africa history

Hardcover. US, Soul Jazz Books, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 200 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to laminated cover boards. Color and black and white pictures throughout. The image of the Caribbean is as much a creation of the West as it is the result of its population's incredibly complex identity. A melting pot of races born of the 400-year slave trade--Africans, indigenous Americans and their French, Spanish, German, Dutch and English colonizers--the identity of the Caribbean stands at the intersection of tourism, colonialism and tropicality. This deluxe large-format volume features hundreds of fascinating and unique photographs that span 100 years of Caribbean history, culture, industry and more, as well as the subsequent diaspora of its people to America, England and elsewhere. The photographs show the many ways in which the region has been portrayed, from tropical backdrop of tourism and hedonism to colonial outpost and revolutionary threat in North America's own backyard.

Hardcover. NY, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 194 pages. The Jordan Rift Valley, stretching from the Red Sea to Lebanon, was ripped open millions of years ago by vast forces within the earth. This geological object has also been a part of human history ever since early humans used it as a path in their journey out of Africa. And for a quarter of a century it has been part of the biography of Haim Watzman, an Israeli journalist. In the autumn of 2004, as his country was riven by a fierce debate over its borders, Watzman took a two-week journey up the valley. Along the way he met scientists who try to understand the rift through the evidence lying on its surface--an archaeologist who reconstructs the fallen altars of a long-forgotten people, a zoologist whose study of bird societies has produced a theory of why organisms cooperate, and a geologist who thinks that the valley will some day be an ocean. He encountered people whose life and work on the shores of the Dead Sea and Jordan River have led them to dream of paradise and to seek to build Gardens of Eden on earth--a booster for a chemical factory, the director of a tourist site, and an aging socialist farmer who curates a museum of idols. And he discovered that the geography's instability is mirrored in the volatility of the tales that people tell about the Sea of Galilee.

Softcover. Lanham MD, Lexington Books, 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 167 pages. Introduces basic information on Rwanda and how it has been viewed by the outside world. Chapter One describes early Rwanda's political and cultural development, traditional narratives, group migrations, the effects of German and later Belgian colonialism, and the introduction of Christianity. It concludes with a look at how this early history has been interpreted and reinterpreted. The second chapter discusses the end of Tutsi dominance and the 1959 Hutu Revolution. It details Hutu Power ideology, Belgian domestic politics, early acts of genocide, refugee movements, and economic and political stagnation. The text documents the development of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, its 1990 invasion, and the Arusha peace process. An account of the 1994 genocide follows. Drawing on numerous sources and fieldwork, it discusses this east central African nation's deeply seated cleavages, atrocious recent past, and the internal and external myths that have directed its history and national life. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Nairobi Kenya:, East African Publishing House, 1st, 1967, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 206 pages. 5 maps, biblio., index. "The Abaluyia are the third largest ethnic group in Kenya, numbering about 1,086,409 people." Previous owner's name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. London, The Hogarth Press, 1st, 1931, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover reddish cloth, 173 pages. A classic farsighted expose of the destructive effects of colonialism on the indigenous social fabric in Kenya. Remains of dust jacket laid in. There are some handwritten notes on first and last blank pages of book, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. New York, G. K. Hall & Company, 1st, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 319 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Minor dust jacket edge wear, otherwise, spotless and tight copy.

Softcover. Silvana Editoriale, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 192 pages. Photography has proved a particularly essential art in the African continent's postcolonial era, both for recording the numerous seismic moments in its recent history, and for reclaiming the imagery of Africa from its colonial portrayers. As Africa has begun to step beyond its colonial subjugation, photography has also assumed a leading role in providing African countries with individual identities. Tracking the blossoming of postcolonial photography in Africa from 1960 to the present, and accompanying an exhibition at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, A Useful Dream: African Photography 1960-2010 celebrates 50 years of African photography. Among the 34 photographers gathered in its pages are Rui Assubuji, Nabil Boutros, Loulou Cherinet, James Depara, Samuel Fosso, David Goldblatt, Bob Gosani, Pierrot Men, Zwelethu Mtethwa, Eileen Perrier, Ricardo Rangel, Malick Sidibe and Patrice-Felix Tchikaya. The volume includes an introduction by Simon Njami and a text by Frank Vanhaec

