"Slavery in the Great Lakes Region of East Africa" looks at the perceptions of one of the main themes of African history: slavery. There was no single form of slavery, and the line between enslaved and nonslave labor was fine. This book challenges the assertion that domestic slavery increased in Africa as the result of the international trade.Slavery in this region was not a uniform phenomenon and the line between enslaved and non-slave labor was fine. Kinship ties could mark the difference between free and unfree labor. Social categories were not always clear-cut and the status of a slave...

In the context of increasing privatization and land reform these case studies reveal how reforms impact on women's rights to land and how these rights are contested or upheld.

Can the revolutionary government of Yoweri Museveni s National Resistance Movement put Uganda back on the road from decay to development?
These informed assessments put the present situation in context. The contributors assembled as Museveni s guerrillas were launching their final bid for power. They have finalized their contributions in the light of the Museveni government s initial period of power.
Contributions by Ugandan academics and politicians interlock with those by scholars from across the world who have a concern for Uganda. Historians examine the period of colonialism....

In August 1986, Alice Auma, a young Acholi woman in northern Uganda, proclaiming herself under the orders of a Christian spirit named Lakwena, raised an army called the "Holy Spirit Mobile Forces." With it she waged a war against perceived evil, not only an external enemy represented by the National Resistance Army of the government, but internal enemies in the form of "impure" soldiers, witches, and sorcerers. She came very close to her goal of overthrowing the government but was defeated and fled to Kenya. This book provides a unique view of Alice's movement, based on interviews with its...

Focuses on the Aksumite state of the first millennium AD in northern Ethiopia and southern Eritrea, its development, florescence and eventual transformation into the so-called medieval civilisation of Christian Ethiopia. This book seeks to apply a common methodology, utilising archaeology, art-history, written documents and oral tradition from a wide variety of sources; the result is a far greater emphasis on continuity than previous studies have revealed. It is thus a major re-interpretation of a key development in Ethiopia's past, while raising and discussing methodological issues of the...

Christianity has been spread in Africa by Africans. It is the story of peoples seizing control of their own spiritual destinies rather than the commonplace notion that the continent's Christian churches represent colonial and capitalist powers that helped subdue Africans to European domination. In short, once introduced, Christianity took on a powerful life of its own and spun out of the control of those who would retain ownership of doctrine and practice.
"East African Expressions of Christianity" examines the experiences of African Christians as they explored the new faith, interpreted...