Africa Books

This book is gorgeously illustrated with lots of graphics taken from authentic textiles and pottery. The legends are written in an easy to read narrative style and take readers from ancient myths through to modern theories on the history of this region. Highly recommended

I used this book as the text to give 28 6th Graders an introduction to the wealth of Africa's past--and they hung on every word. The mix of storytelling, political, economic, cultural and religious history served as the basis for several lively student presentations. In short, my only complaint about this book is the fact that its out-of-print status prevents me from ordering copies by the dozen for next year's class.

Publishers--Please get on the ball. With the addition of these African Kingdoms to the Virginia State Standards of Learning, you have an eager market and a product that beats anything else now on the market for this age group.

I read this book years ago and it has always stuck in my mind. I am glad to have found it again.

The story is fiction because it revolves around some Americans who supposedly found themselves in von Lettow's army. But the historical setting and many of the characters and events are real.

When WWI broke out, the small number of German troops in German East Africa (now Tanzania) rallied and trained the local tribes and the resident German farmers into a guerilla force to resist the much larger British army to the north in Kenya. The book details some of the tactics used, as well some remarkable inventiveness.

Paul von Lettow, the commander, had an ensemble of talent in his army's baggage train that proved very handy. There was a German fellow named Ersatz who invented a lot of things out of local ingredients. (Because the Royal Navy pretty much owned the seas, there was no resupply for the German soldiers in Africa.) Everyone knows what "ersatz" means now - but this campaign is where the concept got its name!

Like a medieval army, this one had no formal logistical support. It relied on many camp followers, including women and children, to keep the army fed and supplied. Many of these womens' efforts and what life was like for them in the field are described.

One incredible tale told of an Imperial Navy vessel marooned in the Rufiji Delta. Some of the German farmers had domesticated African elephants, and used then to haul guns off the ship up the slopes of Kilmanjaro to shoot at the British army. It sounds highly implausible, but Stevenson gives evidence for many of the points in his story at the end of the book.

This is one of those books where you learn a lot while reading a great story. Stevenson claims that von Lettow knew that the Germans couldn't hold East Africa, and that he felt he was just laying the groundwork for an African country free from future British rule. Whether this is true or historical revisionism I don't know, but the Tanzanian people did build a statue honoring von Lettow in Arusha several years later.

"Ghosts of Africa" is a great title, as it refers to an incredible story that not many people know - at least in the USA. It is the reverse of "the African Queen" - and far more interesting!

This novel really captures a lost part of Africa. It details the German resistance in Africa during WWI. The germans were led by german noble named Paul Von Lettow. For four years they tied down nearly half a million british troops with barely 12,000 of there own. Von Lettow wrote the book on guerilla warfare although he is largely forgotten today. The book contains a great cast of characters in addtion to Von Lettow, many of whom were based on real people. The book has plenty of action and romance. I highly recommend it.

In these essays, J.M. Coetzee analyzes thoroughly and attacks the role and the (mis)use of censorship in arts.

Taking Offense
State censorship is an inherently bad thing. The cure is worse than the disease.
`A censor pronouncing a ban, whether on an obscene spectacle or a derisive imitation, is like a man trying to stop his pen.s from standing.'

Lady Chatterley's Lover
LCL is a tale about the transgression of boundaries - sexual and sexualized social boundaries.
D.H. Lawrence wanted `the end of taboos, the end of dirty language, the end of dirty books.'

The Harm of Pornography (Catharine MacKinnon)
MacKinnon treats pornography as a political issue, not as a moral one. She sees pornography as an instrument of male power, not pleasure. For her, male desire is one of the avenues through which male dominance realizes itself.
She shows a `striking absence of insight into the desire as experienced by man.'
Her analysis is also parochial, based only on specific US situations.

Censorship and Polemic: Solzhenitsyn
The heroic battle of one man against an enormous censor bureaucracy (more than 70,000 men).

Osip Mandelstam and the Stalin Ode
Stalin and his apparatus castrated a generation of writers, robbing it from its political power and its power of historical witness.

Zbigniew Herbert and the censor
In the face of the paranoia of state censorship, Z. Herbert opted for the `silence' solution.
He chose to work with allegories, thereby defending the autonomy of art (the power of art to validate itself) and proving that poetry can give a vision of an ideal world.

