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Warriors Life and Death Among the Som...
Brief Summary
This superb portrait of one of the world's most desolate, sun-scorched lands, inhabited by fiercely independent tribesmen, is Rageh Omer's favorite book on his native land. A grueling description of a little-known aspect of WWII.
Warriors describes a group of British Army soldiers charged with preventing bloodshed between feuding tribes at a remote outstation in Somalia.
Hanley turns this period of his life, difficult time that drove seven officers to suicide, into a devastating critique of imperialism.
ISBN:9780907871835
Author:Gerald Hanley
Culture and Customs of Somalia by Moh...
Brief Summary
Somalia, the Horn of Africa nation, is finally recovering from recent wars and famine. Written by a native Somali, Culture and Customs of Somalia gives students and interested readers an in-depth look at the land and people, past and present.
It is the only accessible, comprehensive, and up-to-date general reference on this country. Somalia was once colonized by Europeans, but Abdullahi's superb survey, with its historical context, evokes a Somaliland from a Somali viewpoint.
This Muslim country has strong pastoral roots and is known as a land of poets with a long oral cultural tradition. Some highlights found herein include discussion of handcrafts and artisanry, distinctive architecture and nomad housing, camel culture, intriguing food and eating customs, rites of passage, leisure and economic pursuits, education, and the Somali musical genres. A chronology, glossary, and numerous photos enhance the text.
ISBN:9780313313332
Author:Mohamed Diriye Abdullahi
The New Scramble for Africa by Padrai...
Brief Summary
Once marginalized in the world economy, the past decade has seen Africa emerge as a major global supplier of crucial raw materials like oil, uranium and coltan. With its share of world trade and investment now rising and the availability of natural resources falling, the continent finds itself at the centre of a battle to gain access to and control of its valuable natural assets.
China's role in Africa has loomed particularly large in recent years, but there is now a new scramble taking place involving a wider range of established and emerging economic powers from the EU and US to Japan, Brazil and Russia.
This book explores the nature of resource and market competition in Africa and the strategies adopted by the different actors involved - be they world powers or small companies. Focusing on key commodities, the book examines the dynamics of the new scramble and the impact of current investment and competition on people, the environment, and political and economic development on the continent. New theories, particularly the idea of Chinese "flexigemony" are developed to explain how resources and markets are accessed.
While resource access is often the primary motive for increased engagement, the continent also offers a growing market for low-priced goods from Asia and Asian-owned companies. Individual chapters explore old and new economic power interests in Africa; oil, minerals, timber, biofuels, food and fisheries; and the nature and impacts of Asian investment in manufacturing and other sectors.
The New Scramble for Africa will be essential reading for students of African studies, international relations, and resource politics as well as anyone interested in current affairs.
ISBN:9780745647845
Author:Padraig Risteard Carmody
Africa and the War on Drugs by Neil C...
Brief Summary
Nigerian drug lords in UK prisons, khat-chewing Somali pirates hijacking Western ships, crystal meth-smoking gangs controlling South Africa's streets, and narco-traffickers corrupting the state in Guinea-Bissau: these are some of the vivid images surrounding drugs in Africa which have alarmed policymakers, academics and the general public in recent years.
In this revealing and original book, the authors weave these aspects into a provocative argument about Africa's role in the global trade and control of drugs.
In doing so, they show how foreign-inspired policies have failed to help African drug users but have strengthened the role of corrupt and brutal law enforcement officers, who are tasked with halting the export of heroin and cocaine to European and American consumer markets. A vital book on an overlooked front of the so-called war on drugs.
ISBN:9781848139695
Author:Neil Carrier and Gernot Klantschnig
Hope for Africa Voices from Around th...
Brief Summary
One Question, Countless Answers
Twenty organizations involved in the myriad of causes related to Africa were asked a seemingly simple question: "Why save Africa?" The result was an unprecedented book composed of a collection of compelling perspectives from around the world.
Hope for Africa is made up of short essays from large, internationally recognized non-profits; small grassroots charities; and everything in between. These groups have responded to the question with extraordinary vigor and compassion that will inform and inspire you. Additionally, Hope for Africa features true stories and testimonials from individuals who explain, in their own voices, why they have been drawn to helping this land.
This eye-opening book also gives back--a portion of the proceeds from Hope for Africa will be donated to the contributing charities.
ISBN:9781578263080
Author:June Eding
Capital Flight from Africa Causes Eff...