Hardcover. NY, Free Press, 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 322 pages, b&w illustrations, in a bright dust jacket. This book examines the issue of racial stereotyping and with the issue of skin color as seen by such radio show broadcasts as Amos 'N' Andy. Some Blacks did not like the show when released, while others saw it as a humane portrayal of African-American Life. Overall, the show became the most popular radio show of all time. Later, it was touted by the Civil Rights Movement as offensive and racist.

Hardcover. NY, Albert & Charles Boni, 3rd pr, 1928, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards with a black cloth spine. 376 pages with illustrations, endpapers, and cover design by Miguel Covarrubias. Frontispiece loose, otherwise a clean copy.

Softcover. Cambridge UK, Cambridge University Press, 2nd Ed., 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 380 pages, some light pencil underlining. Otherwise, bright, tight copy.

Hardcover. London/Colorado, Heinemann/Westview press, 1st, 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 310 pages. Yellow cloth, gilt lettering to spine. Lacks dust jacket. Previous owner's signature on front end paper. Else a clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. Westport CT, Negro Universities Press , reprint, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, brown cloth with gilt lettering on the spine. Originally published in 1852 this is an in depth study of the African people , both in Africa and in America. A great deal of material on slavery and the South, as well as early material on Liberia. Presented in a series of "conversations", this is an in-depth history of the African continent's peoples, the colonization of Africa, and subsequent African American slavery in the United States. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Africana Publishing , 1st US, 1974, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 268 pages, b&w illustrations. In 1929 the author was awarded a Rhodes Trust Travelling Fellowship witha vague commission to study problems of race and colour. This book contains a section of her diary, essentially as she wrote it, devoted to Southern Africa including the Rhodesias and the Congo. She addressed a huge night time meeting of African workers called by Zulu union organizer, George Champion. In Bechuanaland she met the young and capable regent; in Basutoland she accompanied an Assistant Commissioner on a long trek on horseback into the interior. Thoroughly entertaining it also sets the scene for much of what was to follow in the subsequent history of the territories she visited. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Africana Publishing , 1st US, 1974, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 268 pages, b&w illustrations. In 1929 the author was awarded a Rhodes Trust Travelling Fellowship witha vague commission to study problems of race and colour. This book contains a section of her diary, essentially as she wrote it, devoted to Southern Africa including the Rhodesias and the Congo. She addressed a huge night time meeting of African workers called by Zulu union organizer, George Champion. In Bechuanaland she met the young and capable regent; in Basutoland she accompanied an Assistant Commissioner on a long trek on horseback into the interior. Thoroughly entertaining it also sets the scene for much of what was to follow in the subsequent history of the territories she visited. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Glasgow, Burns, 1st, 1962, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket. The author was a Catholic priest from Liverpool who was recuperating from several operations by sailing around Africa in 1960: his comments on the vovage and on the places where they stopped are very interesting. He chose to visit Africa because he thought it was the 'crossroads of the world' and 'possibly the place where the future of mankind will be decided.' He expresses strong anti-apartheid sentiments, describes visiting the site of the Sharpeville massacre, the pro-Nkrumah sentiment in Kenya, as well as discussions of the history and customs of Africa. Illustrated with photographs. 183 pages.

Hardcover. NY, P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 1st, 1962, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, dark blue cloth, 242 pages. The history of a Catholic mission to Uganda and how in 1886 its native converts were executed. No dustjacket. Front fly leaf clipped otherwise very good, clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Knopf, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 202 pages. A collection of four pieces on African history or culture. "The Woman Who Loved Gorillas" is a stark, unflattering look at Dian Fossey. Differing from the usual hagiography about Fossey, this essay focuses on her mistreatment of the Africans, her erratic and supposedly violent behavior, and her anti-social arrogance. It's not a slam piece, though, offering motives about her murder and admitting that Dian did much for the gorillas of Rwanda. "The Last of the Dog-Headed Men" is a look at the elusive indri, a "singing" lemur of Madagascar. "The Emperor Who Ate His People" is a look back at the career of Central African Republic dictator Bokassa. Finally, "In Search of the Source Of AIDS" is both a quest for possible sources of the virus and a look at how the disease is ravaging Africa (circa 1987). Clean, bright copy.

