From the Publisher:This book explores Africa's involvement in the Atlantic world from the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries. It focuses especially on the causes and consequences of the slave trade, in Africa, in Europe, and in the New World. Prior to 1680, Africa's economic and military strength enabled African elites to determine how trade with Europe developed. Thornton examines the dynamics which made slaves so necessary to European colonizers. This edition contains a new chapter extending the story into the eighteenth century.
From the Publisher:This book explores Africa's involvement in the Atlantic world from the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries. It focuses especially on the causes and consequences of the slave trade, in Africa, in Europe, and in the New World. Prior to 1680, Africa's economic and military strength enabled African elites to determine how trade with Europe developed. Thornton examines the dynamics which made slaves so necessary to European colonizers. This edition contains a new chapter extending the story into the eighteenth century.
From the PublisherThis edited collection, written by leading specialists, deals with nineteenth-century commercial transition in West Africa: the ending of the Atlantic slave trade and development of alternative forms of "legitimate" trade. Approaching the subject from an African perspective, the case studies consider the effects of transition on the African societies involved, and provide new insights into the history of precolonial Africa and the slave trade, origins of European imperialism, and longer term issues of economic development in Africa.
From Library Journal"Readers will find his essential humaneness, intelligence, and lack of malice as impressive as his eloquence and compelling arguments," said LJ's reviewer (LJ 2/15/79) of this volume combining articles and interviews that Biko first wrote under the nom de plume Frank Talk. It includes a preface by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Book Description"The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed." Like all of Steve Biko's writings, those words testify to the passion, courage, and keen insight that made him one of the most powerful figures in South Africa's struggle against apartheid. They also reflect his conviction that black people in South Africa could not be liberated until they united to break their chains of servitude, a key tenet of the Black Consciousness movement that he helped found.I Write What I Like contains a selection of Biko's writings from 1969, when he became the president of the South African Students' Organization, to 1972, when he was prohibited from publishing. The collection also includes a preface by Archbishop Desmond Tutu; an introduction by Malusi and Thoko Mpumlwana, who were both involved with Biko in the Black Consciousness movement; a memoir of Biko by Father Aelred Stubbs, his longtime pastor and friend; and a new foreword by Professor Lewis Gordon.Biko's writings will inspire and educate anyone concerned with issues of racism, postcolonialism, and black nationalism.
From the PublisherThe book examines the class dimension of the Nigerian political crisis since 1960, when this culturally diverse nation assumed the stature of independent nationhood from the British imperial state. The writer posits that the ruling elite, whether constituted in the military or the civil society, consistently used ethnicity to secure its own class domination in the absence of a coherent class ideology. The author argues that the military transition agenda to a "democratic state" is nothing more than a ploy by the military elite and its civilian partners to perpetuate themselves in power in spite of international opposition.
From the PublisherIn a country rich with diamonds, gold, copper, uranium, oil, and timber, the average worker was reduced to a living income of $120 a year under the rule of Mobutu. From 1965 to 1997, his regime bled the country of some $4 billion. This is both a brilliant journalistic account and a grimly humorous story set amid the heart of the apocalypse—a nation plunged back to the Iron Age, whose citizens miraculously continue to survive.
From the PublisherThere is a dearth of books on African industry. This one helps remedy such paucity. Unlike other books on industry, it introduces the reader to the political, social, and economic conditions of the continent, thus providing the reader with background setting. This is an important feature of the book for the majority of readers whose exposure to the African situation might be limited. The rest of the book deals with the core subject matter, manufacturing. It discusses natural and human resources, infrastructure and progress in improving constraints on industrial development; reviews industrial development; identifies industrial priorities; suggests options for implementing the priorities; and presents strategies for the development of manufacturing." "The book is a gold mine of information (for a region where information is hard to come by) for potential investors, governments, consulting firms, R&D institutions, universities and individuals interested in African affairs.
From the PublisherBecause of the population growth in Africa, maintaining past trends means degrading human dignity for the majority, with a rural population surviving on intolerable toil, disastrous land scarcity, and worsening urban crisis, with more shanty towns, congested roads, unemployed, beggars, crime, and misery alongside the few unashamedly demonstrating greater conspicuous consumption, shopping at national department stores fill with luxury imports.
Publisher: Nation Books
Six weeks after 9/11, the USA Patriot Act was rushed through Congress. This 300-page bill gave sweeping new powers to the FBI, CIA, and Immigration and Naturalization Service, permitting them to wiretap telephone conversations, read E-mails, and arrest, detain, and deport suspicious individuals. It's a Free Country examines the frightening consequences of the Patriot Act. Voices from across the political spectrum are represented, from civil libertarians of the left-Ira Glasser, Howard Zinn, Tom Hayden, and Michael Moore-to conservative critics of overreaching government, including former U.S. Representative Bob Barr of Georgia and Republican activist Paul Weyrich. Also included are original works by Steve Earle, Ani DiFranco, and Matt Groening. As Cornel West writes in his foreword: "The best way to pay homage to those innocent fellow human beings who were viciously killed on September 11, 2001 ... is to insure that their loved ones-as well as ourselves-live in an American democracy forever vigilant in its quest for freedom, and forever vigorous in its efforts to secure our precious liberties alongside our safety." A thoughtful and timely anthology, this edition has been completely updated.
From the Publisher
In the 1880's, as the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium seized for himself the vast and largely unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River. Carrying out a genocidal plundering of the Congo, he looted its rubber, brutalized its people, and ultimately slashed the population by ten million--all while shrewdly cultivating his international reputation as a great humanitarian. Heroic efforts to expose this secret crime finally led to the first great international human rights movement of the 20th century in which everyone from Mark Twain to the Archbishop of Canterbury participated.
King Leopold's Ghost is the haunting portrait of a megalomaniac of monstrous proportions, a man as cunning as any of the great Shakespearean villains. It is also the deeply involving story of those who fought Leopold and of the explorers, missionaries, and rubber workers who witnessed the horror. With a cast of characters richer than any novelist could invent, this book will permanently inscribe these too long forgotten events on the conscience of the West.
From the Publisher:
Fifty years ago, as Europe's colonial powers withdrew, Africa moved with enormous hope and fervor toward democracy and economic independence. Today, most African countries are effectively bankrupt, prone to civil strife, subject to dictatorial rule, weighed down by debt, and heavily dependent on Western assistance for survival. What went wrong? Focusing on the key personalities, events and themes of the independence era, Martin Meredith's magisterial history seeks to explore and explain the myriad problems that Africa has faced in the past half-century, and faces still. Acclaimed by reviewers and readers from across the political spectrum, The Fate of Africa is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how it came to this - and what, if anything, is to be done.
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