Africa

Africa Book List

A compelling study of the origins and trajectory of one of the legendary black uprisings against apartheid, Theatres of Struggle and the End of Apartheid draws on insights gained from the literature on collective action and social movements. It delves into the Alexandra Rebellion of 1986 to reveal its inner workings.Belinda

Cover of 'Slavery and Reform in West Africa'

Slavery and Reform in West Africa
Toward Emancipation in Nineteenth-Century Senegal and the Gold Coast
By Trevor R. Getz

A series of transformations, reforms, and attempted abolitions of slavery form a core narrative of nineteenth-century coastal West Africa. As the region’s role in Atlantic commercial networks underwent a gradual transition from principally that of slave exporter to producer of “legitimate goods” and dependent markets, institutions of slavery became battlegrounds in which European abolitionism, pragmatic colonialism, and indigenous agency clashed.In

Cover of 'The Children of Africa Confront AIDS'

The Children of Africa Confront AIDS
From Vulnerability to Possibility
Edited by Arvind Singhal and Steve Howard

The Children of Africa Confront AIDS depicts the reality of how African children deal with the AIDS epidemic, and how the discourse of their vulnerability affects acts of coping and courage. It describes HIV/AIDS in its macro context of the continent’s democratization movements and in its national contexts of civil conflict, rural poverty, youth organizations, and agencies working on the ground.

Cover of 'Social History and African Environments'

Social History and African Environments
Edited by William Beinart and JoAnn McGregor

The explosion of interest in African environmental history has stimulated research and writing on a wide range of issues facing many African nations.This collection represents some of the finest studies to date. The general topics include African environmental ideas and practices; colonial science, the state and African responses; and settlers and Africans’ culture and nature.

Cover of 'Hostels, Sexuality, and the Apartheid Legacy'

Hostels, Sexuality, and the Apartheid Legacy
Malevolent Geographies
By Glen S. Elder

In the last decade, the South African state has been transformed dramatically, but the stubborn, menacing geography of apartheid still stands in the way of that country’s visions of change. Environmentally degraded old homelands still scar the rural geography of South Africa.Formerly segregated, now gated, neighborhoods still inhibit free movement. Hostels, Sexuality, and the Apartheid Legacy is a study of another such space, the converted “male” migrant worker hostel.Professor

Cover of 'Political Power in Pre-Colonial Buganda'

Political Power in Pre-Colonial Buganda
Economy, Society, and Warfare in the Nineteenth Century
By Richard Reid

Blessed with fertile and well-watered soil, East Africa’s kingdom of Buganda supported a relatively dense population and became a major regional power by the mid-nineteenth century. This complex and fascinating state has also long been in need of a thorough study that cuts through the image of autocracy and military might.Political

Cover of 'Christian Missionaries and the State in the Third World'

Christian Missionaries and the State in the Third World
Edited by Hölger Bernt Hansen and Michael Twaddle

The fact that many of the leaders in the Third World were educated by Christian missionaries is a decisive factor in world politics today. Christian Missionaries and the State in the Third World provides examples of how these missionaries contributed to the construction, destruction, and reconstruction of state structures in Africa and the Caribbean, through educational activity and attempts at healing and trade, as well as by preaching, prayer, and other sacramental endeavors.In

Witchcraft Dialogues
Anthropological and Philosophical Exchanges
Edited by George Clement Bond and Diane M. Ciekawy

Witchcraft Dialogues analyzes the complex manner in which human beings construct, experience, and think about the “occult.” It brings together anthropologists, philosophers, and sociologists, from diverse social and cultural backgrounds, to engage the metaphysical properties of “witchcraft” and “sorcery” and to explore their manifestations in people’s lived experiences.While

Empire State-Building
War and Welfare in Kenya, 1925–1952
By Joanna Lewis

This history of administrative thought and practice in colonial Kenya looks at the ways in which white people tried to engineer social change.It asks four questions: - Why was Kenya’s welfare operation so idiosyncratic and spartan compared with that of other British colonies? - Why did a transformation from social welfare to community development produce further neglect of the very poor? - Why was there no equivalent to the French tradition of community medicine?

Cover of 'Ayi Kwei Armah, Radical Iconoclast'

Ayi Kwei Armah, Radical Iconoclast
Pitting the Imaginary Worlds against the Actual
By Ode Ogede

Ghanaian novelist, essayist, and short-story writer Ayi Kwei Armah has won international recognition as one of Africa’s most articulate writers. In this book, Ode Ogede argues that previous critics have misinterpreted the aesthetic and literary influences that have shaped Armah’s artistic vision and overlooked his most significant and valuable contribution to the problems of writing “outside the prison-house of conventional English.”Professor

A 2000 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title

Cover of 'The History of Islam in Africa'

