Africa Books

Today I'm back--rebuying this book in hopes of reliving some of the experience it produced 20+ years ago when I read it on a transatlantic flight. Everyone around me was solemnly absorbed in tearjerker movie while I was convulsed to tears of laughter in their midst.

When I realized Indecent Exposure was a sequel to Riotous Assembly I raced from the airport to the bookstore and ordered that one too. It was no disappointment. That came when I voraciously bought nearly every other novel Tom Sharpe wrote and found none of his other works even came close to his 2 South Africa novels.

Small wonder that oppressive regime expelled him. I ought to mention that however slapstick funny this has been described to you (and it is!) it is not an appropriate gift for your 12-year-old niece. The uproarious misanthropy is midnight black and as politically incorrect for many Americans as it was subversive for South African censors.

Hilarious, extremely funny. This is one of the fiction works that have made me laugh more in my life, including films, comics, or whatever.
I read this book after discovering Sharpe trough Wilt' s saga. One tip: read the african novels first! I have read almost all the books from Sharpe, and I think the two south-african satiras are the best, specially Indecent Exposure.

Tom Sharpe's novels, always popular in Britain, are known for being rude spoofs on the political establishment and of the upper echelons of British society. However his earliest works, as in 'Indecent Exposure', the setting is apartheid-era South Africa. His humour is still very baudy, perhaps repetitively so, and his target are the hypocritical, racist white establishment. Some of the language is a bit vulgar, and I imagine some folks might be offended. But Sharpe hits the bulls-eye on his target: the squabbling, pretentious and myoptic white (English/Afrikaan) establishment.

As for the story? Well, it somewhat doesn't matter. Some nonsense about a rural town's police force trying to fight (imagined) communist insurgents using some rather ridiculous means. It's all very slapstick, farcical. Enjoy the book for its now dated (historical) view of South Africa, not for its paper thin story.

Bottom line: a very curious and funny piece of Sharpe's earlier works. Certainly not his best, but he delivers the laughs.

This book must be one of the funniest I've ever read. My girlfrind threw me out of bed at four in the morning because I'd apparently been laughing in my sleep after having read the book. The best thing about any of Tom Sharpe's books is that you can read them again and again and still laugh all over again! Superb!

What more can I say? Go read it! I read it about 12 years ago or more. It was fantastic. I read it at least once every 2-3 yrs after that and it has never failed to make me laugh again and again. Though Apartheid is dead, the humor is still valid worldwide. Read it as satire or just for its humour. Either way, you'll love it. By the way, dont be put off that its British and thus a bit heavy in the reading department. Its not. Its a great read and you could easily finish reading it in one day unless, of course, you fall off your chair or bed and injure yourself laughing. Believe me, I'm not exaggerating.

For Lew Brady and Frank Lanigan, veteran mercenaries of several sides of half a dozen African wars, it was their last chance to make a big score on the Dark Continent. For Baron Chase, a special anti-smuggling adviser to Idi Amin, it was to be his Swiss retirement fund, set up before Amin's inevitable fall from his excesses and brutalities. For Mazar Balim and his son, Asian exiles from Uganda living in Kenya, it was a chance to give Amin a real black eye while making a fortune. It was a mile long train carrying over six million dollars in coffee...one sixth of Uganda's annual production, almost all of it owned personally by Idi Amin and his close cronies...coffee already purchased by Brazil to cover worldwide committments following the disastrous frosts of 1977. But on Sept 12 the trail failed to reach Kampala...it simply disappeared. Humorous and horrific...

Understand that this book is a major departure for Westlake, and is darker tham a lot of his other books. This is a good thing, I've read a few of his other books, and while they were ok, Kahawa is simply woderful. By blending some actual figures into the book, Westlake adds realism, which makes it even more gripping. Worth more than 5 stars!

As I remembered the novel, it was the best I ever read. My rating may have been coloured by my living in Liberia 15 years ago when reading the book. Samuel K. Doe was at the time turning our life upside down (I later lived for some years in Tanzania, bordering lake Victoria). The book is totally different from anything else that I have read from Westlake. Did I find it good if I'm searching for it 15 years later?

Overall, KAHAWA, is an uneven yet action-packed adventure with something for everyone: sex, adventure, a really evil villain, manly heroes and beautiful courageous heroines of all colors. Our mercenary heroes are striking a blow against tyranny, but they aren't looking for the Ark, or the Grail or King Solomon's Mines. They're stealing coffee. But that's what's kinda cool about it.

