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Custodians of the Land: Ecology and C...
Farming and pastoral societies inhabit ever-changing environments. This relationship between environment and rural culture, politics and economy in Tanzania is the subject of this volume which will be valuable in reopening debates on Tanzanian history.
In his conclusion, Isaria N. Kimambo, a founding father of Tanzanian history, reflects on the efforts of successive historians to strike a balance between external causes of change and local initiative in their interpretations of Tanzanian history.
He shows that nationalist and Marxist historians of Tanzanian history, understandably preoccupied through the first quarter-century of the country's post-colonial history with the impact of imperialism and capitalism on East Africa, tended to overlook the initiatives taken by rural societies to transform themselves.
Yet there is good reason for historians to think about the causes of change and innovation in the rural communities of Tanzania, because farming and pastoral people have constantly changed as they adjusted to shifting environmental conditions.
Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca E...
Spanning three continents, Butter Honey Pig Bread tells the interconnected stories of three Nigerian women: Kambirinachi and her twin daughters, Kehinde and Taiye. Kambirinachi believes that she is an Ogbanje, or an Abiku, a non-human spirit that plagues a family with misfortune by being born and then dying in childhood to cause a human mother misery. She has made the unnatural choice of staying alive to love her human family but lives in fear of the consequences of her decision.
Kambirinachi and her two daughters become estranged from one another because of a trauma that Kehinde experiences in childhood, which leads her to move away and cut off all contact. She ultimately finds her path as an artist and seeks to raise a family of her own, despite her fear that she won't be a good mother. Meanwhile, Taiye is plagued by guilt for what her sister suffered and also runs away, attempting to fill the void of that lost relationship with casual flings with women. She eventually discovers a way out of her stifling loneliness through a passion for food and cooking.
But now, after more than a decade of living apart, Taiye and Kehinde have returned home to Lagos. It is here that the three women must face each other and address the wounds of the past if they are to reconcile and move forward.
For readers of African diasporic authors such as Teju Cole and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Butter Honey Pig Bread is a story of choices and their consequences, of motherhood, of the malleable line between the spirit and the mind, of finding new homes and mending old ones, of voracious appetites, of queer love, of friendship, faith, and above all, family.
Making the World Safe for Dictatorshi...
Authoritarian states try to present a positive image of themselves abroad. They invest in foreign-facing media, retain public relations firms, and showcase their successes to elite and popular foreign audiences. But there is also a darker side to these efforts. Authoritarian states try to obscure or censor bad news about their governments and often discredit their critics abroad.
In extreme cases, authoritarian states intimidate, physically attack, or even murder their opponents overseas. This book is about how authoritarian states manage their image abroad using both “promotional” tactics of persuasion and “obstructive” tactics of repression. They adopt these practices to enhance their internal and external regime security or, put differently, to make their world safe for dictatorship.
To substantiate these arguments, the book uses a diverse array of data, including fieldwork and author interviews, cross-national data on extraterritorial repression, examination of public relations filings with the United States government, analysis of authoritarian propaganda, media frequency analysis, and speeches and statements by authoritarian leaders.
It builds a new data set—the Authoritarian Actions Abroad Database—that uses publicly available information to categorize nearly 1,200 instances in which authoritarian states repressed their critical exiles abroad, ranging from vague threats to confirmed assassinations.
It also selects three cases for closer examination to understand in more detail how authoritarian states manage their image abroad using combinations of promotional and obstructive tactics: China, Rwanda, and North Korea. The result is a new way of thinking about the international dimensions of authoritarian politics.
The Orchard of Lost Souls by Nadifa M...
The eagerly awaited new novel from the author of the acclaimed Orange-longlisted Black Mamba Boy.
It is 1988 and Hargeisa waits. Whispers of revolution travel on the dry winds but still the dictatorship remains secure. Soon, and through the eyes of three women, we will see Somalia fall.
Nine-year-old Deqo has left the vast refugee camp she was born in, lured to the city by the promise of her first pair of shoes.
Kawsar, a solitary widow, is trapped in her little house with its garden clawed from the desert, confined to her bed after a savage beating in the local police station.
Filsan, a young female soldier, has moved from Mogadishu to suppress the rebellion growing in the north.
And as the country is unravelled by a civil war that will shock the world, the fates of the three women are twisted irrevocably together.
Intimate, frank, brimming with beauty and fierce love, The Orchard of Lost Souls is an unforgettable account of ordinary lives lived in extraordinary times.
Frying Plantain by Zalika Reid-Benta
Kara Davis is a girl caught in the middle — of her Canadian nationality and her desire to be a “true” Jamaican, of her mother and grandmother’s rages and life lessons, of having to avoid being thought of as too “faas” or too “quiet” or too “bold” or too “soft.” Set in “Little Jamaica,” Toronto’s Eglinton West neighbourhood, Kara moves from girlhood to the threshold of adulthood, from elementary school to high school graduation, in these twelve interconnected stories.
We see her on a visit to Jamaica, startled by the sight of a severed pig’s head in her great aunt’s freezer; in junior high, the victim of a devastating prank by her closest friends; and as a teenager in and out of her grandmother’s house, trying to cope with the ongoing battles between her unyielding grandparents.