Brief Summary
This edited collection provides the most comprehensive thematic analysis of capital flight from Africa, covering economic and institutional aspects, as well as domestic and global dimensions. It is organized in three parts.
The first part discusses the importance of capital flight in the context of the development policy discourse at national and international level. This part takes stock of the existing evidence on the nature, causes, and consequences of capital flight. It provides the most recent data on the magnitude of capital flight from 39 African countries, and a detailed analysis of the impact of capital flight on economic development in general and on poverty reduction in particular.
The second part examines economic factors and impacts of capital flight. It presents analysis of capital flight in a flow of funds context, the impact of capital flight on macroeconomic outcomes with a focus on growth, and the linkages between capital flight and monetary policy, financial liberalization, and the global financial system.
The third part explores the domestic and international institutional environment and its relevance for capital flight and stolen asset recovery. It discusses the role of governance, tax evasion, and secrecy jurisdictions in driving capital flight. The last part of the book offers suggestions for strategies to address the problem of capital flight from African countries.
ISBN:9780198718550
Author:S Ibi Ajayi and Leonce Ndikumana
Kenya Policies for Prosperity by Chri...
Brief Summary
This is the first volume in a new series Africa: Policies for Prosperity. For the first time in more than a generation, sustained economic growth has been achieved across the continent - despite the downturn in global economic fortunes since 2008 - and in many countries these gains have been realized through policy reforms driven by the decisive leadership of a new generation of economic policymakers.
The process of reform is continuous, however, and the challenge currently facing this new generation is how to harness these favourable gains in macroeconomic stability and turn them into a coherent strategy for sustainable growth and poverty reduction over the coming decades. These challenges are substantial and encompass the broad remit of economic policy. Each volume in this series brings leading scholars into the policy arena to examine these challenges and to lay out, in a rigorous but accessible manner, key challenges and policy options facing policymakers on the continent.
Kenya has experienced a period of high and sustained growth since the mid 1990s, growth that has involved economic transformation away from a heavy reliance on traditional economic activities towards an emerging manufacturing economy. But this process, and the economic and social stability that had come to characterize Kenya, have been severely tested by the post-election violence of 2008.
Restoring equitable growth and sustaining the structural transformation of the economy is essential if Kenya is to leave this period behind. The chapters in this volume address the key issues that will face economic policy makers in the coming years. They cover the conventional but central questions of finance and macroeconomic management, but also much deeper structural issues of trade, employment generation and education; of land policy, migration and urbanization; and the fiscal challenges facing an ageing but increasingly urbanized, and increasingly affluent, society.
ISBN:9780199602377
Author:Christopher Adam Paul Collier and Njuguna Ndungu
Rebuilding Somaliland Issues and Poss...
Brief Summary
Somaliland is "Africa is best kept secret," according to South African academic Iqbal Jhazbay. Somaliland has earned this description owing to its extraordinary achievements in the 12 years since its declaration of independence. Despite being unrecognized and almost entirely ostracized by the international community, Somaliland has, following a brutal war with Somalia is now defunct dictatorship, rebuilt much of its severely damaged infrastructure, repatriated half a million refugees and removed thousands of mines from the ground. In addition, Somaliland has maintained a comparatively decent human rights record and has made significant progress towards the establishment of a constitutional democracy.
Rebuilding Somaliland: Issues and Possibilities is the fruit of an extensive research project initiated in 1998 by the former War-torn Societies Project (WSP), now WSP International, in partnership with a local institution, the Academy for Peace and Development. It aims to present a "self-portrait of Somaliland" and the challenges facing it at the turn of the century. This book also documents the animated, often controversial debates on the future direction that needs to be taken in such areas as:
• Decentralization of government institutions
• Media and political reconstruction
• Regulating the livestock economy
• Impact of the war on the family
Functioning as more than records of research and debate, more than essays on post-war rebuilding, these contributions provide a unique insight into the future that the people of Somaliland want for themselves and for their children. As such, the essays are in many ways a blueprint for Somaliland as it seeks to regenerate itself into a peaceful, mature society that will earn the respect and recognition of the international community.
ISBN:9781569022290
Author:War torn Societies Project
Putting the Cart Before the Horse by ...
Brief Summary
Putting the Cart Before the Horse: Contested Nationalism and the Crisis of the Nation-State in Somalia
Challenging the assumption that a common culture can form the basis for national solidarity, this volume considers the interpretive conflict between lineage-based and territorial paradigms of national identity in Somalia.
