Africa Books

This is a book that all African American women should own. It gives a sense of pride to know where we come from. I applaud the author. Thank You.

I like african princess because it tells adventurous true stories.And woman who had great courage and great symblos for woman.In Ethiopia when you are 10 years old you get married and are trained to do elderly things. The Portugues and Ugandans were in a slave trade. The Portuguess wer in the slave trade to recieve slave trade, and Ugandas would get weapons. All of these stories I mentioned were great and they tell you African history.

I discovered African Princess: the Amazing Lives of Africa's Royal Women while searching for history about African Royalty, and it is most excellent. The artwork is gorgeous and the text is simple enough for my 8 year old niece to read it and understand it. Rich history, intriguing stories, and pride in our history make this book great for all generations.

From a female pharaoh in ancient Egypt to an African princess of her people who avoided men, and an empress, African Princess uses words and pictures to recreate the lives of six selected powerful royal women of Africa. Good reading skills in grades 2-4 will lend to an appreciation of early female African leaders.

Six examples of African feminine royalty are showcased in chronological order, from pre-Christian times to the modern era. Each of the women focused was representative of her time, yet she showed a foresight and independence that made her stand out from her contemporaries.

The text by former schoolteacher Joyce Hansen, along with Laurie McGraw's superb illustrations, makes for a captivating and inspiring read for youngsters, female and male. It also should be noted that the book should be shared with all children for there still remains some misconceptions in the general public about Africa, even to this day.

The book does a good job of addressing and correcting those misconceptions in a highly professional and insightful manner.

Although this book is described as being for the 4-8 year-old group, it seemed to me more like a 7-9 year-old book.

I was attracted to the book by realizing that the various animal-related stories that Alexander McCall Smith includes in his No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books were among my favorite parts of those books. It occurred to me that the Akimbo books might have such stories in them.

Well, not quite . . . but the series is full of Akimbo learning about wild animals, the threats to animals from people, and deals with the problems through Akimbo's brave deeds. Children like to see themselves playing important roles in the world, and Akimbo and the Lions is very good for appealing to that desire.

Akimbo's father works as a ranger at a game preserve in Africa where some near-by farmers have been losing cattle to lions. Akimbo's father is asked to do something and goes to trap the lion. The results end up differently than expected and Akimbo learns a lot about the challenges of balancing domestic and wild animals in the same areas. The story is a heart-warming one that both boys and girls will enjoy.

The book is nicely illustrated which adds to the realism of the story.

Purchased these books for my grandsons and was told that they really enjoyed them.

This book was a fun book to read. I liked it a lot. I think it was my favorite book that I've read so far in my life. I am going to buy my own copy.

This book is McCall Smith's second book in the "Akimbo" series and like virtually all his books, it is masterfully done. In this book, Akimbo goes on a trip with his father, the new Head Gamekeeper of the wildlife preserve. They have gone to check out reports that a lion is eating cattle. The loss of cattle is akin to the loss of pure gold in Akimbo's part of Africa. Thus, such a lion must be handled.

Akimbo begs his father to take him on the trip. With some trepidation, his father agrees. The team of Gamekeepers and Akimbo travel to the farm which has reported the problem. No one actually has seen the lion, but they believe by the sounds and the results that it is surely a lion. The Gamekeepers set a trap, using a goat as bait. The trap is supposed to work by capturing the lion when he goes to get the goat.

The trap is set up, and Akimbo and his father get set to wait out the night and see what happens. As luck would have it, the lion does show up on that night. The trap is sprung, and Akimbo's father goes to check the trap. As soon as his father leaves the hiding place, Akimbo notices, he has forgotten his rifle. His father approaches the trap, and is dismayed to find, the lion is not in the trap. The lion is standing outside the trap, and starts to close in on Akimbo's father.

Akimbo has never shot a rifle before, but he has observed his father use it. He picks up the gun. He aims, and his father tells him, "Shoot into the air." Akimbo does so twice. The lion leaves quickly. Then they go to find out why the trap di not work, and find that it is sprung. Inside is a very small baby lion cub. The rest of the book discusses Akimbo's relationship with the lion cub, and the eventual release of the lion into the wild.