The premise, that a mixed bag of mercenaries, for profit and for politics, decide to hijack Idi Amin's coffee train, worth six million dollars, is very inventive. Westlake allows his characters to be heroic for monetary reasons and for ideology: Idi Amin's a tyrant and all want to see him go down....and making a buck or two from his downfall will make it all the sweeter.

This book is a total departure for Donald Westlake and one for the better. While the plot deals with the theft of a train load of coffee, the book is so far beyond an average hiest story that it is hard to catagorize. The setting, the characters - even the steamy sex scenes - are more than one expects after reading Westlake's other books. This is, in many ways, a serious novel, but at the same time, very entertaining. I had to read it in one long session. It was that gripping.

These letters are the life and thoughts of an honest-to-God human female--a real woman, not a trumped-up tricked-out product of society. She is inspiring, honest, real, and as wild and natural as Africa itself was during her time. Every woman who has truly lived, even a little, will see herself in these pages. I reread it every few years as a pep-talk for courageous living, humility, and honesty. I will forever feel sad that she had to leave Africa.

I actually had several of Isak Dinesen's works - "Out of Africa," her seven tales, and her book of letters. I hadn't seen the movie and I honestly wasn't even that interested in Africa or Danish people. But I'm fascinated by women's letters, and that is why I bought this book. I have read these letters and nothing else by her, to be quite honest, and these letters have inspired me to read more of her writings (once I stop finding other women's letters in book form to read).

I share all of the other reviewers' observations and feelings toward this book, so I won't repeat them. One thing I will add is that it is truly fascinating to read passages of her letters that have to deal with hunting game ... I don't know much about Africa or its colonizations, but if I recall, the colonizing didn't start until late in the 19th century - when "game" was more than plentiful. Even with this in mind, I couldn't help but be appalled when she recited the numbers of animals that were killed simply for sport. This bias aside, these letters made it easy to see how animals became endangered and extinct.

Obviously, there is more to the letters than hunting - otherwise I never would have read the entire book. Karen Blixen was obviously a very determined, passionate woman and this came through in her letters. Her voice and her descriptions of her life in Africa made these letters worth reading to someone who previously had no interest in the colonization of Africa.

"... huge distant blue mountains and the vast grassy plains before them covered with zebra and gazelle, and at night I can hear lions roaring like the thunder of guns in the darkness". Passages such as this one make it worthwhile to read this book. Karen Blixen is a master at poetically describing her foreign surroundings. If you enjoy the movie and the book Out of Africa then you will enjoy reading this book. Although at times the letters are repetitious and the author tends to ramble on, it is still an interesting book as it allows the reader to look through a window into Colonial East Africa from 1914 to 1931. The reader is able to go into Karen Blixen's mind and follow her daily struggles, joys and sorrows during her long stay in Africa and through her many safaris. This book unlike Out of Africa is not written through rose colored lenses. As you read this book, you feel a much harsher Africa. Also in this book she writes about her lover Dennis Finch-Hatton and doesn't hide the fact that she's crazy about him from her family. I highly recommend this book to any fan of Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen.

There's no better way of getting to know the real Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen than by reading her Letters. Blixen shares her life with you a letter at a time, and in such rich detail that one feels a bit inclined to purchase a ticket to Kenya and appear on her veranda for tea!

Blixen's deep love for "her people" finally comes out in its truest sense in that she considered the African natives her soul mates.

The letters to Ingeborg, Aunt Bess, and brother Tommy, reveal (to me at least) that Blixen felt a greater kinship and sense of mutual acceptance with her "black skinned brother" than she did with her Danish relatives.

"Letters From Africa" is essential reading for any Dinesen fan.

Isak Dineson, or Karen Blixen, was a fascinating woman. Most people know her as the main character from the movie Out of Africa or as the auther of the book of the same name. While the movie and the book are both good, I feel that this collection of her letters gives the best picture of who she was and what was important to her. The struggles of trying to make a go of her farm are heartwrenching, but the joy she expresses in her surroundings is enchanting. She describes the people in her life, especially the Kenyans who worked on her farm, so well that you feel you know them almost as well as you know her. Her description of the Europeans who lived in Kenya for economic or political reasons has enough of compliment and criticism to seem much more fair than many books from the colonial era. By the end of the book, it is easy to think of Karen as a friend.