Sample topics include the links between nationalism and local economic circumstances; nationalist resistance movements in southern Somalia; and changing gender roles among Somalis in exile. A diverse group of contributors includes academics representing a range of disciplines as well as a journalist and a civil engineer.
ISBN:9781569022030
Author:Abdi Kusow
The Dragonfly Sea by Yvonne Adhiambo ...
Brief Summary
From the award-winning author of Dust comes a vibrant, stunning coming-of-age novel about a young woman struggling to find her place in a vast world--a poignant exploration of fate, mortality, love, and loss.
On the island of Pate, off the coast of Kenya, lives solitary, stubborn Ayaana and her mother, Munira. When a sailor named Muhidin, also an outsider, enters their lives, Ayaana finds something she has never had before: a father. But as Ayaana grows into adulthood, forces of nature and history begin to reshape her life and the island itself--from a taciturn visitor with a murky past to a sanctuary-seeking religious extremist, from dragonflies to a tsunami, from black-clad kidnappers to cultural emissaries from China.
Ayaana ends up embarking on a dramatic ship's journey to the Far East, where she will discover friends and enemies; be seduced by the charming but unreliable scion of a powerful Turkish business family; reclaim her devotion to the sea; and come to find her own tenuous place amid a landscape of beauty and violence and surprising joy.
Told with a glorious lyricism and an unerring sense of compassion, The Dragonfly Sea is a transcendent story of adventure, fraught choices, and of the inexorable need for shelter in a dangerous world.
Christianity Development and Modernit...
Brief Summary
Is African Christianity a religious marketplace now dominated by only two big players, the Catholic Church and Pentecostals? There is an important if largely unremarked diversity within African Christianity; on the one hand, an enchanted Christianity that views the world as pervaded by spiritual forces, and on the other a disenchanted Christianity that discounts them.
An enchanted Christian sees his glorious destiny threatened by witches, spirits, and ancestral curses. Churches catering for this worldview lay bare the workings of this spirit world, and this enchanted imagination, along with the prosperity gospel, and emphasis on the pastor's 'anointing', are the principal characteristics of much African Pentecostalism. Gifford argues that the enchanted religious imagination militates against development by encouraging fear and distrust, diminishing human responsibility and agency, and downplaying functional rationality.
The prosperity gospel of 'covenant wealth from tithes and offerings' is the antithesis of Weber's Protestant ethic; and to magnify the person of the pastor is to perpetuate the curse of the 'Big Man'.Official Catholicism, totally disenchanted and long associated with schools and hospitals, is now involved in development, from microfinance to election monitoring, from conflict resolution to human rights. This 'NGO-ization of Catholicism', made almost inevitable by funding from secular donors like the EU and UN, even if defended theologically, comes at the price of failing to address the 'religious' needs of so many African Christians.
ISBN:9781849044776
Author:Paul Gifford
Africa Rising BRICS Diversifying Depe...
Brief Summary
Africa is said to be rising, turning a definitive page in its history, heralding new and exciting possibilities for the continent. This discourse maintains that with upsurge in economic growth comes improved governance and endogenous dynamics; that the emerging economies, and especially the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India China, South Africa), have been instrumental in diversifying Africa's international relations, perhaps leading to a radical change in the global order, favourable to the developing world.
But to what extent is this true, and how deep and how broad has been the impact on society at large? This book takes a critical look at the prevalent Africa Rising discourse, and explores the nature and implications of Africa's "rise" and the role that the BRICS have played in it. The author argues that Africa has still to undergo any structural transformation; that there is strong evidence that deindustrialisation and jobless growth have accompanied the upsurge of interest in the continent; and that far from making a radical turn in its developmental trajectory, Africa is being pushed into the resource corner as commodity exporters, to the North (and now, the BRICS) with little scope for industrial progress or skills advancement.
Hope that the BRICS might offer an alternative to the extant neoliberal order are misplaced, for the BRICS have a stake in maintaining the current global unequality. Africa must therefore fashion its own independent path - while the emerging economies will be important, relying on external actors may simply reproduce anew the current state of underdevelopment. Ian Taylor is Professor in International Relations and African Politics, University of St Andrews; Chair Professor, Renmin, University of China; Professor Extraordinary, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa; Honorary Professor, Institute of African Studies, Zhejiang Normal University, China; and a Visiting Scholar at Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Uganda.