Once again, McCall Smith has created a wonder of a book. It is highly recommended as a children's story. It provides a look at a very different society and world than the American world. In addition, it shows the respect of the people for the animals. All parents with young children should find this book a great addition to their children's reading library.

It was one of the most passionate books I ever read. It made me cry. The pictures were wonderful. The book had very good descriptions. People who like animals, stories that take place in Africa, and love will like this book.

This book was purchased to give away. I have ordered several and they are a treasure to have and a treasure to give as a gift.

Originally stumbled across this gem of a reference/cookbook in the cooking section of the public library. Found it fascinating. In 2000 I used it to plan & prepare "Biblical finger foods" for a Maundy Thursday service at the church I belong to. We served all the foods from handmade pottery and baskets on a bed of palm fronds (from Palm Sunday). Along with the Lenten music program provided by our choir and a slide presentation of the Holy Land narrated by our pastor the Biblical foods were one aspect of a very moving "multi-media" evening for over 100 people. I can't wait to have my own copy.

Have you ever wondered what it was like to live in Biblical times? Or just wanted to try making your own yogurt or unleavened bread? A Biblical Feast gives insight into daily life in the Middle East in Biblical times, foods mentioned throughout the Bible, as well some unique recipes! Highly recommended for something different!!

Now this is a book to be cherished. The author has taken a good amount of time exploring the actual foods from biblical times and creating/discovering recipes that we can all enjoy. This book is great for both the anthropolical reader as well as the gourmand. It is worth owning if this is your area of interest.

Moroccan raised cook and cookbook author researches and produces an exceptional cookbook on biblical land cuisine, not to invent any biblical haute extravaganza, but to provide examples of what the Lord and apostles might have dined on.

The layout adorning these recipes and commentary is neat --- it's sort of a faux ancient look and feel, which with the Biblical text quoted with each recipe, creates an unusual and attractive backdrop for this collection.

These are not hard recipes to prepare either technique wise nor ingredients. They are basic and using foodstuffs of that age: lamb and goat and olives and wine and nuts and wheat and beans and spices and leeks, etc.

This is well researched and produced with nice written comments throughout. I've tried several: Flatbread with Cheese and Melon; Barley Gruel with Honey, Dates and Raisins; Pomegranate Honey-Glazed Grilled Fish (unbelievable that tilapia was likely fish of Jesus' choice). They are edible and enjoyable and takes one away from all frills to basics.

This is fascinating book to use and to give as meaningful gift.

I love all the Jonathan Scott Big Cat Series Books. This is an excellent book for anyone who loves big cats. Plenty of info on habitat, biology, and great pictures!

I was watching big cat diary from the TV last week, and found out this program is just exactly the book I hv ordered from Amazon in Oct. I am exciting when receive this book. It has many beautiful cheetahs pictures. It worths to be one of your collection.

Being my favourite big cat doco, I had to buy the books to compliment Big Cat Diary.
I was not disappointed. The photos in this Leopard book are entirely unique and often include extremely rare images.
The writers/film makers have experienced some amazing things over their years of filming but most of it isn't covered in the TV series. This book goes into a lot more detail of the lives of certain Leopards and you really become attached to them by name (can be sad when you discover one has died).

Spectacular photos and highly engaging stories make this a winner.

Love the book and the fast service. I love all of the books that Jonathan Scott has written. I just wish in the US that we could still see the Big Cat Diary Series.

I love this book! Leopards are my # 4 favorite animals of all time topped only by jaguars, tigers, and of course lions. I think they are both cool and beautiful. I loved all the ones in here, most definitely the female ones. They were the most cool and beautiful. The only bad part was any of them getting hurt or killed, but other than that this book rocked! The cubs were cute, also. And boy, did I ever learn a lot about lions and hyenas as well as leopards. Like I said, this is a terrific book. I own it at home and will own it until my dying day. I highly reccomend it to anyone over the age of 12. Man, oh man, Amazon.com, you keep up making books like this.