I brought this book because of the title and the cost, plus it's Malcolm, but when I began to read it, it was more than what I expected to be. Best 80 cents I ever spent

Malcolm X Talks to Young People is an immensely relevant and instructive book for the young and the young at heart. His words, spoken to university students in Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States in 1964-65, ring as true today as they did then.

"I just try to face the fact as it actually is and come to this meeting as one of the victims of America, one of the victims of Americanism, one of the victims of democracy, one of the victims of a very hypocritical system that is going all over this earth today representing itself as being qualified to tell other people how to run their country when they can't get the dirty things that are going on in their own country straightened out," he told students at the University of Ghana, May 13, 1964.

A new expanded edition of this book has been available since November 2002!
This new edition includes 43 more pages than the previous edition, with the complete text of Malcolm's Speech at Oxford and a more complete text of his speech at the London School of Economics. The expanded introduction together with Jack Barnes' "He spoke the truth to our generation of revolutionists," a memorial speech for Malcolm given in March 5, 1965, provides an excellent short introduction to Malcolm's life and ideas.

There is a six-page index, eight pages of notes, as well as an expanded photo display of 17 pages including Malcolm X with students and young people from Tanzania to Alabama, including a picture of Fidel Castro and Malcolm X smiling together in Harlem in 1960 when they were both still young!

This edition of Malcolm X Speaks to Young People is being produced together with a first-ever Spanish-language edition, entitled Malcolm X habla a la juventud, which is being released simultaneously by Pathfinder Press and by Casa Editora Abril, the publishing house of the Union of Young Communists in Cuba.


While this book may not be directly available from Amazon at times, they are available from the booksfrompathfinder on Amazon that you can find by clicking on the new and used books on this page.

Originally issued as the first Gulf War began,in these pages Malcolm explains how in the Congo the US govt bombed women,men,children, and babies and called THEM terrorists,as he points out,the same as in Vietnam.He shows how it was the U.S. and U.S.-flunky ( "anti-Castro Cubans pilots" ) who were the terrorists in the Congo in the early to mid 1960s. At a time when the word "hero" is twisted so obscenely, it is a breath of fresh clean air to read Malcom's descriptions of the herois Simba fighters of the Congo who tried, and failed to liberate their country from U.S. neocolonial domination after kicking out the Belgian colonizers, and to hear him describe the equally heroic fighters who defeated the Empire in China and Cuba and Vietnam in the same terms.He exposes the use of UN cover for the Yanqui Empire's wars and drive for profits.He explains that these crimes are the doings of a system, the imperialist system ,as he calls it himself.He points out they use the cops to do the same at home :brutalize working people. Malcolm further points out that both the Republican AND the Democratic parties are the twin parties of racism and imperial exploitation. Oh yes, both parties ! He explains how he came to the conclusion that " capitalism is like a vulture...it used to be able to suck anybody's blood...but now it can only suck the blood of the helpless. It's only a matter of time , in my opinion, before it will collapse completely " and how he became prosocialist. He points to the Chinese, Vietnamese, and Cuban revolutions as examples for Blacks - today he would add and we can add, all working people -- to emulate in this country, in our time.And, he makes his stand to fight alongside anyone, any color, who fights to better condtiions for humans on this earth. As the 2nd Gulf War begins, again under UN cover and "inspections" just as the liberals pleaded, as more working people's blood, Iraq and American, for the sake of the oil profits of a tiny few, it is good to be reminded that as, Malcolm says in these pages, " The young generation of whites, Blacks, browns-you're living at a time of revolution." He was right then and he is still right.If you seek serious fundamental social change, you owe it to yourself to buy and STUDY this book.

I think the best way to describe this wonderful book is a few excerpts (from the 2002 expanded edition).

"The young generation of whites, Blacks, browns, whatever else there is -- you're living at ... a time of revolution, a time when there's got to be a change.... And I for one will join in with anyone, I don't care what color you are, as long as you want to change this miserable condition that exists on this earth."

"It is the teenagers ... all over the world, who are actually involving themselves in the struggle to eliminate oppression and exploitation.... The young people are the ones who most quickly identify with the struggle and the necessity to eliminate the evil conditions that exist."

"In America the Black community in which we live is not owned by us. The landlord is white. The merchant is white. . . . And these are the people who suck the economic blood of our community."