ISBN:9781847010964
Author:Ian Taylor
The Roots of African Conflicts The Ca...
Brief Summary
Violent conflicts have exacted a heavy toll on Africa’s societies, polities, and economies. This book presents African scholars’ views of why conflicts start in their continent.
The causes of conflict are too often examined by scholars from the countries that run the proxy wars and sell the arms to fuel them.
This volume offers theoretically sophisticated, empirically grounded, and compelling analyses of the roots of African conflicts.
ISBN:9781868884926
Author:Alfred G Nhema and Tiyambe Zeleza
Turning Points in African Democracy b...
Radical changes have taken place in Africa since 1990. What are the realities of these changes? What significant differences have emerged between African countries? What is the future for democracy in the continent? The editors have chosen eleven key countries to provide enlightening comparisons and contrasts to stimulate discussion among students.
They have brought together a team of scholars who are actively working in the changing Africa of today. Each chapter is structured around a framing event which defines the experience of democratisation. The editors have provided an overview of the turning points in African politics. They engage with debates on how to study and evaluate democracy in Africa, such as the limits of elections.
They identify four major themes with which to examine similarities and divergences as well as to explain change and continuity in what happened in the past. Abdul Raufu Mustapha is University Lecturer in African Politics at Queen Elizabeth House and Kirk-Greene Fellow at St Antony's College, University of Oxford; Lindsay Whitfield is a Research Fellow at the Danish Institute of International Studies, Copenhagen.
You Must Set Forth at Dawn A Memoir b...
Brief Summary
The first African to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, as well as a political activist of prodigious energies, Wole Soyinka now follows his modern classic Ake: The Years of Childhood with an equally important chronicle of his turbulent life as an adult in (and in exile from) his beloved, beleaguered homeland.
In the tough, humane, and lyrical language that has typified his plays and novels, Soyinka captures the indomitable spirit of Nigeria itself by bringing to life the friends and family who bolstered and inspired him, and by describing the pioneering theater works that defied censure and tradition.
Soyinka not only recounts his exile and the terrible reign of General Sani Abacha, but shares vivid memories and playful anecdotes–including his improbable friendship with a prominent Nigerian businessman and the time he smuggled a frozen wildcat into America so that his students could experience a proper Nigerian barbecue.
More than a major figure in the world of literature, Wole Soyinka is a courageous voice for human rights, democracy, and freedom. You Must Set Forth at Dawn is an intimate chronicle of his thrilling public life, a meditation on justice and tyranny, and a mesmerizing testament to a ravaged yet hopeful land.
ISBN:9780375755149
Author:Wole Soyinka
Shakespeare in Swahililand In Search ...
Brief Summary
An exploration of Shakespeare as a global poet
Shakespeare in Swahililand tells the unexpected literary history of Shakespeare's influence in East Africa. Beginning with Victorian-era expeditions in which Shakespeare's works were the sole reading material carried into the interior, the Bard has been a vital touchstone throughout the region.
His plays were printed by liberated slaves as one of the first texts in Swahili, performed by Indian laborers while they built the Uganda railroad, used to argue for native rights, and translated by intellectuals, revolutionaries, and independence leaders.
Weaving together stories of explorers staggering through Africa's interior, eccentrics living out their dreams on the savanna, decadent émigrés, Cold War intrigues, and even Che Guevara, Edward Wilson-Lee--a Cambridge lecturer raised in Kenya--tallies Shakespeare's influence in Zanzibar, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Sudan. Traveling through these countries, he speaks with everyone from theater directors and academics to soldiers and aid workers, discovering not only cultural dimensions traceable to Shakespeare's plays but also an overwhelming insistence that these works provide a key insight into the region.
An astonishing work of empathy and historical vision, Shakespeare in Swahililand gets at the heart of what makes Shakespeare so universal and the role that his writings have played in thinking about what it means to be human.
ISBN:9780374262075
Author:Edward Wilson Lee
A History of Modern Uganda by Richard...
Brief Summary
This book is the first major study in several decades to consider Uganda as a nation, from its precolonial roots to the present day. Here, Richard J. Reid examines the political, economic, and social history of Uganda, providing a unique and wide-ranging examination of its turbulent and dynamic past for all those studying Uganda's place in African history and African politics.