I'm a second grade teacher and purchased, Bintou's Braids to enhance our study of Africa. All the students responded to the story. The background information and discussion suggestions opened up a meaningful dialogue that allowed students to connect personally with the text. Furthermore, the multicultural component provided students with background information about a culture/country unfamiliar to them.

This is a classic in our family. We've had it for a couple years (starting when my daughter was 4?). It is very well written and enjoyable to read, partly because it's told in Bintou's voice. As a bonus- it's also a good book for instilling pride in a little girl's hair.

This is a beautifully illustrated book and a beautiful story with wonderful messages about bravery, what girls should focus on (playing and learning instead of vanity), wisdom of ancestors, adults honoring children's desires while also standing their ground and providing wise guidance. It's also a lovely way to learn a bit about West African people and customs. I recommend it highly.

In a heartwarming story that reflects on family and tradition, Bintou, a child, grows up in her West African village yearning to have long braids like the older girls, with seashells and coins attached in the ancestral tradition. Poor Bintou only has four little tufts of hair wrapped in colored string, nothing nearly as attractive as the older girls. Bintou's baby brother is soon to be baptized and given a name, so she greets her grandmother in the village the day before the feast. Thanks to her many years, Bintou's grandmother knows everything; when Bintou asks why she can't have braids, the grandmother relates the tale of Couma, a girl who had such braids with seashells and coins and thought of nothing but herself. The elders decided that little girls could only have corn rows, so that they would make friends, play and learn before worrying about such grownup things. Still, Bintou dreams at night of braids with coins and seashells.

The day of the feast, Bintou escapes from the festivities for a while near the water's edge, where she hears cries for help; two boys are in danger of drowning. Taking a shortcut through the brambles, she tears loose two of her four tufts of hair, but finds help in time to save the boys. Promised a reward for her quick thinking, Bintou's older sister says, "She wants braids!" That night Bintou dreams a different dream, of yellow and blue birds nesting in her soft hair. The next morning, as her grandmother dresses her hair, she expects the usual corn rows; when Bintou looks in the mirror, a pretty girl stares back at her, hair sprinkled with blue and yellow birds. She is content to wait until she is grown for her braids.

While speaking to the importance of family and reverence for tradition, this wonderful story also acknowledges a little girl's dream of growing up, only not too quickly. Surrounded by love and the wisdom of her extended family, Bintou is nurtured through the phases of childhood, perfect just as she is. The vivid illustrations portray Bintou's family in their West African village, the girl's imaginative dreamscapes, the world through the eyes of a child, a perfect match for a timeless tale. Luan Gaines/2006.

my daughter (age 4) enjoys having this book read to her. I think it makes her feel proud of the braids she wears in her hair (which Bintou wants so desperately). Plus it's interesting because it takes place in Africa. And Bintou's pride in her own hair in the end is wonderful too. A great book.

This books is very intense and up front. I spent a couple of months living in a travel trailer in the US and I thought that was quite a difficult adventure, until I read this book.
There's a good interview at www.firstvoicebooks.com/blonde.html with the author.
Ants, roads, shopping for meat, charming festivals, leg sores, it's one heck of an adventure.
Thank goodness I can stay home and just read about it.

Africa is one of the places I've always wanted to go. Resnick, who has gone, shares with the reader an eye-opening look at her experiences over eight months of overland trekking across the African continent. She pulls no punches with regard to her own reactions to the lands, the leaders, her fellow overlanders--and thus gives a brutally honest look at what rustic and challenging overlanding is all about. Wonderfully insightful comments on cultural expectations, and should be required reading for anyone contemplating an African journey. You won't think the same about yourself or Africa once you've finished this book.

If you've ever wanted to camp your way across Africa from north to south--or even if your adventuring is strictly of the armchair variety--you'll love this account by a 30 year old romance/science fiction author of her half a year spent traveling by camper/bus across Africa. Funny, thoughtful, and honest, I found it compelling (the night I started it I was exhausted, and couldn't put it down until Chapter 10, and only because I was about to keel over!) and thought-provoking.I recommend it highly

Having just returned from Africa, I have to thank Laura Resnick for taking me back there again. Her book paints a perfect picture of an American's experiences in a country that couldn't be more different from ours. From albinos, bugs, strange illnesses, whizzing downhill, the joys of Listerine, showering in the rain, dehydration, communication challenges, etc. Laura shares her trip with us in a heartfelt, often hilarious novel.

