Africa Books

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.

The Great Escape: Background and Memoirs of the Liberian Civil War well written documentary...allows the reader to feel as if s/he is seeing the events first hand.

This book was wonderfully written and really helped me to better understand the horrible, terrifying, inhumane conditions that the people of Liberia (as well as other countries in Africa) have been dealing with over the past decades. I found my heart racing at certain points, and what made it 10x worse was that it is based on *real* events, it's not fiction! I didn't know too much about the civil wars in Africa until I read this and I will be researching some more books to continue my quest for understanding and perhaps finding more solutions to help make Africa the proud nation it is meant to be! Thank you to Dorothy Johnson for taking the time to put her thoughts onto paper and sharing her faith in God with the world!

This is a truly outstanding book for South African Aloe enthusiasts of any level from beginner to expert. The authors recognized an obvious vacuum in the literature on growing, collecting, and conserving South African Aloes, and this work deftly bridges the gap between peer reviewed botanical journals and elementary field guides. The book brings together information on plant characteristics, distribution, habitat, cultivation, uses, name etymology, and endangered status. Each species description occupies 2 facing pages with textual content on the left and 1 or more excellent photos of plants in habitat on the right. The content, format, and style harmonize to make this book hard to lay down. It is well worth its modest ...price. Highly recommended.

A good book for both beginner and expert. It puts the aloes in 10 groups, from Tree Aloes to Grass Aloes with detailed desciptions of most aloes. It does not, however, have aloes from anywhere but South africa...but that is the only falt I can find with it.

This book is a very ecxellent book because it shows how much livity that a true brethren of this faith lives up. It also shows how ancient this deep Afrakan way of life is, and how naturally and wholistically Rastafari is supposed to live. It eliminates all ism and skism about Rastafari, and makes one how is seeking and hearing the call want to live clean and let Jah works be seen within him/herself.

Sincerely,

Jahmaal Usamah Israel

Jah Blessings!

This is the best book I have ever read in my lifetime concerning biblical prophesy. If half of the things revealed in this book are found to be true, then the only hope for this retched planet and the people occupying it is to have all the leaders of the world, e.g UNITED NATIONS come together and acknowledge that there is a CREATOR who will not allow the devil any more glory. This book is significant of the changing times we are living in.

My kids just love Jamela. It is so good for kids to read about children in other countries. Children without hundreds of toys and endless pressure on them, but with a loving family and community where fun things happen. We also enjoyed "christmas" and Yebo Jamela.

my granddaughter and I have read this book a dozen times since Christmas, when Santa brought her the book. She has taken it to school to share with the other girls. It is a total joy. It would have been even better, it there would have been a little explanation of the country the story was taking place in.

You can get ready for World Cup 2010 in South Africa by reading this book, and if for some reason, it is played somewhere else, it is still worthwhile reading. It should be reprinted.

I saw a list on the 50 best books on soccer to read from the magazine Four Four Two; and this one certainly belongs on that list. It wasn't there, but it was better than some I read that were on the list and that list is subjective anyway; as you read on what interests you; if you are interested in Africa; you'll gobble this book right up!

Peter Auf Der Heyde, the author really loves his subject; grew up in South Africa; both with Apartheid and with out it. He played goalkeeper for black teams in South Africa and is a journalist with a unique perspective. I'd read about anything by him; he is an encyclopedia on African soccer (which by the way, he calls someone else that in the book).

We read about his journeys to World Cup and African Nations Cup qualifiers as well, as viewing games at the World Cup and at the Cup of African Nations. Besides that, we read his coverage of the South African bid to hold the World Cup in 2006; which obviously failed, so the next time, was there time.

He travels the continent to see these games and of course, in one chapter, he was off to France to see the World Cup.

We learn about Muti (seems to be what black magic would be in South Africa) and Voodoo being used in soccer games in Africa, the amiable and pleasant nature of the players from there, about problems that had happened in stadiums that caused disasters, even the common subject in soccer about corruption in it's adminstration and associations among many topics and many countries.

Early in the book, we find out about the Football (read Soccer) Associations in South Africa, Auf Der Heyde's homebase country and a bit of the way it was during Apartheid and afterwards. This goes into quite a bit of detail; but it doesn't last long and is important. After that, this is an exceptional book, to read at night about faraway places and exotic locales. If Auf Der Heyde ever rights a sequel; I think, the only thing, Auf Der Heyde did not cover is the question there is about some African's birthdates in soccer. I'm sure he could tell us a lot about this. He is so knowledgeable in this field; I think, I could chat with him on African football (soccer) for hours.

There are a number of pages of photos which are in color. Quite a few of the pictures are noteworthy, including one of the author with Nelson Mandela.