"We are not for violence in any shape or form, but believe that the people who have violence committed against them should be able to defend themselves.... I have never said that the Negroes should initiate acts of aggression against whites, but where the government fails to protect the Negro he is entitled to do it himself."

[In Africa] "I'm from America but I'm not an American. I didn't go there of my own free choice.... [I am] one of the victims of Americanism, ... one of the victims of a very hypocritical system that is going all over this earth today representing itself as being qualified to tell other people how to run their country when they can't get the dirty things that are going on in their own country straightened out."

[In Africa] "When we find a Black man who's always receiving the praise of the Americans, we become suspicious of him.... Because it has been our experience that the Americans don't praise any Black man who is really working for the benefit of the Black man."

"It is impossible for capitalism to survive, primarily because the system of capitalism needs some blood to suck. Capitalism used to be like an eagle, but now it's more like a vulture. It used to be strong enough to go and suck anybody's blood whether they were strong or not. But now it has become more cowardly, like the vulture, and it can only suck the blood of the helpless."

I recommend the ads in the back of the book. Pathfinder Press is defined by a political goal, not commercial success. It aims to provide a platform for revolutionary leaders speaking in their own words. If you like one book, you will probably like others.

This is a book that should be on Oprah's list! Simply and beautifully written from the heart and deserves as much publicity as possible. Would make an incredible movie too!

This is a remarkable effort from unknown authors who not only put their heart and soul in writing this heart-rending story about my country, but were brave enough to have it published at a time when their lives could have been at risk. Mengistu Haile Mariam's brutal military revolution destroyed the lives of innocent people causing great suffering and humiliation. This is an excellent, well written tear-jerker that touched the core of my heart. A great read that keeps you glued until the very end.

I read this book some time back and am delighted to see it on the amazon web. A truly emotinally gripping adventure story of two different cultures blending into shared human experiences which often move to tears. I was hooked from the first page by its blend of interesting historical information always presented through the eyes of individuals from different cultures experiencing history in the making. A real page turner.

I actually bought this book while I was visiting the region. I found it good reading with a lot of information about the "Red Terror" period of which we heard relatively little in Europe. It is obvious the author is not a professional writer, but her involvement make up for the lack of stylistic sophistication.

I write this review on behalf of many who lived a good part of their lives in the heart of Africa and who share my views. Ethiopia has left a print in our hearts and now after almost 25 years, Lukas and Mellina Fanouris have managed, with their book 'Meskel', to bring to life some of the happy times and, albeit, some of the sad and painful days that spoilt a once beautiful country. Through some painful but very accurate descriptions, this couple have managed to record an era that will go down in history. For those of us that were fortunate enough to have 'escaped' in time, this is a true testimony of what happened when the leadership of a country fell into ruthless hands.

I love this book because policeman keep people safe. The fireman save people when there in any kind of accident or fire. I will suggest this book to my friends in the community.

Aset Baker Falealili

I like the book, because it shows the real life heros, that are usually unappreciated. It also shows the potential future of our children if they strive to achieve.




From: Michael Thompson

I ike this book because it's colorful.

Prince Alex

I think this book is amazing! I would tell my friend to read this book because the people in it have brown skin like me and they work in the community.
Jordan 5 years old
Culture and Language Academy of Success Inglewood, CA

I would tell my friend to read this book because it has people that look like me in it.
Monty 5 years old
Culture and Language Academy of Success Inglewood, CA

"The Music of Black Americans: A History shares some of the most important, yet fascinating events of black America".

Book was in mint condition! I was completely satisfied.
Kimberly :-)