What a worthwhile book! Laura Resnick shares her adventures on an overland adventure in Africa. What is great about this book is that it is refreshingly honest. Laura is very upfront about everything. She tells it like it is from how and where to the bathroom to what she realy thinks about hiking. If you like reading travel journals you're going to like this book!

Was not at all what I was expecting. I expected a diatribe either for or against all that was going on in Africa in the 70's. The author offers some commentary on the conditions of blacks in South Africa but otherwise this is a matter of fact, engaging, true story of an American just out of Vietnam looking for a nice quiet police job. Instead he finds himself in the middle of what will eventually be a war for the very existence of Rhodesia.

It's well written, frank and engaging.

THANK YOU SIR, for you service to your country and yours story about your service in another.

In his book "Bound for Africa" (and in his book "Special Agent Vietnam"), author Douglass Hubbard Jr. has educated me on the sensitive balance between war and peace. I have learned in general that civil societies must play out their aims and diplomacy. Citizens not happy (or those abused by) with any particular governments status quo, can "fight" (argue for)/advocate for any societal needs and causes, by going through established or otherwise appropriate societal channels (like legal/political/other manners), instead of resorting to things such as "terrorism" (on their own or through their or outside governments or other entities).

In Bound for Africa, author Hubbard Jr. teaches history, geography, science, sociology, and more. Furthermore, Hubbard Jr. gives readers a glimpse of an unconventional life and most of all, his own personal story.

Readers from all walks of life can enjoy and learn from this book. Bound for Africa is a book I'll read many more times in my life. I consider myself a liberal on most issues and by reading his books, Douglass Hubbard Jr. has helped to bridge a gap of mine, which is my perception of the balance of war and peace.

From David Wilson, MSW (social worker) and 20 year military (retired) veteran

Review of: Bound For Africa/Cold War Fight along The Zambezi by Douglass H. Hubbard Jr.

Although I have known the author since 1969 when he and I were both Special Agents with the Naval Investigative Service and roommates while serving in DaNang, Vietnam (see Special Agent, Vietnam) it was not until I read his current memoir that I began to understand his love for and understanding of Africa and its tragic history, of which Rhodesia is just a microcosm of what has happened on this continent in many countries since the end of colonial rule.

The book is autobiographical to an extent, chronologically relating author Douglass Hubbard's first experiencing Africa while on leave from Vietnam, his deepening attachment to the land and its people, his joining the ranks of the British South African Police, his training and experiences in this elite group, and his subsequent departure from Rhodesia after a devastating training accident. Yes, it is an autobiography and a history, and enjoyable from that standpoint alone.

But this book is more than an autobiography. It is a short history of sadness and melancholy in many respects, and this underlying sadness permeates throughout. The reader quickly understands the author's deep attachment to this sorry but beautiful and intriguing land but one has the feeling from the very beginning, without even knowing the history of this land over the past thirty years, that all will not end well for the country and peoples of Rhodesia, both black and white. And as it was for many of the other countries that threw off colonial rule during this period in African history and quickly descended into brutal dictatorships and economic and social hell, Rhodesia followed suit, pushed in this direction by the communist trained and funded guerillas. You can feel this sense of desperation by the author; it is almost palpable. And then you become more understanding of the inevitability of the progress of the insurgencies into Rhodesia and surrounding areas, supported by the Soviets, Chinese and North Koreans, as author Hubbard relates this distressing history to us.

Yes, it is a very sad book and unfortunately the possibility of reversing the horrors perpetrated upon the peoples of Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) does not seem to be in the cards. But, the sadness should not deter anyone from reading it. The book is beautifully written; the descriptions of the country and the wildlife are vivid and heartfelt; and the friendliness and frontier character of the people the author meets make one wish to have experienced what author Hubbard did. But the real sadness is in knowing that this can never happen, and that author Hubbard is fully aware of this. Read this book. It is thoroughly enjoyable.