Softcover. Boston, Beacon Press, reprint, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 289 pages. For centuries, the story of the Atlantic slave trade has been filtered through the eyes and records of white Europeans. In this watershed book, historian Anne C. Bailey focuses on memories of the trade from the African perspective. African chiefs and other elders in an area of southeastern Ghana-once famously called 'the Old Slave Coast'-share stories that reveal that Africans were traders as well as victims of the trade. Bailey argues that, like victims of trauma, many African societies now experience a fragmented view of their past that partially explains the blanket of silence and shame around the slave trade. Clean copy.

Softcover. Providence RI, John Carter Brown Library, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 62 pages illustrated in b&w. Clean copy.

Softcover. Ithaca NY, Cornell University Press, reprint, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 283 pages. A particularly vicious and bloody civil war has racked Algeria for a decade. Amnesty International notes that since 1992, in a population of 28 million, 80,000 people have been reported killed, and the actual total is almost certainly higher. This terrible war overshadows Algeria's long and complex history and its prominence on the world economic stage-second in size among African nations, Algeria has the longest Mediterranean coastline and contains the world's fifth-largest natural gas reserves. Algeria, 1830-2000 is a comprehensive narrative history of the country. Benjamin Stora, widely recognized as the leading expert on Algeria, presents the story of this turbulent area from the start of formal French colonialism in the early nineteenth century, through the prolonged war for independence in the latter 1950s, to the internal strife of the present day.This book adapts and updates three short volumes published originally in French by La Decouverte. For this English edition, Stora has written a new introductory chapter on Algeria's colonial period (1830-1954) and has revised the final section to bring the volume up to date.

Softcover. NY, Archipelago Books, reprint, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover in pictorial wrappers, 115 pages, color illustrations. All One Horse is a marvel-filled journey through Breyten Breytenbach's kaleidoscopic imagination. The electrifying colors and penetrating images of his paintings converse with his lyrical and satirical dream-fables. These visions and parables emerge from a melange of cultures and traditions: African and Eastern thought, the spirit world, and the spheres of visual art, philosophy, history and politics. Breytenbach's watercolors communicate in hieroglyphs, where private conversation embraces myth and dream. These reflections and images - clear and complex at once - are cries for human dignity and justice, are truth disguised as play. An outspoken human rights activist, Breyten Breytenbach is a poet, painter, memoirist, essayist and novelist. His paintings and drawings have been exhibited around the world. Born in South Africa, he emigrated to Paris in the late '60s and became deeply involved in the anti-Apartheid movement. Clean Copy.

Softcover. NY, International Publishers, 7th pr., 1968, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 409 pages. Years ago, the controlling view held that the response of the slaves in the United States to their bondage 'was one of passivity and docility'. That opinion, so decisive a part of the chauvinism afflicting the nation, is shown to be false in this book and in the material accumulated since its initial appearance has further substantiated this thesis; namely, that the African-American people, in slavery, forged a record of discontent and of resistance comparable to that marking the history of any other oppressed people. Name on front fly leaf otherwise clean.

Softcover. Belmont CA, Wadsworth Publishing, 1st, 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 202 pages. A collection of essays focusing on African American resistance, specifically (from the introduction) "on the nature and extent of the resistance of blacks to slavery in the United States." Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. London, Octagon Press, reprint, 1984, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in dust jacket with fading to spine, 203 pages. Subtitled: "An Account of Travels in Asia and Africa, and Four Years Studying the Dervishes, Sufis and Fakirs, by Living Among Them." The author documents the largely ignored and forgotten ancient mystic organizations and their practices. Pages tanning otherwise a clean copy.