africa travel

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.

Hardcover. Chicago, A.C. McClurg, 1st, 1911, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 445 pages, b&w photos by the author. Front fly leaf with top corner clipped. Tan covers and spine have discoloration, fading, internally very good. Map on front end paper. No markings.

Hardcover. NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1st US, 1935, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 337 pages, Index. Black & white photographic illustrations. Cream cloth with red & black illustration and lettering. The exciting story of the author's travels by car with Paris Benga, the famous Negro dancer, on a tour which zigzagged through the French colonies, the French and British mandates, and the Gold Coast to study the native dances in the districts most remote from civilization. This is also a study of the government and religion, the sex-life and marriage ritual, habits and customs, and the emotional and mental character of these West African Negroes. Mild stain to corners of front cover, not affecting the interior. Otherwise clean and tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Vantage Press, 1st, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 312 pages. B&w photos in center section. Frontispiece map. A Canadian professor returns to visit the Tanzania village in the Southern Highlands which he left 40 years ago. 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, G P Putnam's Sons, 1st, 1937, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red cloth, 10 pages of b&w photos. The struggling New York/Massachusetts writer, lecturer, and young mother writes of her third venture into Africa in the 1930s. Spine cocked, 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.

Hardcover. New York, Random House, 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 225 pages, INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR on half-title page. Minor dust jacket edge wear and spotting on top edge, otherwise, very clean and tight copy.

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.

Hardcover. NY, John Lane Company, 1st, 1921, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red cloth with faded gilt lettering. Written by Isaac Frederick Marcosson, an American magazine editor, on his travels through Africa and along the Congo. Complete with 48 illustrations including photographs, maps and frontispiece of King Albert. Newspaper photo of author pasted to inside front cover, otherwise a clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Simon and Schuster, 3rd pr., 1967, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 223 pages. A young American's experience in a district school in Tanganyika and traveling in Rhodesia and South Africa as a member of the Peace Corps. Clean copy.

Softcover. NY, Cambridge University Press, 1st pbk, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 309 pages. An Empire of Facts presents a fascinating account of the formation of French conceptions of Islam in France's largest and most important colony. During the period from 1870 to 1914, travelers, bureaucrats, scholars, and writers formed influential and long-lasting misconceptions about Islam that determined the imperial cultural politics of Algeria and its interactions with republican France. Narratives of Islamic mysticism, rituals, gender relations, and sensational crimes brought unfamiliar cultural forms and practices to popular attention in France, but also constructed Algerian Muslims as objects for colonial intervention. Personal lives and interactions between Algerian and French men and women inflected these texts, determining their style, content, and consequences. Drawing on sources in Arabic and French, this book places such personal moments at the heart of the production of colonial knowledge, emphasizing the indeterminacy of ethnography, and its political context in the unfolding of France's empire and its relations with Muslim North Africa. Clean copy.

Softcover. self-published, 1st, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 267 pages. INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR on title page. The autobiography of an American missionary recalling her travel and adventures in China and later Africa. Clean copy with mild warp to book.

Hardcover. NY, Harcourt, Brace and Company, 3rd pr., 1941, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, green cloth, 555 pages, endpapers map. Author documents his drive with his wife from Dar-es-Salaam, Tanganika, on the east coast of Africa to Duala, Cameroons, on the west Coast. James Negley Farson (1890-1960), was an American author and adventurer. Spine faded, clean copy.

Hardcover. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1st, 1916, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, gray cloth stamped with black lettering. 314 pages, frontis, plates from photos. A description of a stay of over a decade in Gaboon (French Congo), at various mail stations, with much on the missionary activities, schools, and the native peoples in the area including the Njem tribe in the Lomie district, about 400 miles inland from the coastal town of Kribi. This copy from a YMCA library with a stamp and an envelope on the front endpapers, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Long Beach CA, Safari Press, reprint, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, This is the English translation of Decoster's original Le Vent des Pistes, published in 2003. Edouard-Piere Decoster is the son of a French industrialist, brought up in Northern France, and only introduced to Africa as an adult through national service in the interior of Algeria. This book "relates Decoster's memories of forty years of travelling and hunting in Africa for lion, buffalo, leopard, waterbuck, kudu, eland, antelope, elephant, and just about every other creature legal to hunt. Unlike many big-game hunting books, Decoster's tales of his safaris and expeditions are tinged with romanticism and nostalgia." Chapters include: The gates to Atlantis; The lion and the warthog at the Faleme River; Akagera Game Reserve; The accident; A lion in Sologne; Eland at the ends of the earth; In Hemingway's footsteps; Dinner in the bush; On the banks of the Faro River; Embo's revenge; An invaluable network; Friends; Hunting the baboon; How to hunt a warthog; Eland of the bad moon; The kudu of Mount Gorogoza; Paka Doume - the Well-Named;. Still in publisher's shrinkwrap.