I have finished reading "Bound for Africa" and found it a
delightful and interesting read, especially in respect to
the current events in Zimbabwe.

BOUND FOR AFRICA EVOKES MEMORIES OF A TEMPESTUOUS ERA

A story told with empathy and understanding about the Rhodesia of oold

In 1971 a young American on furlough from the red-hot war in Vietnam first set foot on African soil, triggering a lifelong affection for Africa's diverse peoples and a perspicacious empathy for the situation they found themselves in during the tough Rhodesian bush war against Communist-backed nationalist movements.

During that brief but intensive visit to a strange land in the middle of southern Africa, Douglass H. Hubbard Jnr. was sufficiently perceptive to appreciate the quiet and dusty majesty of the African bush and its wildlife, the determination of Rhodesians to write their own future and the warm friendliness of everyone he met. He made contact with Rhodesian security forces, including the now disbanded British South Africa Police, at that time one of the best in the world despite its relatively small numbers, with a history for fair and just bush and city policing stretching back to the previous century.

His experiences made such an impression on him that three years later he was back in Africa to sign up as a Patrol Officer in the BSAP, undergoing the rigorous training and preparation required for young men of that rank. It was the start of a lifelong love of Africa to which he returns to this day.

Thirty years later he wrote Bound for Africa, a book recounting a young American's intensely personal perceptions of the momentous time, people and places with which he came in contact.

Rhodesians who read this will quickly realise that the author is a perceptive man who has captured the spirit, friendliness, do-anything ethos of the Rhodesians and a bygone era remarkably well. The same applies to his descriptions of his feelings on first encountering the vast quiet of the African bush and the thundering power of the Victoria Falls, emotions that will resonate strongly with most Rhodesians of that generation. And his grasp of the regimental family atmosphere that was so characteristic of the BSA Police and its commitment to be the best of the best is also well illustrated.

The book covers the now largely forgotten period following the Unilateral Declaration of Independence through which Rhodesia tried to disconnect itself from the British government. The British could not support an evolutionary change of power to the majority of Rhodesia's inhabitants, instead favouring a more immediate course of universal sufferage. The disasters of this sort of policy elsewhere in African colonial handovers persuaded Rhodesia, already a self-governing colony, to cut the ties starting a 15 year war of world sanctions and military attrition that eventually extended to most of its borders.

Hubbard eventually ended up a Section Officer instructor with the BSAP's famed Support Unit or "Black Boots", a paramilitary outfit that enjoyed outstanding success against Communist equipped guerillas until a political settlement was reached which ended the costly bush war. Hubbard's experiences both on the ceremonial parade ground and out in the bush faithfully capture the relationships between the multiracial staff of the Unit and the tribulations as well as the excitement of operational duty.

The book additionally takes a wider look at the war and the activities of other security force units such as the Selous Scouts, publishing little or unknown details of bush fighting both within and outside Rhodesia from interviews that Hubbard conducted with leading figures who commanded the operations of the time, including the renowned OC of the Scouts, Ron Reid-Daly. The audacity, ingenuity and capability of Rhodesian troops, who consistently punched above their weight for years on end with aging equipment is revealing.

Hubbard was medically discharged after a training accident deprived him of his right hand, and the harrowing experience of being seriously injured in the bush makes absorbing reading, as does his subsequent medical treatment and recovery as a patient of a famous Rhodesian plastic surgeon, himself badly hurt as a fighter pilot in the Second World War.

Reluctantly, Hubbard turned down a desk job and left the force he had come to value so highly. He left Rhodesia and started a successful career as a global security consultant...but that's perhaps meat for another book sometime in the future.

Bound for Africa is a factual and personal story that kept me engrossed from start to finish. It engendered not a little nostalgia for a time when Rhodesians defiantly faced the world and ran a successful industrial and agricultural economy despite the enmity of most governments, a misguided application of sanctions and a widespread war on several fronts.

That success stands in stark contrast to the disaster that is Zimbabwe today, which is on the precipice of economic collapse despite being given every opportunity to succeed over the past 20 or more years of Robert Mugabe's rule.