South-African censorship
For the censor, the call for the end of censorship in the name of free speech is part of a plot to destroy the existing order. The censor has the right to take what steps are necessary to protect society.
André Brink's device is Ars Longa: In the end, it is always the artist who wins, because one way or another truth will come out.
For Breyten Breytenbach, `censorship is an act of shame. It has to do with manipulation, power, and repression. For the writer to consent to being censored equals self-castration.

Erasmus: Madness and Rivalry
Erasmus disguised himself into a fool in order to be able to criticize the Catholic Church (The Praise of Folly). Coetzee's portrait shows us Erasmus as an independent and impartial individual, but therefore insulted from all sides: `I would rather die than join a faction'.
Coetzee's analysis is based on postmodernist theories. He shows us Lacan as a vitalist, an adept of Bergson's `acte gratuit' (`it is not at all necessary that the poet knows what he is doing; in fact, it is preferable that he doesn't know.') and Foucault as a romantic (`madness as a voice to contest reason').

J.M. Coetzee's book unmasks the real goal of censorship and the methods authors (try to) used to circumvent it. It is the work of a superb free mind.
A must read for all lovers of art, and specifically literature.

I'll resist writing a large review for this book, because the reader should be allowed to make up their own mind. I bought this book after reading many of Coetzee's novels, and 'Stranger Shores'. 'Giving Offense', in my opinion, is a much stronger collection of work than 'Stranger Shores', which is also exceptional, simply because the essays relate to each other far better than those included in 'Stranger Shores'. One can read 'Giving Offense' essay after essay and stay within the same frame of mind. His essays about 'Lady Chatterley's Lover', Osip Mendelstam and Solzhenitsyn are my personal favourites. A very impressive book.

The information contained within this text is thought-stimulating, thereby encouraging the reader to further research the specific area of his or her personal interest regarding the African Diaspora by providing a helpful selected bibliography, footnotes and endontes pertinent to each essay, as well as as an useful overall index.

Another excellent read for us Africans by a African who knows his history and not brain washed by His Storyof the intruder.

Excellent book handy size and all of the must see sights are clearly marked

The Globetrotter Zambia travel book is, in my opinion, the best book for a first time traveler to Zambia. It gives lots of insight on where to go and what to do from A to Z. It's easy to carry and enjoyable to ready. I am very glad I carried with me. Way to go Globetrotters.

This a very powerful and wonderful story. Heather is an Angel sent to care and love the orphans. She stood-up against all odds and survived the worst with her faith in God. God Bless Her and All The People she comes in contact with. Thank You Heather for sharing your story.

God's Golden Acre

I'm a prolific, but exceedingly choosy reader. I'm not one to jump all around every book I read, shaking my tamborine!

This book, however, proved its value with the first few words. It is a very rare book that slows my automatically quick reading down, in order to absorb every word. I thought I would breeze through this interesting book in an afternoon. Not so. Evening came, and I was deeply engrossed. The book was way beyond interesting. Mesmerising would be a better word.

I was on a journey through Heather's life. I was on a quest to find out what she found, in the dim African huts where sometimes children were dying. Sometimes alone. I was hungering to find out how she was going to be able to help - just one person against unimaginable odds.

All through, the story is told on a very upbeat note. Heather tells how she has learned to help a dying child in the best way possible. She tells how she manages to go on, with sick children and AIDS all around her. She tells it is a way that makes me want to leave my comfortable world, hop a plane, and swing in beside her, to help those children. She presents as a very real human being, like many of us. However, she follows God's call to spend her life helping helpless children, unlike most of us.

She has success stories too. Beautiful little faces surround her, full of health. Many color photos illustrate her book. Heather and her one-in-a-million husband love what they are doing. I am certain that God loves what they are doing. Any reader will be stunned, challenged, delighted, and unwilling to leave the book until it is finished.

I love this book! I'm going to buy copies, and send them to my best friends. You should take a long evening, and swim into this book. You will not come out the same.

As a child of the Scotch Irish diaspora, I am finding this book riveting.

The thesis presented here carefully demonstrates the powerful and ongoing impact of the Hebrew Scripture, particularly the covenanting of God's "Chosen People," on peoples who read and take seriously (even literally) the several thousand year old constructs of the ancient Hebrew tribe of Israel.

Most of my pondering about the "why" of customs and belief systems of my own almost entirely Scotch Irish family find articulation in this amazing book. Four hundred years after Calvin and over 200 since the last of my family left Ulster, the power of the covenant lingers still.