Cosa consigliare ad un appassionato di musica afro-americana che, conoscendo un po' di inglese, decidesse di leggere qualcosa per cui valga veramente la pena di fare un po' di fatica?
Personalmente non avrei molti dubbi: credo che l'opera più completa che esiste sul mercato e che associa alla competenza una buona leggibilità anche per chi non è di madre lingua sia proprio questo.
Eileen Southern è Professor Emerita di Musica e Studi Afro-americani alla Harvard University di Boston, fondatrice ed editrice della rivista The Black Perspective in Music, che è stata pubblicata dal 1973 al 1990, e autrice, coautrice ed editrice di numerosi volumi sulla musica e la cultura afroamericana.
Il libro in questione, di 678 pagine, ripercorre tutta la storia della musica afroamericana dalle origini (1619) fino all'ultimo decennio del XX secolo. L'opera è suddivisa in 14 capitoli ed è completata con un'accurata bibliografia e discografia e un indice dei nomi e dei temi.
Il linguaggio è piano e comprensibile anche a chi non abbia una quotidiana familiarità con l'americano scritto.
Il libro della Southern affronta tutti i diversi generi musicali dei neri americani, dal canto in congregazione alla musica urbana del primo ottocento, dai worksongs ai traveling road shows, dal blues al ragtime, ecc..
Il taglio critico trasversale, che analizza l'emergere della musica nera all'interno della più ampia realtà sociologica e culturale dell'America Settentrionale, consente di cogliere con chiarezza le fasi dell'evolversi della cultura afroamericana, non solo musicale. Si tratta di un'opera più descrittiva che interpretativa, in tal senso più adatta a chi, volendo avviare la propria conoscenza del fenomeno musicale afroamericano, non è interessato all'analisi del significato profondo della musica e dei testi e a conoscere i diversi modelli interpretativi proposti dagli studiosi.
Fondamentale!

I am using this book for my masters thesis and I must say that I am very pleased. Ms. Southern did an excellent job researching the subject and the book is put together well. There is so much information involved!!! She starts from the VERY beginning and smoothly takes you through the ride of African-American music. Each section is very thorough. This text is perfect for anyone who is researching the subject or just wants to gain knowledge on this rich music. A+++

Have you ever heard about The National Negro Opera Company? Founded by Mary Cardwell Dawson, the company made its debut in Pittsburgh in 1941. This is but one of the fascinating things you can discover in this marvelous book. If you have an interest in music of whatever variety, your library is incomplete without this book.

This 3rd edition was done in 1997, thus it is quite up-to-date in its coverage of classical, jazz, rock, pop, gospel, swing, ragtime or blues. If it is music as practiced, performed or composed by people of color, this is where you'll find valuable information about it. Beginning with Africa and continuing to the present day, the four sections detail this rich history: Song in a Strange Land (1619-1775); Let My People Go (1776-1865); Blow Ye the Trumpet (1865-1919) and Lift Every Voice (1920-1996). The latter section is particularly informative reading with sections on Jazz, The Harlem Renaissance, and the Mid-Century Decades. It is these years in which artists of color finally took their well-deserved place on the musical stages of the world. Of course, they had been visible in their own world, and the popularity of such major composers as Scott Joplin and Duke Ellington allowed them to more or less effortlessly cross-over to the 'white' world. Lena Horne, the Mills Brothers, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway were--and still are--names to be reckoned with in any list of fabulous performers.

And then there was Marion Anderson who finally made her way to the Metropolitan Opera at the very end of her career, making way for Robert McFerrin, Leontyne Price, Jessye Norman, Simon Estes and George Shirley, who were very much pioneers in their respective repertoire. Today, thankfully, artists of color are not at all rare on the concert and/or opera stages of the world. But lest we forget the individual trauma these artists suffered in order to be able to compete in this way, we need to remember the past while we are glorying in the present. This book will, if you let it, open your mind and your ears to wonderful, glorious sounds, without which our world would be a much quieter and poorer place.

The author of this book is the renowned Eileen Southern (Professor Emerita of Music and Afro-American Studies at Harvard University) who is herself a musician as well as a writer, and is eminently qualified to illuminate The Music of Black Americans to the world in general.

Pages 613 through 646 comprise a rich bibliography and discography; the index takes up 41 pages. NO music lover should be without this invaluable reference work.

Book lived up to all expectations and is a valuable research resource. Postage was prompt and effective except at this end (Australia) the postal service provided delivery to destination by contract courier who left the article in an exposed situation and it was badly affected by heavy rain. Claims have been made on Australia Post - the book is barely usable and will not last because of the damage - none of which is attributable to Amazon.
Thank You
Barry HARRISON

Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck was the German general who handicapped allied forces during the First World War in East Africa. His exploits are legendary. With only several thousand men he defeated, and then harrassed, several hundered thousand British troops.

Lettow-Vorbeck recounts his experiences in this landmark book on guerilla warfare with proud satisfaction. Although his writing style is technical and antiquated, the historical significance of his account is monumental. Never suffering a major defeat, Lettow-Vorbeck only surrendered his highly skilled German and native troops after the war in Europe ended.