Pierre Brazza is an extremely important figure in the history of the encounter between Europe and Africa. His non-violent approach to colonialism and his belief in fair and mutual trade between Europeans and Africans was exceptional among his more rapacious and self-serving peers in the late 19th century. Maria Petringa's excellent biography Brazza is a superb account of Brazza's consistent challenge to the kind of exploitative colonialism that fast came to dominate Afro-European relations. Petringa tells the exciting story of Brazza's life with great pace and insight. She reveals his particular vision from his letters, diaries and lectures. She follows him compassionately as explorer, national celebrity, colonial administrator and human rights investigator. Finally, she accompanies him disgraced, discarded and dying in Algiers. His final report on atrocities in Congo has been suppressed and France has chosen to pursue the violent and exploitative approach to Empire. Maria Petringa has done a great service by writing such an engaging and important account of Brazza's life in English. I hope it will encourage the English speaking world to give Brazza his rightful place in history and to recover some of his ideas. Like Roger Casement - also largely forgotten until recently - Brazza saw the risks of enormous European injustice in Africa when others saw only profit.

I have lived and traveled in Africa a great deal. I recently acquired a copy of Maria Petringa's book
on Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza and thoroughly enjoyed it. What a fascinating man. This book would make a great movie and I would hope somebody in the industry would pick it up and do just that. It is a good book and I highly recommend reading it. Pat Clark

I took the book along on a short rest and relaxation trip, which was all the more enjoyable because of the time I spent on the Brazza adventure. I knew that the story of Brazza's Central Africa explorations would be interesting but Maria Petringa's excellent account of the man and his mission was engaging and a delightful reading experience.

As I enjoy reading historic accounts of charismatic figures who blaze trails, both geographically and politically, I found Maria Petringa's book highly informative and very entertaining. It is also relevant to the volatility of today's geopolitical climate.

This biography of Pierre de Brazza gives us an inspiring portrait of a very good man in a very bad time, the age of European colonialism in Africa. Brazza, who explored and administered French Equatorial Africa at the end of the 19th century, tried desperately to civilize the colonialists' treatment of the African natives. He ultimately failed, though his ideals and efforts are inspiring. His failure shows, however, that the "heart of darkness" was not an aberration, that colonial exploitation of Africa was incurably corrupt and cruel, for the French as for the Belgians. Reading this book dispels any lingering sentimentality for this enterprise, provides the reader with a fascinating portrait of an important though (at least in the English-speaking world) largely forgotten man,
and gives us a devastating picture of nineteenth-century imperialism. "Brazza, A Life for Africa" is hard to put down.

This is a fairly nicely done book. Lots of nice photos throughout the book, with the last part of it telling about all the history of architecture throughout the region where the photos where taken.

What I don't like about the book is that too many of the photos where done in B&W, and also most of them are of public buildings, such as mosques. I would really like to have seen more homes and other private buildings. I have other books on vernacular building that have more photos of homes in Africa than this one does.

So, if your interested in Africa's architectural history and are interested in Adobe construction then this book is probably for you.

Butabu is a beautifully designed book. It mainly consists of wonderful photographs of delicate buildings and their details. This book is not only a very attractive picture art book but also a study book on West African culture. The clear text in the second part of the book is followed by an extended list of references. Ineke Freudenthal, The Netherlands.

The architecture of West Africa is beautifully pictured and knowledgeably described in this unusual book. Although the majority of the pictures are in black and white, the essence of this harsh landscape and the buildings constructed to cope with this reality`are beautifully shown. Most of the prominent building types are shown with an emphasis on various mosques.

Stunning. After picture book after picture book on 20th century architecture, this book rocketed me out of the modern Western world and deposited me gently within the expressive caress of this timeless adobe architecture of africa. This is a sort of architecture I have NEVER seen in books before. A genuine addition to the vernacular of modern architecture and possibly, a firefly of inspiration for those of us living in empty hard, static and meaningless shells. How to bring the heart and handiwork back into the technological universe?

