African Interest

Africa and The Caribbean by Bethwell Ogot ISBN:Africa and The Caribbean001 Author:Bethwell A Ogot

Brief Summary In the last fifteen years, the number, size, and scope of peacekeeping missions deployed in the aftermath of civil wars have increased exponentially. From Croatia and Cambodia, to Nicaragua and Namibia, international personnel have been sent to maintain peace around the world. But does peacekeeping work? And if so, how? In Does Peacekeeping Work? Virginia Page Fortna answers these questions through the systematic analysis of civil wars that have taken place since the end of the Cold War. She compares peacekeeping and non-peacekeeping cases, and she investigates where peacekeepers go, showing that their missions are crucial to the most severe internal conflicts in countries and regions where peace is otherwise likely to falter. Fortna demonstrates that peacekeeping is an extremely effective policy tool, dramatically reducing the risk that war will resume. Moreover, she explains that relatively small and militarily weak consent-based peacekeeping operations are often just as effective as larger, more robust enforcement missions. Fortna examines the causal mechanisms of peacekeeping, paying particular attention to the perspective of the peace kept--the belligerents themselves--on whose decisions the stability of peace depends. Based on interviews with government and rebel leaders in Sierra Leone, Mozambique, and the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh, Does Peacekeeping Work? Demonstrates specific ways in which peacekeepers alter incentives, alleviate fear and mistrust, prevent accidental escalation to war, and shape political procedures to stabilize peace. ISBN:9781400837731 Author:Virginia Page Fortna

Brief Summary The extraordinary true story of the black detective who goes undercover to investigate the KKK, the basis for the major motion picture written and directed by Spike Lee, and produced by Jordan Peele. When detective Ron Stallworth, the first black detective in the history of the Colorado Springs Police Department, comes across a classified ad in the local paper asking for all those interested in joining the Ku Klux Klan to contact a P.O. box, Detective Stallworth does his job and responds with interest, using his real name while posing as a white man. He figures he’ll receive a few brochures in the mail, maybe even a magazine, and learn more about a growing terrorist threat in his community. A few weeks later the office phone rings, and the caller asks Ron a question he thought he’d never have to answer, "Would you like to join our cause?” This is 1978, and the KKK is on the rise in the United States. Its Grand Wizard, David Duke, has made a name for himself, appearing on talk shows, and major magazine interviews preaching a "kinder” Klan that wants nothing more than to preserve a heritage, and to restore a nation to its former glory. Ron answers the caller’s question that night with a yes, launching what is surely one of the most audacious, and incredible undercover investigations in history. Ron recruits his partner Chuck to play the "white" Ron Stallworth, while Stallworth himself conducts all subsequent phone conversations. During the months-long investigation, Stallworth sabotages cross burnings, exposes white supremacists in the military, and even befriends David Duke himself. Black Klansman is an amazing true story that reads like a crime thriller, and a searing portrait of a divided America and the extraordinary heroes who dare to fight back. ISBN:9781250313720 Author:Ron Stallworth

Brief Summary Once again, Africa is veering towards a precipice. The much-vaunted African renaissance, a three-way equation of a flowering of liberal democracy, culture, and economic growth appears to be in tatters. Instead, sagging economic performance, backsliding on liberal democracy and other human rights reforms, and increased national and regional tensions menace much of the continent. With globalization and the increased power of market forces to propel change, financial and commodity volatility have emerged as critical elements that African governments have had to factor into political calculations. As political legitimacy began to be tied directly to economic success, the fallout from the continent s economic crisis appears to translate into political fragility. With sagging economic performance, political leaders are confronted by a force beyond their control, a power more radically unyielding than the domestic political opponents they had grown used to controlling by a combination of brute force, favoritism, or political manipulation rather than continue to pursue the uncertain path of liberal democracy. Hence, liberal democracy is under siege in Africa. This book is a must read for scholars and students of democracy in underdeveloped societies rattled by political and economic earthquakes engendered by the rampaging forces of corporate capitalism. It would be particularly useful for its incisive deconstruction of government-sponsored alternative democratic frameworks and the political calculations at their heart. ISBN:9781592215218 Author:Tatah Mentan