Lettow-Vorbeck gentlemanly remarked in his concluding paragraphs that "everyone seemed to think that we had preserved some part of Germany's soldierly traditions." Indeed he did.

I recommend that those interested in this book first try Byron Farwell's "The Great War in Africa".

A memoir of a forgotten war by a great man, should be read anyone who in uniform, who was in the service or as any interest in the military what so ever.

Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck was the German general who handicapped allied forces during the First World War in East Africa. His exploits are legendary. With only several thousand men he defeated, and then harrassed, several hundered thousand British troops.

Lettow-Vorbeck recounts his experiences in this landmark book on guerilla warfare with proud satisfaction. Although his writing style is technical and antiquated, the historical significance of his account is monumental. Never suffering a major defeat, Lettow-Vorbeck only surrendered his highly skilled German and native troops after the war in Europe ended.

Lettow-Vorbeck gentlemanly remarked in his concluding paragraphs that "everyone seemed to think that we had preserved some part of Germany's soldierly traditions." Indeed he did.

I recommend that those interested in this book first try Byron Farwell's "The Great War in Africa".

General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck was the commander of the Imperial German armed forces in East Africa during WWI. At the outbreak of hostilities he realized that he could not possible hope to defeat the combined military might of Britain, France, and Belgium in Africa so he chose to use his small force to threaten British interests in Africa and tie down a much larger number troops that might have been used more profitably at the decisive Western front. Almost completely isolated from Germany (he only received additional supplies a few times, and never after 1916), he nevertheless tied down more than 100,000 British (and allied) troops and led them around East Africa, inflicting several crushing defeats, and never being defeated himself. He initially defended the borders and threatened English colonies, later as the English manpower grew he evaded a pitched battle and fought a guerilla war surrendering several days after the armistice on the Western front.

This book is Gen. Lettow-Vorbeck's memoirs of the events of the Great War in Africa. This book contains a wealth of information about the military details of the campaign, but there is so much more. There are several points (beyond the strictly military) that may be of interest to potential readers. First, Gen. Lettow-Vorbeck is constantly concerned about the supply situation. Particularly later in the war, the German army is often on the move and cannot easily maintain and defend fixed supply depots, so one of the primary concerns about maneuver has to be the availability of food in the new district. It is said that amateur generals talk about tactics, real generals talk about logistics, a point brought home in this book. Reading through this book, I constantly thought about the campaigns of the Napoleonic wars in which the armies lived off the land. I don't know of any other military campaign in which growing crops and big game hunting played a critical role! Second, the General presents a can-do, duty first attitude throughout this book that is as relevent today as it was in 1914. The German soldiers were far from home in a backwater, but General Lettow-Vorbeck was determined that they would do their utmost for their cause and maintain a positive attitude at the same time. The General's sense of duty and positive spirit are written on every page. Third, this book presents an interesting slice of life into colonial Africa of the early 20th century and what life was like under German colonial rule. Americans often view the British as the most enlightened of the colonial rulers, but in fact the locals were probably much better off under the Germans (or French). There are some interesting insights into the relationships between the colonial government, the German immigrants, and the natives.

The reasons that I give this book only four stars are three-fold. First, the writing is extremely dry, and the maps are entirely inadequate and some are nearly illegible. I've read a great many dry military histories in my time (see my other reviews), but this one took some discipline and effort on my part to get through. There is an enormous amount of detail about Lt. Such-and-such being sent here, and Capt. So-and-so being sent there without any discussion of the higher level picture. Many of the places can't be found on the maps in the book, and many of the names of the towns have changed so that it is difficult to follow with a modern atlas. Second, the price is rather steep at $32 for a paperback. This is not a book that one will return to again and again and unless you are a hard-core aficiando of the Great War, this book is probably not worth spending that kind of money on (borrow it from the library). Third, you really need to already know a fair amount about the Great War in Africa to put this work into context. Do not read this as an intro. I knew very little about the events of the war in Africa before approaching this book, and I've now bought Farwell's work to fill in the gaps, but I feel that I would have been much better off having read Farwell (or a similar text) first. You should read this book to learn about Gen. Lettow-Vorbeck's view of his role in the campaign, not to learn about the campaign itself.

The bottom line is that this is an absolute must read for any serious student of the Great War in Africa, you cannot possibly claim to be well read about this era without having read von Lettow-Vorbeck's memoirs. However, I would not strongly recommend this book for the more casual reader, as I've described in detail above. The short five-star reviews given to this book do not, in my view, adequately describe this work.

