Kategoria BISAC: History >> Africa - General

"An excellent contriubtion to the comparative analysis... " Foreign Affairs

"This work is an important study... The individual chapters are based on extensive reearch and field work, often in difficult and dangerous conditions. They provide facts and insights not to be found elsewhere, and the work will long remain an indispensable text." International Journal of African Historical Studies

..". an outstanding study on the major insurgencies that have gripped the belt of Sub-Saharan Africa." Defense Affairs

Insurgencies or guerrilla movements have come to occupy a...

..".engaging, richly illustrated, and well-reserached.... Part anthology, cultural studies, history, journalism and political science, it... manages to consistently engage the reader..." - African Studies Review

"Lindfors's book shows how the 'edutainment' of the 19th century perpetuated an ignorance of Africa that makes it easy for whites to stay racist and difficult for blacks to gain an accurate and dignified understanding of their heritage.... an unusually strong, readable collection." Boston Book Review

Ethnological show business that is, the displaying of foreign peoples...

"These four volumes in this major series... provide a single-source reference to the status of the field of women's history and to ways that the field can be expanded.... A basic set for all academic libraries." Library Journal Academic Newswire

Tracing the evolution of the role of women beginning with ancient Middle Eastern societies through the 17th century, Nashat and Tucker examine the interplay between local practices and early Islamic beliefs and institutions, as well as economic activity, access to political power, and contributions to cultural life.

The growth of fraud and smuggling on a major scale, the plundering of natural resources, the privatisation of state institutions, the development of an economy of plunder, the growth of private armies all of these features of public life in Africa suggest that the state itself is becoming a vehicle for organised criminal activity. The three authors propose criteria for gauging the criminalisation of African states and present a novel prognosis.
Have we moved on from "classical" corruption? There is a difference between the corruption of previous decades and the criminalisation of some...

"These four volumes in this major series... provide a single-source reference to the status of the field of women's history and to ways that the field can be expanded.... A basic set for all academic libraries." Library Journal Academic Newswire

Berger and White focus on Sub-Saharan Africa, tracing women's history from earliest times to the present. By exploring their place in social, economic, political, and religious life, the authors highlight the changing societal position of women through shifts over time in ideas about gender and the connections between women's public and...

Activist, scholar, and political journalist Colin Legum assesses Africa's experience since independence and offers judicious predictions about the continent's future. Covering 50 years of sweeping change, this provocative and insightful book examines Africa's struggle for democracy, mounting economic problems, and AIDS.

The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful
Discourse about Values in Yoruba Culture
Barry Hallen

Reveals everyday language as the key to understanding morals and ethics in Yoruba culture.

"This contrasts with any suggestion that in Yoruba or, more generally, African society, moral thinking manifests nothing much more than a supine acquiescence in long established communal values.... Hallen renders a great service to African philosophy." --Kwasi Wiredu

In Yoruba culture, morality and moral values are intimately linked to aesthetics. The purest expression of beauty, at...

"Once Intrepid Warriors advances a brilliantly persuasive critique of development among the Maasai.... This historical ethnography is a tour de force, counter-balancing the analysis of cultural, political, and socio-economic transformation over the longue duree with intimate and memorable portraits of representative individuals." Richard Werbner

"In a series of chapters on the interrelationships of ethnicity, gender, and modernity, Hodgson concludes that it is not the Maasai who have remained static, but rather the external images of them." Choice

..". meticulous and...

Until the advent of African independence, Africans were not considered fitting subjects for historical research and their words, voices, and experiences were largely absent from the continent s history.

In 13 lively and provocative essays focusing on all areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, oral sources are seen as a way to restore African expression to African history. African Words, African Voices evokes the richness and relevance of oral sources for understanding a complex past for readers at all levels.

Contributors include E. J. Alagoa, David William Cohen, Laura Fair, Babacar...

An account of the life of a Ghanaian village during a century of tumultuous change, this study is also a richly textured microhistory and an exploration of the meanings of history and modernity in an African context. The years 1850-1950 witnessed several momentous and transformative developments in Asante history, including British annexation and colonial overrule. In Asante Identities,
T. C. McCaskie provides a nuanced study of this era 'from below, ' focusing on the everyday lives of commoners in Adeebeba, an independent village that was engulfed by the expansion of the city of...

How did African women negotiate the complex political, economic, and social forces of colonialism in their daily lives? How did they make meaningful lives for themselves in a world that challenged fundamental notions of work, sexuality, marriage, motherhood, and family? By considering the lives of ordinary African women farmers, queen mothers, midwives, urban dwellers, migrants, and political leaders in the context of particular colonial conditions at specific places and times, Women in African Colonial Histories challenges the notion of a homogeneous "African women s experience." While...