Reid identifies and examines key points of rupture and transition in Uganda's history, emphasising dramatic political and social change in the precolonial era, especially during the nineteenth century, and he also examines the continuing repercussions of these developments in the colonial and postcolonial periods.
By considering the ways in which historical culture and consciousness has been ever present - in political discourse, art and literature, and social relationships - Reid defines the true extent of Uganda's viable national history.
ISBN:9781108215695
Author:Richard J Reid
From Our Mothers Hearths Bukusu Folkt...
This collection of Bukusu folktales and proverbs provides a cultural heritage. The prologue includes a brief history and gender politics within the community. Earlier historical accounts draw heavily on oral narratives and legends. "Bukusu" is both a eulogist and descriptive term.
The label of the Bukusu as the lirango liejofu [thigh of the elephant] establishes the cultural link between Basilikwa, Banabayi, Bamalaba, Baneala and Bakikaki sub-ethnic groups in Kenya. It also demonstrates the evolution of a plurality of cultural elements to a more homogenous heritage.
Overall, Bukusu folktales portray male protagonists as rational, courageous, visionary, protective, and possessing inordinate power, even over death. Tales centered on women regardless of merit typically omit (adult) male presence. When females excel it is in persona viri, failing to undermine the patriarchal structure. The discussion also recognizes the complicity of women as primary storytellers and socializing agents in reinforcing sexism.
As the "language of the culturally wise," proverbs function as cautionary injunctions with children and diplomatic chastisement or demonstration of eloquence among adults. The command of cultural mores and lores as well as articulation is an indispensable skill at public forums that feature tact and language sophistication. That proverbs reflect daily experience, speculation and regular common sense augments the legitimacy. They are concise, simple, and easy to recall, utilizing familiar terms and phrases--about dances, rain, drinking, grazing, cooking pots, birds, beauty, parents, bulls, and kinship among others.
Destruction of Black Civilization Gre...
Brief Summary
The Destruction of Black Civilization took Chancellor Williams sixteen years of research and field study to compile. The book, which was to serve as a reinterpretation of the history of the African race, was intended to be ""a general rebellion against the subtle message from even the most 'liberal' white authors (and their Negro disciples): 'You belong to a race of nobodies. You have no worthwhile history to point to with pride.
The book was written at a time when many black students, educators, and scholars were starting to piece together the connection between the way their history was taught and the way they were perceived by others and by themselves. They began to question assumptions made about their history and took it upon themselves to create a new body of historical research. The book is premised on the question: If the Blacks were among the very first builders of civilization and their land the birthplace of civilization, what has happened to them that has left them since then, at the bottom of world society, precisely what happened?
The Caucasian answer is simple and well-known: The Blacks have always been at the bottom."" Williams instead contends that many elements—nature, imperialism, and stolen legacies— have aided in the destruction of the black civilization. The Destruction of Black Civilization is revelatory and revolutionary because it offers a new approach to the research, teaching, and study of African history by shifting the main focus from the history of Arabs and Europeans in Africa to the Africans themselves, offering instead ""a history of blacks that is a history of blacks. Because only from history can we learn what our strengths were and, especially, in what particular aspect we are weak and vulnerable. Our history can then become at once the foundation and guiding light for united efforts in seriously planning what we should be about now."" It was part of the evolution of the black revolution that took place in the 1970s, as the focus shifted from politics to matters of the mind.
Known and Strange Things Essays by Te...
Brief Summary
With this collection of more than fifty pieces on politics, photography, travel, history, and literature, Teju Cole solidifies his place as one of today’s most powerful and original voices. On page after page, deploying prose dense with beauty and ideas, he finds fresh and potent ways to interpret art, people, and historical moments, taking in subjects from Virginia Woolf, Shakespeare, and W. G. Sebald to Instagram, Barack Obama, and Boko Haram.
Cole brings us new considerations of James Baldwin in the age of Black Lives Matter; the African American photographer Roy DeCarava, who, forced to shoot with film calibrated exclusively for white skin tones, found his way to a startling and true depiction of black subjects; and (in an essay that inspired both praise and pushback when it first appeared) the White Savior Industrial Complex, the system by which African nations are sentimentally aided by an America "developed on pillage.”
Persuasive and provocative, erudite yet accessible, Known and Strange Things is an opportunity to live within Teju Cole’s wide-ranging enthusiasms, curiosities, and passions, and a chance to see the world in surprising and affecting new frames.
ISBN:9780812989786
Author:Teju Cole