The History of Islam in Africa
Edited by Nehemia Levtzion and Randall L. Pouwels

The history of the Islamic faith on the continent of Africa spans fourteen centuries. For the first time in a single volume, The History of Islam in Africa presents a detailed historic mapping of the cultural, political, geographic, and religious past of this significant presence on a continent-wide scale. Bringing together two dozen leading scholars, this comprehensive work treats the historical development of the religion in each major region and examines its effects.Without

Cover of 'African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya, 1900–1950'

African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya, 1900–1950
By Tabitha Kanogo

This book explores the history of African womanhood in colonial Kenya. By focussing on key sociocultural institutions and practices around which the lives of women were organized, and on the protracted debates that surrounded these institutions and practices during the colonial period, it investigates the nature of indigenous, mission, and colonial control of African women.The

African Apocalypse
The Story of Nontetha Nkwenkwe, a Twentieth-Century South African Prophet
By Robert R. Edgar and Hilary Sapire

The devastating influenza epidemic of 1918 ripped through southern Africa. In its aftermath, revivalist and millenarian movements sprouted. Prophets appeared bearing messages of resistance, redemption, and renewal. African Apocalypse: The Story of Nontetha Nkwenkwe, A Twentieth-Century Prophet is the remarkable story of one such prophet, a middle-aged Xhosa woman named Nontetha.

Herero Heroes
A Socio-Political History of the Herero of Namibia, 1890–1923
By Jan-Bart Gewald

The Herero-German war led to the destruction of Herero society. Yet Herero society reemerged, reorganizing itself around the structures and beliefs of the German colonial army and Rhenish missionary activity. This book describes the manner in which the Herero of Namibia struggled to maintain control over their own freedom in the face of advancing German colonialism.

Cover of 'East African Expressions of Christianity'

East African Expressions of Christianity
Edited by Thomas Spear and Isaria N. Kimambo

Christianity has been spread in Africa by Africans. It is the story of peoples seizing control of their own spiritual destinies—rather than the commonplace notion that the continent’s Christian churches represent colonial and capitalist powers that helped subdue Africans to European domination. In short, once introduced, Christianity took on a powerful life of its own and spun out of the control of those who would retain ownership of doctrine and practice.

Confronting Leviathan
Mozambique Since Independence
By Margaret Hall and Tom Young

Confronting Leviathan describes Mozambique’s attempt to construct a socialist society in one African country on the back of an anti-colonial struggle for national independence. In explaining the failure of this effort the authors suggest reasons why the socialist vision of the ruling party, Frelimo, lacked resonance with Mozambican society. They also document in detail South Africa’s attempts to destabilize the country, even to the extent of sponsoring the Renamo insurgents.

Cover of 'Gender Violence and the Press'

Gender Violence and the Press
The St. Kizito Story
By H. Leslie Steeves

On the night of Saturday, July 13, 1991, a mob of male students at the St. Kizito Mixed Secondary School in Meru, Kenya, attacked their female classmates in a dormitory. Nineteen schoolgirls were killed in the melee and more than 70 were raped or gang raped.The explanations in the press for the attack included a rebellion by male students over administrative mismanagement, academic stress, cultural norms for the Meru ethnic group, and victim characteristics (as assumed in rape myths).

Cover of 'African Islam and Islam in Africa'

African Islam and Islam in Africa
Encounters between Sufis and Islamists
Edited by Eva Evers Rosander and David Westerlund

This interdisciplinary book focuses primarily on Sufism (“African Islam”), Islamism (“Islam in Africa”) and, in particular, on the interaction between these different forms of Islam. Previously, much interest has been concentrated on the critical Islamist views of Western or Western–influenced ideas and patterns of life, while the intra–Muslim relationship between Sufis and Islamists has attracted less attention.Some

Cover of 'The African Experience with Higher Education'

The African Experience with Higher Education
By J. F. Ade Ajayi, Lameck K. H. Goma, and G. Ampah Johnson

There have been institutions of higher learning for centuries in Africa, but the phenomenal growth has taken place in the last fifty years, first in the later days of colonialism and then in the heady days of independence and commodity boom. Without them, there would have been no development.The three highly distinguished authors have written the first comprehensive assessment of universities and higher education in Africa south of the Sahara.

Jua Kali Kenya
Change and Development in an Informal Economy, 1970–1995
By Kenneth King

Kenya was where the term “informal sector” was first used in 1971. During the 1980s the term “jua kali”—in Swahili “hot sun”—came to be used of the informal sector artisans, such as carworkers and metalworkers, who were working under the hot sun because of a lack of premises. Gradually it came to refer to anybody in self-employment. And in 1988 the government set up the Jua Kali Development Programme.In

The Decolonization of Africa
By David Birmingham

This bold, popularizing synthesis presents a readily accessible introduction to one of the major themes of twentieth-century world history. Between 1922, when self-government was restored to Egypt, and 1994, when nonracial democracy was achieved in South Africa, 54 new nations were established in Africa.