A rich and unforgettable portrait of growing up between worlds, Frying Plantain shows how, in one charged moment, friendship and love can turn to enmity and hate, well-meaning protection can become control, and teasing play can turn to something much darker. In her brilliantly incisive debut, Zalika Reid-Benta artfully depicts the tensions between mothers and daughters, second-generation Canadians and first-generation cultural expectations, and Black identity and predominately white society.
Minutes of Glory: And Other Stories b...
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong ’o, although renowned for his novels, memoirs, and plays, honed his craft as a short story writer. From “The Fig Tree” written in 1960, his first year as an undergraduate at Makere University College in Uganda, to the playful “The Ghost of Michael Jackson,” written while a Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California Irvine, these collected stories reveal a master of the short form.
Covering the period of British colonial rule and resistance in Kenya to the bittersweet experience of independence—and including two stories that have never before been published in the United States—Ngũgĩ’s characters include women fighting for their space in a patriarchal society, big men in their Bentleys and Mercedes who have inherited power from the British; and rebels who still embody the fighting spirit of the downtrodden. One of Ngũgĩ’s most beloved stories, “Minutes of Glory,” tells of Beatrice, a sad, but ambitious waitress who fantasizes about being feted and lauded over by the middle class clientele in the city’s beer halls. Her dream leads her on a witty and heartbreaking adventure.
Published for the first time in America, Minutes of Glory and Other Stories celebrates the storytelling might of one of Africa’s best-loved writers.
The trouble with Nigeria by Chinua Ac...
The eminent African novelist and critic, here addresses Nigeria's problems, aiming to challenge the resignation of Nigerians and inspire them to reject old habits which inhibit Nigeria from becoming a modern and attractive country.
In this famous book now reprinted, he professes that the only trouble with Nigeria is the failure of leadership, because with good leaders Nigeria could resolve its inherent problems such as tribalism; lack of patriotism; social injustice and the cult of mediocrity; indiscipline; and corruption.
An American in Africa: 50 Years explo...
Decolonization and Afro Feminism by S...
Brief Summary
Why do so many Africans believe they cannot break the “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back” cycle? Six decades after colonial flags were lowered and African countries gained formal independence, the continent struggles to free itself from the deep legacies of colonialism, imperialism and patriarchy. Many intellectuals, politicians, feminists and other activists, eager to contribute to Africa’s liberation, have frustratingly felt like they took the wrong path.
Analyzed through the eyes of Afro-Feminism, this book revisits some of the fundamental preconditions needed for radical transformation. It challenges the traditional human rights paradigm and its concomitant idea of “gender equality,” flagging instead, the African philosophy of Ubuntu as a serious alternative for reinvigorating African notions of social justice. If you are a student of Africa or in a space where you wish to recalibrate your compass and reboot your consciousness in the struggle for Africa’s liberation, this book is for you.
How Boards Work: And How They Can Wor...
Corporate boards are under great pressure. Scandals and malpractice at companies like Theranos, WeWork, Uber, and Wells Fargo have raised justified questions among regulators, shareholders, and the public about the quality of corporate governance.
In How Boards Work, prizewinning economist and veteran board director Dambisa Moyo offers an insider's view of corporate boards as they are buffeted by the turbulence of our times.
Moyo argues that corporations need boards that are more transparent, more knowledgeable, more diverse, and more deeply involved in setting the strategic course of the companies they lead. How Boards Work offers a road map for how boards can steer companies through tomorrow's challenges and ensure they thrive to benefit their employees, shareholders, and society at large.
Secrets by Aimee Katei
Brief Summary
SECRETS is a fiction novel written by a young Kenyan fiction writer, Aimee Katei. It tells a story of small town with dark Secrets.
What is the mystery behind lost families? Everything is on move and so is everyone. Sophie walks home one evening to find her family missing. she is on a mission to trace them. obsessed by the fear of compromise by police, she decides to do it in her own way. Being a tactful combatant, she singlehandedly plans her moves leaving no loopholes or tracks. Everything has its wonders, and even darkness and silence. Watch with glimmering eyes the world around her. will she live to see her expectations come true?
Morning Shall Come by Ouma Don Collins
Brief Summary
Struggle is not new to humanity. It has and always will be part of us, whatever form it takes, but the pain.
Struggle measures our resilience and builds our fortitude. The more we overcome, the better we become. Therefore, hold on, it is only for a while. Give it another push, try it differently maybe. Rest if you must, but do not give up.
‘Morning Shall Come’ is about rising above struggle. It is a spring of hope and reassurance for better days ahead. It picks on the little everyday things that make life beautiful.
It tickles the heart, provokes the mind and uplifts the soul.
Kenyan capitalists, the State, and de...
Brief Summary
Himbara argues that the literature on Kenyan capitalism largely misses the mark because it either omits or misconceptualises as ""Asian capital"" the principal segment of the domestic bourgeoisie. He demonstrates the leading role that Kenya's Indian entrepreneurs have played in her development.