If one enjoys this book, the movie on South Africa; Catch a fire I would recommend as well.

A joy to read both for the African and the football observations. Totally off the beaten path, and better for it.

An excellent collection of short fiction. Each tale is as compelling, as it is entertaining. Conrad is one of the best short story writers ever he is like a darker Stevenson who delves into the human psyche.

I read this book for a graduate Humanities course. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, written in 1899 is a seminal work about the ills of colonialism, as well as a postmodern look at the subject of mankind. Conrad's book had a crucial influence on five important works of the twentieth century: J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land, Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, and Francis Ford Coppolla's movie Apocalypse Now, screenplay by John Milius, was based on Conrad's book. Another interesting fact is that this work was read by Orson Welle's Mercury Theater Players on the radio and was to be his first movie. After doing some work on it he abandoned the project to do Citizen Kane! I would have loved to of seen what Welles could have done with this story. Conrad's story is so riveting in part, because he himself served as a riverboat captain. High school teachers and college professors who have discussed this book in thousands of classrooms over the years tend to do so in terms of Freud, Jung, and Nietzsche; of classical myth, Victorian innocence, and original sin; of postmodernism, postcolonialism, and poststructuralism.

Just a taste of the plot reels you in! Marlow, the narrator of Heart of Darkness and Conrad's alter ego, is hired by an ivory-trading company to sail a steamboat up an unnamed river whose shape on the map resembles "an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country and its tail lost in the depths of the land" (8). His destination is a post where the company's brilliant, ambitious star agent, Mr. Kurtz, is stationed. Kurtz has collected legendary quantities of ivory, but, Marlow learns along the way, is also rumored to have sunk into unspecified savagery. Marlow's steamer survives an attack by blacks and picks up a load of ivory and the ill Kurtz; Kurtz, talking of his grandiose plans, dies on board as they travel, downstream.

Sketched with only a few bold strokes, Kurtz's image has nonetheless remained in the memories of millions of readers: the lone white agent far up the great river, with his dreams of grandeur,his great store of precious ivory, and his fiefdom carved out of the African jungle. Perhaps more than anything, we remember Marlow, on the steamboat, looking through binoculars at what he thinks are ornamental knobs atop the fence posts in front of Kurtz's house and then finding that each is "black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids-a head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and with the shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth" (57).

I especially became interested in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness from the movie Apocalypse Now. There is a scene in the movie that shows Colonel Kurtz's nightstand in his cave. T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land is one of three books on the nightstand. The other two are Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, and J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Anyone wanting to understand the movie Apocalypse Now, especially the character of Colonel Kurtz, and what Milius and Copolla are trying to tell their audience need to read these three books as well as Conrad's Heart of Darkness!

As a graduate student reading in philosophy and history I recommend this book for anyone interested in literature, myth, history, philosophy, religion and fans of Apocalypse Now.

This book combines the full text of Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" with critical notes. There's no need to work with a separate study guide, which makes this read a seamless study of this classic work of literature. Highly recommended.

I read this book for a graduate Humanities course. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, written in 1899 is a seminal work about the ills of colonialism, as well as a postmodern look at the subject of mankind. Conrad's book had a crucial influence on five important works of the twentieth century: J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land, Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, and Francis Ford Coppolla's movie Apocalypse Now, screenplay by John Milius, was based on Conrad's book. Another interesting fact is that this work was read by Orson Welle's Mercury Theater Players on the radio and was to be his first movie. After doing some work on it he abandoned the project to do Citizen Kane! I would have loved to of seen what Welles could have done with this story. Conrad's story is so riveting in part, because he himself served as a riverboat captain. High school teachers and college professors who have discussed this book in thousands of classrooms over the years tend to do so in terms of Freud, Jung, and Nietzsche; of classical myth, Victorian innocence, and original sin; of postmodernism, postcolonialism, and poststructuralism.

Just a taste of the plot reels you in! Marlow, the narrator of Heart of Darkness and Conrad's alter ego, is hired by an ivory-trading company to sail a steamboat up an unnamed river whose shape on the map resembles "an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country and its tail lost in the depths of the land" (8). His destination is a post where the company's brilliant, ambitious star agent, Mr. Kurtz, is stationed. Kurtz has collected legendary quantities of ivory, but, Marlow learns along the way, is also rumored to have sunk into unspecified savagery. Marlow's steamer survives an attack by blacks and picks up a load of ivory and the ill Kurtz; Kurtz, talking of his grandiose plans, dies on board as they travel, downstream.