Hardcover. NY, Dodd, Mead & Company, 2nd pr., 1929, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, green cloth with gilt and black decoration, 321 pages. Illustrated with decorated endpapers (map) and vintage black and white photographs. Carl Than Akeley (1864-1926) was a taxidermist, naturalist and inventor was born near Clarendon, New York. Akeley would make five expeditions to Africa collecting specimens, first for the Field Museum in Chicago, and then for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. In 1911 he proposed to Henry Fairfield Osborn, president of the museum, a plan to present animal groups against painted backgrounds that would faithfully recreate the habitat which the animals lived. He had many adventures on the trips to Africa, including one where he was attacked by a leopard. Akeley died on his last expedition in his camp, near Mount Mikeno. This book is an account of Akeley's last expedition, and has a foreword by Henry Fairfield Osborn. The book is shaken and binding a little loose but holding, no loose pages. Previous owner's inscription on blank pelim page otherwise clean.

Softcover. NY, Oxford University Press, 2nd pr., 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. George Schuyler, a renowned and controversial black journalist of the Harlem Renaissance, and Josephine Cogdell, a blond, blue-eyed Texas heiress and granddaughter of slave owners, believed that intermarriage would "invigorate" the races, thereby producing extraordinary offspring. Their daughter, Philippa Duke Schuyler, became the embodiment of this theory, and they hoped she would prove that interracial children represented the final solution to America's race problems. Able to read and write at the age of two and a half, a pianist at four, and a composer by five, Philippa was often compared to Mozart. During the 1930s and 40s she graced the pages of Time and Look magazines, the New York Herald Tribune, and The New Yorker. Philippa grew up under the adoring andinquisitive eyes of an entire nation and soon became the role model and inspiration for a generation of African-American children. But as an adult she mysteriously dropped out of sight, leaving America to wonder what had happened to the "little Harlem genius." Suffering the double sting of racismand gender bias, Philippa had been rejected by the elite classical music milieu in the United States and forced to find an audience abroad, where she flourished as a world-class performer and composer. She traveled throughout South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia performing for kings, queens, and presidents. By then Philippa had added a second career as an author and foreign correspondent reporting on events around the globe--from Albert Schweitzer's leper colony in Lamberene to the turbulent Asian theater of the 1960s. She would give a command performance for Queen Elisabeth of Belgium one day, and hide from the Viet Cong among the ancient graves of the Annam kings another.

Hardcover. Tielt BE, Lannoo, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 224 pages. The most recent project of Magnum photographer Carl De Keyzer; a sharp image of Congo as it is today. Dutch, French & English text. Stunning photo collection in high quality reproduction.

Hardcover. Stichting Kunstboak , 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 240 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. Duel language French-English. Angelo Turconi, traveler and photographer in Africa, shares his remarkable images of everyday life in Congo. Congo on the Road is the result of many journeys in this multifaceted country and documents his encounters along the road: the Yaka chief in ceremonial dress, the chief of the Pende and Chokwe in prestigious attire, the Emperor of the Lunda on his throne, a family photo of the Kitawala sect. Turconi's photographs testify of a deep respect for the ones captured by the lens. We experience daily life as it is, with its deprivation and many struggles, nonetheless Angelo Turconi highlights the courage and joy of people and their endless ingenuity and creativity in overcoming obstacles. The beautiful and diverse scenery is as evocative as poetry. It opens the heart and fills it with admiration, memories and - for those that had the chance to experience life in deep central Africa - even nostalgia.

Hardcover. NY, Harper and Row, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 244 pages. The author spent 6 weeks with a courageous and devoted group of black reporters from the Johannesburg Star. This book focuses on the dilemma of these men and women caught between the militant black community, the police who harass them mercilessly, and their white editors who, fearful of the truth and wary of government disapproval, sometimes refuse to print the stories the reporters risked their lives to get. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Hatje Cantz, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 84 pages. When David Goldblatt received the world-renowned Hasselblad Award in 2006, he had been making photographs of the South African landscape and culture for more than 50 years. Born in 1930 in a gold-mining town near Johannesburg, his parents were Jewish refugees from Lithuania, and they raised him with an emphasis on tolerance and antiracism. In 1975, at the height of apartheid, Goldblatt explored white nationalist culture in Some Afrikaners Photographed, and in the 80s he observed workers on the Kwandebele-Pretoria bus, many of whom traveled eight hours every day to work and back. His late-90s solo show at New York's Museum of Modern Art focused on architectural work, and showed off Goldblatt's uncanny ability to discover a society through its buildings and landscapes. His photographs of architectural structures revealed the ways that ideology had defined his home country's landscape. No dj issued.