I've been using this guide in Southern Africa for the last 6 years, and it's never let me down. Great book for those traveling to the region, but keep in mind that most guides at the wildlife parks will already have a copy, so you could save the weight and space in your luggage.

Have not actually been to southern Africa yet, but plan to do so next summer. I have been an avid birder for 3 decades, and it looks like the format of this book will be very useful for my trip.

this is the best bird guide for birds of the region. I have carefully looked over others on the market.

Excellent book with very good graphics and organization. Just what is needed to confirm your observations or identify your sightings.

Now in a fully revised eighth edition, Newman's Birds Of Southern Africa is a field guide to 125 species of Southern African birds illustrated throughout with realistic full-color artwork. Each species has an entry with a map indicating their distribution, their common and scientific name, a brief paragraph with a basic physical description and notes on distinguishing characteristics, and a gorgeous, realistic color illustration. A revised introduction teaches the reader step-by-step how to use the guide to quickly identify avian species, and a glossary, index and birdwatching checklist round out this first-class resource. A treat for bird lovers due to the top-quality artistry alone, as well as being a quintessential identification guide, Newman's Birds Of Southern Africa is enthusiastically recommended for amateur birdwatchers and professional biologists alike.

Bradt's Travel Guide Nigeria is the best. Really, I've been in and out Nigeria since 2000--working in Abuja the capital for 2 yrs--and on business. Hmm, yes, this book illustrates in lived experience, irreverance, and clear prose, the fun and misery that is Nigeria. The authors have Lagos, Abuja, and Kano spot on. The other cities are great and well researched. Really, I've spent seven yrs living in W. Africa, and hats off to Nigeria for always making life interesting; the book illustrates why you need to visit the country, but the pitfalls and costs involved. Buy the book, if you plan on travelling to Nigeria, or for a good history lesson, fun read, or just to add to your book collection.

I recently went on a medical mission trip to Nigeria. I bought this book to learn about the basics of the country, including culture, politics and religion. I found this to be a very well researched book with excellent information, presented in an easy to read fashion. Most notable, however, is the fact that this is the first book in its class. There are no other travel publications devoted to Nigeria. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is planning to travel to this part of the world.

Nigeria tends to get short-shrift in the travel guidebooks; rarely is it featured, and it is commonly maligned. This even-handed treatment of Africa's most populous country dishes out the treats that Nigeria has in store for the traveller as well as the negatives. In short, if one exercises common sense and stays alert to his surroundings, Nigeria can be a rewarding experience. The author is a fearless youngster eager to try everything, but also allows for an older person's expatriated sensibilities, understanding that not every traveller wants to camp or lodge in youth hostels (a common ailment in the Lonely Planet travel serials). She finds the warmth in the people that is a common Nigerian trait, and allows the reader to experience that warmth with her. There is no cold, clinical distance from her subject(s). This book is well worth the investment.

As a recipient of numerous email correspondences from immensely wealthy Nigerian heirs and heiresses, I figured that something must be going right in Nigeria, especially Lagos. So, having just sent an wealthy son of a King Obi Obi $10,000 (US), in exchange for some $450 million (US), I wanted to be the first to hop a plane to Nigeria to meet this fine fellow face to face. Particularly after the funds did not show up in my account as he had promised.

Let me tell you that this guidebook led me down the dusty, dirty, rebel-infested roads of Nigeria like I would imagine no other guidebook could. In no time I was lead straight to the Internet Cafe where I was shocked to find several sons and daughters of Kings and wealthy, deceased oilmen all writing to foreign potential investors.

My $10,000 (US) is long gone, and the millions upon millions never showed up, but my guide through Lagos was complete thanks to this book. If you plan on going, pick up yours today!

I have lived in Nigeria now for over seven years and I met Lizzie when she came to Lagos to write the book. Within the space of a few weeks, Lizzie has come to understand Nigeria and the Nigerian people in a way that many long term residents of my acquaintance have not. Time and time again when i was reading the book I found myself recognising places and situations exactly as I had experienced them myself. She writes with great empathy for her subject and tells it as it is, the good and the bad. I showed it to a couple of my Nigerian friends and they loved it and agreed with almost all Lizzie had to say. This book is quite simply a must for anyone living in or visiting Nigeria, as well as being a cracking good read.
Alan Parke