The soft folds and highly textured surfaces of Mali mosques, Niger chiefs' houses and other examples of the African adobe vernacular have lured a succession of hippies with a wobbly sense of focus. So it's a delight to see a photographer who has chronicled the sharp-edged structures of Norman Foster and Richard Rogers bring clarity to such a picturesque subject, and to read such an illuminating essay on its cultural roots. (Michael Webb is the book reviewer for LA Architect magazine.)

This is a great book-exciting, exotic and fascinating as Bass profiles different scientific and social scientific researchers' projects in Africa. One gets a feel for the different cultures and ecosystems viewed through the lens of his portraits.

I was talking with a friend today who is bound for Uganda and as I rummaged around the attic of my mind, remembered what a pleasure this book was when I read it over ten years ago. I highly recommend it. Perhaps I shall read it again.

This is a book for people that think scientists walk around in white coats spouting equations at each other and relating dysfunctionaly to the rest of the world. Learn about science as a way of life, a way of seeing the world and accepting its challenges. Yes, Africa is somewhat of a mess, but as Africa goes, so may go the planet. Tom Bass brings you beautifully into this chaos and gives you the flavor of life with scientists who have let it all hang out, put it all on the line, in their fascination with and commitment to an important way of looking at the world. It's a new genre: Guerilla Science.

Camping With the Prince, a 1990 book by the science journalist Thomas Bass, is a rare find and highly recommended. Most books on contemporary Africa are gloomy and angry. Some are hostile towards Africans, some towards Westerners, some towards both. Camping With the Prince is neither. Instead it is a fascinating look at things which are going right. Bass deserves praise for that alone. But his topics are fascinating in their own right. In seven chapters, Bass investigates seven areas of scientific research in various parts of sub-Saharan Africa. They range from sustainable forestry in Mali, to the response of nomad communities in Kenya to food shortages, Nigerian research on insect pests and virology, and on to paleoanthropology and the mating habits of the multicolored cichlid fish of Lake Malawi. To the extent there are villains in this book, they are international specialists in foreign aid, who have spent forty years delivering bad advice on agricultural policy and building dams that spread the guinea worm. But in fact the villains are very few. Much more common are people like Thomas Risley Odhiambo, a Kenyan entomologist who founded the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology in Nairobi, which carries out world-class research on low-impact pest controls. Bass asks Dr. Odhiambo how Kenya -- and by extension Africa generally -- can afford such a program when many Kenyans have no potable drinking water. Odhiambo makes an equally obvious reply: '"My own feeling is that we have to run on twin tracks," he says. "We have the longer-range problems that depend on science and technology. We must solve them. At the same time we must tackle these problems arising from urbanization and dislocation from the land. If we take only one track and not the other, we will be in worse trouble, because we will have no future in terms of strategies for the long run." Odhiambo's realistic but hopeful attitude -- a recognition of contemporary problems, coupled with the faith that Africa can overcome and transcend them -- is typical of the people Bass meets. They are Africans like Odhiambo and the Nigerian virologist Oyewale Tomori, Westerners like Jeremy Swift, an Englishman who has spent fifteen years living among nomads in the dry savannas, and even East Asians like Odhiambo's Chinese colleague Lu Qing Guang, who conducts research on insects like the trichogramma wasp which prey on common pests. The book has one minor flaw, in that it presents readers with seven more or less independent chapters rather than a coherent narrative. Bass also demands some effort from the reader, as his book addresses complex scientific issues without condescension. Those who will be put off by discussions of nematodes, Lorenzian biological aggression theory or the life cycle of the tsetse fly will find parts of the book pretty dense. But most readers who take up a book like this will view technical detail a strength rather than a weakness. And altogether, Camping With the Prince is a well-written, welcome respite from the bleak tone of most writing on modern Africa. Bass has done a fine job and deserves readers.

This is a book for people that think scientists walk around in white coats spouting equations at each other and relating dysfunctionaly to the rest of the world. Learn about science as a way of life, a way of seeing the world and accepting its challenges. Yes, Africa is somewhat of a mess, but as Africa goes, so may go the planet. Tom Bass brings you beautifully into this chaos and gives you the flavor of life with scientists who have let it all hang out, put it all on the line, in their fascination with and commitment to an important way of looking at the world. It's a new genre: Guerilla Science.