"Greene gives the reader a vivid sense of the Anlo encounter with western thought and Christian beliefs... and the resulting erasures, transferences, adaptations, and alterations in their perceptions of place, space, and the body."
--Emmanuel Akyeampong

Sandra E. Greene reconstructs a vivid and convincing portrait of the human and physical environment of the 19th-century Anlo-Ewe people of Ghana and brings history and memory into contemporary context. Drawing on her extensive fieldwork, early European accounts, and missionary archives and publications, Greene shows how ideas from...

What characterizes the relationship between literature and the state? Should literature serve the needs of the state by constructing national consciousness, espousing state propaganda, and molding good citizens? Or should it be dedicated to a different kind of creative social endeavor? In this important book about literature and the politics of nation-building, Dominic Thomas assesses the contributions of Francophone African writers whose works have played a key role in the recent transition to democracy in the Congo. Exploring the works of Sony Labou Tansi, Henri Lopes, and Emmanuel...

..". useful, timely, and important... a good and informative book on the Lusophone countries, Portuguese colonialism, and postcolonial influences." Phyllis Martin, Indiana University

"This book, produced by the obvious and distinguished corps of country specialists... fills a real gap in both state-level and 'regional' (broadly defined) studies of contemporary Africa." Norrie MacQueen, University of Dundee

Although the five Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa that gained independence in 1974/75 Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, and Sao Tome e Principe differ...

In Eritrea, state, traditional, and religious laws equally prevail, but any of these legal systems may be put into play depending upon the individual or individuals involved in a legal dispute. Because of conflicting laws, it has been difficult for Eritreans to come to a consensus on what constitutes their legal system. In Blood, Land, and Sex, Lyda Favali and Roy Pateman examine the roles of the state, ethnic groups, religious groups, and the international community in several key areas of Eritrean law-blood feud or murder, land tenure, gender relations (marriage, prostitution, rape), and...

..". a very important contribution to contemporary debates on economic and political reform in developing countries. Based on interviews King conducted himself, this is an honest, unvarnished examination and critique of propositions that are treated like gospel." --Lisa Anderson

In Liberalization against Democracy, Stephen J. King argues that, in contrast to prevailing views, pro-market economic reforms in Tunisia did not foster democratization. Instead, state-led economic liberalization facilitated the reorganization of authoritarian rule and contributed to the subversion of...

"Peel is by training an anthropologist, but one possessed of an acute historical sensibility. Indeed, this magnificent book achieves a degree of analytical verve rare in either discipline." History Today

" T]his is scholarship of the highest quality.... Peel lifts the Yoruba past to a dimension of comparative seriousness that no one else has managed.... The book teems with ideas... about big and compelling matters of very wide interest." T. C. McCaskie

In this magisterial book, J. D. Y. Peel contends that it is through their encounter with Christian missions in the mid-19th...

Ge, formerly translated as "mask" or "masquerade," appears among the Dan people of Cote d'Ivoire as a dancing and musical embodiment of their social ideals and religious beliefs. In Dan Ge Performance, Daniel B. Reed sets out to discover what resides at the core of Ge. He finds that Ge is defined as part of a religious system, a form of entertainment, an industry, a political tool, an instrument of justice, and a form of resistance-and it can take on multiple roles simultaneously. He sees genu (pl.) dancing the latest dance steps, co-opting popular music, and acting in concert with Ivorian...

NEW CATALOG COPY (announcing paperback edition):
In The Generation of Plays, Karin Barber recounts the history of the Odin Adejobi Theater Company and uncovers the pulse points of generation, production, and improvisation that merge when a Yoruba popular drama is brought to the stage. This rich and detailed book opens a window into the social and cultural worlds of actors and audiences.

ORIGINAL CATALOG COPY:
"Karin Barber has given us a vivid picture of one of the most vital forms of modern African popular art. It is beautifully written and informed by a deep affection for...

There is evidence that women who live in societies that uphold male privilege--the majority of the world's women--are at increased risk for HIV infection. In Local Women, Global Science, Karen M. Booth looks closely at the operation of two clinics for sexually transmitted diseases in Nairobi, Kenya, and explores how internationally funded and nationally sanctioned interventions to stop the spread of HIV have focused almost exclusively on the sexual and reproductive behaviors of those who are least able to challenge male power and dominance--working-class and poor women. Moving past the...