Sketched with only a few bold strokes, Kurtz's image has nonetheless remained in the memories of millions of readers: the lone white agent far up the great river, with his dreams of grandeur,his great store of precious ivory, and his fiefdom carved out of the African jungle. Perhaps more than anything, we remember Marlow, on the steamboat, looking through binoculars at what he thinks are ornamental knobs atop the fence posts in front of Kurtz's house and then finding that each is "black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids-a head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and with the shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth" (57).

I especially became interested in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness from the movie Apocalypse Now. There is a scene in the movie that shows Colonel Kurtz's nightstand in his cave. T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land is one of three books on the nightstand. The other two are Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, and J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Anyone wanting to understand the movie Apocalypse Now, especially the character of Colonel Kurtz, and what Milius and Copolla are trying to tell their audience need to read these three books as well as Conrad's Heart of Darkness!

As a graduate student reading in philosophy and history I recommend this book for anyone interested in literature, myth, history, philosophy, religion and fans of Apocalypse Now.

This book is a goldmine of information that uncovers Hebrewisms in African rituals and history all over Africa. It is also connected with some very recent research by antoher Amazon.com writer, Dr. Linda Thomas of Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary. As an anthropologist/theologian, she studied water purification rituals among Africans in Uguleto, South Africa. These rituals are very close to those in the Old Testament. The content in Dr. Williams' book further connects these types of rituals as they occur throughout the continent Africa. It is an amazing breakthrough in research.

I have used the contents of this book in many interesting ways. Just the other day, I was talking with an 80-year old woman at church, whose mother came from Madagascar, as a slave. I was able to share with her some of the information in the book about the Hebrewisms found in the Africans of Madagascar (some of whom were brought to South Africa as slaves by the Dutch). I was able to tell her that it may be possible that her ancestors might have descended from the ancient Black Jews of Canaan, who migrated down through Africa at various points in their history, and whose Jewish rituals were discovered by various historians at various periods. She is an African American. This is not the first time that I have presented this information in order to establish the fact that Jesus Christ, and the Jews of the Old Testament in many ways, were ancestors of the Africans who were brought here, from all over the continent of Africa as slaves.

It should be in the collection of every researcher into the history of Africans on the continent and throughout the Diaspora.

For several years I had been trying to find some books of valid and substantial merit dealing with Jews who had made their way into West Africa. Often there are books written on the topic that essentially prove nothing or do not provide sources for their assertions. Hebrewisms of West Africa is far different, especially since it was written in the 1930's. Truly, this books is a very good collection of various accounts of people who professed to believe that various ethnic groups in Africa were of mixed African, Semitic, and Israelite ancestry. I was also able to get a 1931 first edition copy of the book, which I treasure.

Many of the accounts center around a question of whether the Ashanti are of Israelite ancestry. Though today this may be questionable since from what I understand the Ashanti don't assert such a claim of themselves. The book covers a number of sources from various explorers and authors who had been either searching or writing on the issue of possible Jewish traces in West Africa. On a side note though a friend of mine asked an Ashanti scholar if they had Jewish ancestry and the scholar avowed that the Ashanti have never circumcised.

This book really helps my research in this area. It is interesting that once I got this book, other sources started to open up to me, and to think this book was published in 1931! How has this book been overlooked for so long? More than likely it is due to the fact that there no longer exists a continuous Jewish presence out of West Africa. It is good that the book also pushes forth the hope that future scholarship will further the topic of Jewish migrations into Africa.

The book also does not go down the path of claiming that all Africans are Hebrews or Israelites, and does not get into a racist flare either. (since it was written iin 1930's before any of the Hebrew Israelite movements had picked up steam). This book goes down the path that some Africans are of a mix of African and Jewish ancestry, and others could be of earlier mixes with Semitic peoples. The conclusion is very interesting also.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is seriously researching this subject of early accounts of Semitic peoples and Jews in Africa.

another collectors item for africa lovers and people,still phots of a africa who was unspoilt of tourist in those days

The collaborative effort of Isolde Brielmaier (Visiting Professor of Art at Vassar College) and Ed Marquand (Director of the Hector Acebes Archive), Hector Acebes: Portraits In Africa, 1948-1953 showcases the photography of Acebes taken in Africa in 1948, 1949, and 1953. These black and white photographic images have justifiably been acclaimed as some of the most beautiful photographs of Africans ever taken. The images, however, were hidden away in Acebes' photography studio in Bogota, Columbia, and it was not until 2003 (when Acebes was 82 years old) that he had his first art gallery exhibition. With the publication of Hector Acebes: Portraits In Africa, 1948-1953, (which is enthusiastically recommended for personal, academic, and community library Photography Studies collections) full justice has now been accomplished with respect to bringing a lasting access to Acebes's photographic artistry to the general public.