African Civilizations: An Archaeologi...
Brief Summary
This new revised edition of African Civilizations re-examines the physical evidence for developing social complexity in Africa over the last six thousand years. Unlike the two previous editions, it is not confined to tropical Africa but considers the whole continent.
Graham Connah focuses upon the archaeological research of two key aspects of complexity, urbanism and state formation, in ten main areas of Africa: Egypt, North Africa, Nubia, Ethiopia, the West African savanna, the West African forest, the East African coast and islands, the Zimbabwe Plateau, parts of Central Africa and South Africa. The book's main concern is to review the available evidence in its varied environmental settings, and to consider possible explanations of the developments that gave rise to it.
Extensively illustrated, including new maps and plans, and offering an extended list of references, this is essential reading for students of archaeology, anthropology, African history, black studies and social geography.
A History of Modern Africa: 1800 to t...
Brief Summary
A History of Modern Africa recounts the full breadth of Africa's political, economic, and social history over the past two centuries.
- Adopts a long-term approach to current issues, stressing the importance of nineteenth-century and deeper indigenous dynamics in explaining Africa's later twentieth-century challenges
- Places a greater focus on African agency, especially during the colonial encounter
- Includes more in-depth coverage of non-Anglophone Africa
- Offers expanded coverage of the post-colonial era to take account of recent developments, including the conflict in Darfur and the political unrest of 2011 in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya
Ebalu Superstar by Roy Gachuhi
Timo Ebalu is a football prodigy. At only 17, he gets a call-up to the Kenya national football team, the Elephants of the Mara. He instantly becomes for the country what he has been for his high school team – a one-man goal scoring machine.
But Ebalu has a monumental battle on his hands – that with his parents. They frown on football, or any sport, as a career and won’t settle for anything but academic excellence.
Unfortunately, Ebalu, unlike his whiz siblings, is poor in academics. His life at home becomes unbearable just as his football career soars to the stratosphere. The collision between two seemingly irreconcilable positions is epic.
Bajju Christian Conversion in the Mid...
Brief Summary
Why have large numbers of the Bajju people of the Middle Belt of Nigeria become Christians? The first conversions occurred in 1929 and today almost one hundred percent of the Bajju claim to be Christians, so this people movement happened within a relatively short period.
McKinney details the various contexts in which religious change took place among the Bajju: in traditional Bajju culture, in their relations with the Hausa-Fulani, in the British colonial context, and in the missionary context. She presents the results of an in-depth interview schedule administered in 1984 and 2011 to respondents in both a rural village and a Kaduna suburb. This longitudinal study, together with the author's involvement in participant observation, personal language learning, and archival records research, help provide answers to the questions of why, and to what degree, a worldview paradigm shift has occurred among the Bajju. The author also discusses some traditional religious beliefs retained by Bajju Christians, and charts traditional religious beliefs with biblical texts.
Bajju Christian Conversion in the Middle Belt of Nigeria will be essential to anthropologists specializing in conversion studies, and be of interest to missiologists, and to the Bajju people themselves. It is a companion volume to Baranzan's People: An Ethnohistory of the Bajju of the Middle Belt of Nigeria, published by SIL International(R) 2019.
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Co...
Brief Summary
In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., isolated himself from the demands of the civil rights movement, rented a house in Jamaica with no telephone, and labored over his final manuscript. In this prophetic work, which has been unavailable for more than ten years, he lays out his thoughts, plans, and dreams for America's future, including the need for better jobs, higher wages, decent housing, and quality education. With a universal message of hope that continues to resonate, King demanded an end to global suffering, asserting that humankind-for the first time-has the resources and technology to eradicate poverty.
Flashes of Vice: Vol I by Vincent de ...
Flashes of Vice: Vol I is a collection of flash fiction stories, the first in a series of flash stories first published on Flashes of Vice, the author’s blog published within a duration of one year.
Flashes of Vice tells life as it is in short, punchy, thrilling stories. The switch is flipped on and off before you know what is happening, leave you wanting more and more – something you will never get.
His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie
Brief Summary
Afi Tekple is a young seamstress whose life is narrowing rapidly. She lives in a small town in Ghana with her widowed mother, spending much of her time in her uncle Pious’s house with his many wives and children. Then one day she is offered a life-changing opportunity—a proposal of marriage from the wealthy family of Elikem Ganyo, a man she doesn’t truly know.
She acquiesces, but soon realizes that Elikem is not quite the catch he seemed. He sends a stand-in to his own wedding, and only weeks after Afi is married and installed in a plush apartment in the capital city of Accra does she meet her new husband. It turns out that he is in love with another woman, whom his family disapproves of; Afi is supposed to win him back on their behalf. But it is Accra that eventually wins Afi’s heart and gives her a life of independence that she never could have imagined for herself.
A brilliant scholar and a fierce advocate for women’s rights, author Peace Adzo Medie infuses her debut novel with intelligence and humor. For readers of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Candice Carty-Williams, His Only Wife is the story of an indomitable and relatable heroine that illuminates what it means to be a woman in a rapidly changing world.