The Wounded World, Chad Williams offers the dramatic account of Du Bois's failed efforts to complete what would have been one of his most significant works. The surprising story of this unpublished book offers new insight into Du Bois's struggles to reckon with both the history and the troubling memory of the war, along with the broader meanings of race and democracy for Black people in the twentieth century. Drawing on a broad range of sources, most notably Du Bois's unpublished manuscript and research materials, Williams tells a sweeping story of hope, betrayal, disillusionment, and transformation, setting into motion a fresh understanding of the life and mind of arguably the most significant scholar-activist in African American history. In uncovering what happened to Du Bois's largely forgotten book, Williams offers a captivating reminder of the importance of World War I, why it mattered to Du Bois, and why it continues to matter today. Remainder mark on top edhge, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott , 1st, 1963, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pale green cloth, 210 pages. Great Battles Series. No dust jacket. Related clipping laid in. Mild fading to gilt lettering on spine. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, W.W. Norton & Company, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 430 pages. During America's Swing Era, no musician was more successful or controversial than Artie Shaw: the charismatic and opinionated clarinetist-bandleader whose dozens of hits became anthems for "the greatest generation." But some of his most beautiful recordings were not issued until decades after he'd left the scene. He broke racial barriers by hiring African-American musicians. His frequent "retirements" earned him a reputation as the Hamlet of jazz. And he quit playing for good at the height of his powers. The handsome Shaw had seven wives (including Lana Turner and Ava Gardner). Inveterate reader and author of three books, he befriended the best-known writers of his time. Tom Nolan, who interviewed Shaw between 1990 and his death in 2004 and spoke with one hundred of his colleagues and contemporaries, captures Shaw and his era with candour and sympathy, bringing the master to vivid life and restoring him to his rightful place in jazz history. Clean, bright copy.

Softcover. Washington DC, Giles, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 80 pages. Beautiful and poignant photographs by African American and other photographers (selected from the large and growing photography collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture), accompanied by three short, insightful essays, reveal the rich and significant contributions African Americans have made to to our great American heritage.

Softcover. Madison WI, University of Wisconsin Press, reprint, 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 469 pages."One of the first histories to treat non-whites as active self conscious protagonists in twentieth-century South African affairs rather than as a dark acquiescent host before which the really important story of white South Africa unfolds. The new edition has been corrected and eight new chapters extend the coverage to the end of 1963. It is an important addition to the literature about South Africa."--The Historian. C;ean copy.