I wish Dr. Akenson could consider exploring the town of Due West, South Carolina, and Erskine College, to find the very strong threads of this culture alive and well in the United States.

D.H. Akenson has masterfully taken a complex subject, that being the Old Testament, along with South African, Irish, and Jewish histories, and has put it together in a very compelling thesis. It is well organized in sections dealing with the origins of the particular covenants, a section on the covenant and the state, and a section of the covenant in recent times. The book is very hard to read for the layman, but for the informed he has done a great service. The only weaknesses I find is that he does not do present enough analysises of the differences within the covenanted peoples, especially as certain factions differed on the application of the covenant.

and excellent look at the process of call to ministry. highlights case studies of pastors and their experience of divine direction. a must-read for all those wrestling with their calling.

As a sequel to Myers' first book, "The Irresistable Urge to Preach", Myers delves even deeper into the call experience by creating an environment in which to analyze the differences and commonalities in the call.

His first book, which is a collection of call stories from a wide variety of preachers with different backgrounds, bares some similarities to this book but recounting some of the call stories is about where the similarities end. "God's Yes..." goes one step further to analyze the experience of the call from different perspectives in order to shed some light on the otherwise "mysterious" and neglected subject of the call in the African American church.

Both are great reading to gain clarity on your own personal call experience.

This excellent book deals with the commerce that took place across the Sahara Desert between the Arab/Berber states to the north and the Black states to the south. This is an esoteric subject but Bovill knew his stuff, and the reader finds out all sorts of interesting things that one could never find anywhere else.

As a student of history, I've been exposed to quite a few books about certain regions, social movements, nations etc. This is, hands down, my favorite history (one of my favorite all around) texts ever! I like to read; but I don't love to read and this book was an absolute page-turner!

Also, we are rarely exposed to the knowledge of all the great societies that have flourished in Africa outside of Egypt. Most educated Americans probably cannot name even one of the sophisticated empires described in this book. It's a sad fact and a huge academic disfavor.

Overall, it's a great read for anyone who likes vivid detail, human saga, informative non-fiction and geographic exploration all in one. Phenomenal book!

This book is definitely the best book that I have ever read on the subject of the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902! The author of this book goes to great lengths to give the reader a feeling for the war itself, but goes far beyond just giving an account of the military side of the war. He does an excellent job of putting the war within the context of the British Victoria Era that it closes, and within the context of developments within Europe and around the world. As the war itself evolves, developments at home in England, and around the world are discussed. Plus, each battle is covered separately, being clearly delineated within its own section, with very nice maps included.

I must admit that I was somewhat afraid of this book; it was originally published in 1959, and I was afraid that it might be overly dry. However, to my surprise I found this to be a history book that is both fascinating and highly informative. Also, while some books suffer from a scarcity of maps, that is not the case with this book. Overall I found this to be an excellent book on its subject and an enjoyable read. If you are interested in the Anglo-Boer War, then you must get this book!

Rayne Kruger was born in South Africa and can trace his antecedants to the Kruger family. The book was first published in 1959 and the title is a song sung by British Troops as they left England for Cape Town or Durban to "fight the Boers".

Unlike the Krugers of old, however, Rayne Kruger has a mastery of the English language that few can better.

The combination of his wonderful ability to describe and take the reader away to another time and his considerable efforts at research and analysis has resulted in a book that propels the subject to the reader in compelling, succinct way.

When you finish reading Kruger's work, you want to read more; he awakens a thirst for knowledge and piques one's interest - the hallmark of a successful historical work.

But the triumph of this book goes well beyond the eloquence of the narrative or the presentation of fact. The triumph of this work is that it glides through pivotal facts, personalities and the politics of conflict to ultimately present the reader with an incontovertible fact: that the Boer War is relevant to our condition to-day and its lessons ring like a bell in the night...

Kruger graphically introduces us to the psyche of the end of the Victorian era. It's parralles to the American era are strikingly familiar. The British in South Africa faced their Vietnam. A short war dragged on for three years. Public pressure to end the war grew. From a jingoistic beginning came a clamour to end it all.

Kruger's subtle analysis propels the Boer War forward into this century. The relevance of the Boer War as a precursor to both the politics of imperialism and the devaluation of human life which were such prominent characteristics of life in this century is brought before the reader in quiet slow degrees as one reads on into the book.

It is a book I highly recommend not only for students of the history of that era in Southern Africa, but for all of us who want to try and understand the psychology of the tragic and barbaric century that follo! wed.