To Kill a Man’s Pride
And Other Short Stories from South Africa
Edited by Marcus Ramogale

The second edition of To Kill a Man’s Pride builds on the success of the previous edition of this anthology of South African short stories by retaining most of stories, but also featuring more women writers and new male voice, to make it more representative.The milieu remains unambiguously South African, with some stories set in rural areas such as the village, farm or dorp, and others in urban centers such as the big city, suburb or township.The

Cover of 'The History and Conservation of Zanzibar Stone Town'

The History and Conservation of Zanzibar Stone Town
By Abdul Sheriff

Zanzibar Stone Town presents the problems of conservation in its most acute forms. Should it be fossilized for the tourists? Or should it grow for the benefit of the inhabitants? Can ways be found to accommodate conflicting social and economic pressures?For its size, Zanzibar, like Venice, occupies a remarkably large romantic space in world imagination. Swahili civilization on these spice islands goes back to the earliest centuries of the Islamic era.

Cover of 'The Migrant Farmer in the History of Cape Colony, 1657–1842'

The Migrant Farmer in the History of Cape Colony, 1657–1842
By P. J. van der Merwe

Petrus Johannes Van der Merwe wrote three of the most significant books on the history of South Africa before he was 35 years old. His trilogy, of which The Migrant Farmer is the first volume, has become a classic that no student of Cape colonial history of the seventeenth, eighteenth or nineteenth century can ignore.

Apartheid’s Genesis
Edited by Philip Bonner, Peter Delius, and Deborah Posel

Apartheid is synonymous in most people’s minds with a virulent form of racial ideology and social engineering. Yet ideologies of racial domination and segregation long preceded apartheid, and cannot by themselves explain the shift in racial domination that apartheid involved.Focusing on the period 1935–1962, this collection explores the dynamics which molded apartheid.

A Bed Called Home
Life in the Migrant Labour Hostels of Cape Town
By Mamphela Ramphele
· Photography by Roger Meintjes

In the last three years the migrant labor hostels of South Africa, particularly those in the Transvaal, have gained international notoriety as theaters of violence. For many years they were hidden from public view and neglected by the white authorities. Now, it seems, hostel dwellers may have chosen physical violence to draw attention to the structural violence of their appalling conditions of life.

Unhappy Valley
Conflict in Kenya and Africa - Book Two: Violence and Ethnicity
By Bruce Berman and John Lonsdale

This long-awaited book is a considerable revision in the understanding of the history of colonial Kenya and, more widely, colonialism in Africa. There is a substantial amount of new work and this is interlocked with shared areas of concern that the authors have been exploring since 1976.The authors investigate major themes.

Unhappy Valley
Conflict in Kenya and Africa - Book One: State and Class
By Bruce Berman and John Lonsdale

Unhappy Valley
Conflict in Kenya and Africa - Books One and Two
By Bruce Berman and John Lonsdale

Cover of 'The Political Economy of Health in Africa'

The Political Economy of Health in Africa
Edited by Toyin Falola and Dennis Ityavyar

This book examines the major phases in the history of health services in Africa and treats health as an integral aspect of the deepening crisis in Africa’s underdevelopment. One important thesis is that Western delivery systems have made health care less accessible for most people.

Faces in the Revolution
The Psychological Effects of Violence on Township Youth in South Africa
By Gill Straker

One of South Africa’s most serious problems is the large number of youths in the black townships who have been exposed to an incredible depth and complexity of trauma. Not only have they lived through severe poverty, the deterioration of family and social structures, and an inferior education system, but they have also been involved in catastrophic levels of violence, both as victims and as perpetrators. What are the effects of the milieu? What future is there for this generation?

The Changing Past
Trends in South African Historical Writing
By Ken Smith

E.H. Carr said: “Before you study the history, study the historian.” Written history often tells us more about the historian’s own times than it does of the times about which he is writing. The historians and the way in which each generation has rewritten history in the light of its own preoccupations is the subject of The Changing Past. This is the first book-length survey in English that covers all the main trends in South African historiography.

Cover of 'Economic & Social Origins of Mau Mau, 1945–1953'

Economic & Social Origins of Mau Mau, 1945–1953
By David Throup

This story of Kenya in the decade before the outbreak of the Mau Mau emergency presents an integrated view of imperial government as well as examining the social and economic causes of the Kikuyu revolt. Dr. Throup combines traditional Imperial History with its emphasis on the high politics of “The Official Mind” in the Colonial Office or in Government House with the new African historiography that concentrates on the people themselves.Sir

Cover of 'Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905–1963'

Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905–1963
By Tabitha Kanogo

This is a study of the genesis, evolution, adaptation and subordination of the Kikuyu squatter labourers, who comprised the majority of resident labourers on settler plantations and estates in the Rift Valley Province of the White Highlands. These squatters played a crucial role in the initial build-up of the events that led to the outbreak of the Mau Mau war.

Africa

Africa Book List

See Also