Writing Women's Worlds - Bedouin Stories by Lila Abu-Lughod

$16.00 NZD

Category: Africa | Reading Level: ery good

Lila Abu-Lughod draws on anthropological and feminist insights to construct a critical ethnography of a small Awlad 'Ali Bedouin community in Egypt. She explores how the telling of stories of everyday life challenges the power of anthropological theory to render adequately the lives of others and the wa y feminist theory appropriates Third World women. ...Show more

The Boer War by Thomas Pakenham

$14.00 NZD

Category: Military | Reading Level: very good

The Boers of South Africa responded to Britain's annexation of the gold-and-diamond-rich Transvaal region by declaring war on October 11, 1899. The English believed the fighting would be over by Christmas -- never dreaming they were on the brink of one of the longest, bloodiest, most costly and humiliat ing military campaigns in their history.Mammoth in scope and scholarship, as vivid, fast-moving and breathtakingly compelling as the finest fiction. Thomas Pakenham's The Boer War is the definitive account of this extraordinary conflict -- a war precipitated by greed and marked by almost inconcievable blundering and brutalities . . . and whose shattering repercussions can be felt to this very day. ...Show more

Egypt in the Era of Hosni Mubarak, 1981-2011 by Galal Amin; David Wilmsen (Translator)

$20.00 NZD

Category: Africa | Reading Level: very good

Galal Amin once again turns his attention to the shaping of Egyptian society and the Egyptian state in the half-century and more that has elapsed since the Nasserite revolution, this time focusing on the era of President Mubarak.He looks at corruption, poverty, the plight of the middle class, and of cou rse, the economy, and directs his penetrating gaze toward the Mubarak regime's uneasy relationship with the relatively free press it encouraged, the vexing issue of presidential succession, and Egypt's relations with the Arab world and the United States. Addressing such themes from the perspective of an active participant in Egyptian intellectual life throughout the era, Galal Amin portrays the Mubarak regime's stance in the domestic and international arenas as very much a product of history, which, while not exonerating the regime, certainly helps to explain it. ...Show more

Surviving the Lens - Photographic Studies of South and East African People, 1870-1920 by Michael Stevenson; Michael Graham-Stewart

$65.00 NZD

Category: Photography | Reading Level: very good

Historians, public galleries and collectors have in recent years started re-viewing photographs of African people taken during the colonial period for their aesthetic merits as well as their historical significance.

The World's Most Dangerous Place: Inside the Outlaw State of Somalia by James Fergusson

$12.00 NZD

Category: Africa | Reading Level: very good

Award-winning journalist James Fergusson is among the few to have witnessed at first hand the devastating reality of life in the failed and desperate state of Somalia. This corner of the world has long been seen as the rotting and charred heart of Africa: a melting pot of crime, corruption, poverty, fam ine and civil war. And in recent years, whilst Somalia's lucrative piracy industry has grabbed the headlines, a darker, much deeper threat has come of age: the Al Qaida-linked militants Al Shabaab, and the dawn of a new phase in the global war on terror. Yet, paradoxically, Somalia's star is brightening, as forms of business, law enforcement and local politics begin to establish themselves, and members of the vast Somali diaspora return to their homeland. Fergusson takes us to the heart of the struggle, meeting everyone from politicians, pirates, extremists and mercenaries to aid workers, civilians and refugees. He gives a unique account of a country ravaged by war, considers what the future might hold for a generation who have grown up knowing little else and exposes the reality of life in this hard, often forgotten land. ...Show more

Diamonds, Gold And War: The Making of South Africa by Martin Meredith

$20.00 NZD

Category: Africa | Reading Level: very good

Markets and States in Tropical Africa - The Political Basis of Agricultural Policies by Robert H. Bates

$10.00 NZD

Category: Africa | Reading Level: good

Following independence, most countries in Africa sought to develop, but their governments pursued policies that actually undermined their rural economies. Examining the origins of Africa's "growth tragedy," Markets and States in Tropical Africa has for decades shaped the thinking of practitioners and sc holars alike. Robert H. Bates's analysis now faces a challenge, however: the revival of economic growth on the continent. In this edition, Bates provides a new preface and chapter that address the seeds of Africa's recovery and discuss the significance of the continent's success for the arguments of this classic work. ...Show more

Africans - The History of a Continent by John Iliffe

$14.00 NZD

Category: Africa | Series: African Studies | Reading Level: good

In a vast and all-embracing study of Africa, from the origins of mankind to the present day, John Iliffe refocuses its history on the peopling of an environmentally hostile continent. Africans have been pioneers struggling against disease and nature, but during the last century their inherited culture h as interacted with medical progress to produce the most rapid population growth the world has ever seen. This new edition incorporates genetic and linguistic findings, throwing light on early African history and summarises research that has transformed the study of the Atlantic slave trade. It also examines the consequences of a rapidly growing youthful population, the hopeful but uncertain democratisation and economic recovery of the early twenty-first century, the containment of the AIDS epidemic and the turmoil within Islam that has produced the Arab Spring. Africans: The History of a Continent is thus a single story binding modern men and women to their earliest human ancestors. ...Show more

The Mlungu in Africa: Art from The Colonial Period 1840-1940 by Michael Stevenson and Michael Graham-Stewart

$85.00 NZD

Category: Art | Reading Level: near fine

South Sudan - From Revolution to Independence by Matthew Arnold; Matthew LeRiche

$12.00 NZD

Category: Africa | Reading Level: very good

In July 2011 the Republic of South Sudan achieved independence, concluding what had been Africa's longest running civil war. The process leading to independence was driven by the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement, a primarily Southern rebel force and political movement intent on bringingabout the refor med unity of the whole Sudan. Through the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005, a six year peace process unfolded in the form of an interim period premised upon 'making unity attractive' for the Sudan.A failed exercise, it culminated in an almost unanimous vote for independence by Southerners in a referendum held in January 2011. Violence has continued since, and a daunting possibility for South Sudan has arisen - to have won independence only to descend into its own civil war, with the regimein Khartoum aiding and abetting factionalism to keep the new state weak and vulnerable. Achieving a durable peace will be a massive challenge, and resolving the issues that so inflamed Southerners historically - unsupportive governance, broad feelings of exploitation and marginalisation andfragile ethnic politics - will determine South Sudan's success or failure at statehood. A story of transformation and of victory against the odds, this book reviews South Sudan's modern history as a contested region and assesses the political, social and security dynamics that will shape itsimmediate future as Africa's newest independent state. ...Show more

The Fate of Sudan - The Origins and Consequences of a Flawed Peace Process by John Young

$12.00 NZD

Category: Africa | Reading Level: very good

In 2005, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) ended one of Africa's most devastating civil wars and set the stage for the partition of Sudan, Africa's largest country. One of the most important peace agreements in African history, it has had decisive consequences for the entire Horn of Africa. Yet to date there has been little rigorous analysis as to why the parties signed the CPA, what strategies they adopted having signed the agreement, and the political consequences of state partition actually are. John Young argues forcefully that the birth of the independent state of Southern Sudan and the threat of further dismemberment of a rump northern Sudan are due to the failure of the approaches and ideologies of the main Sudanese parties, as well as a deeply flawed US-backed peace process that excludes civil society and other rebel groups.Written by someone directly involved in the Sudanese election and referendum processes, and featuring a wealth of first-hand evidence, this is a crucial examination of a topic of intense political and media interest. ...Show more

The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu: The Race to Reach the Fabled City and the Fantastic Effort to Save its Past by Charlie English

$16.00 NZD

Category: Books About Books | Reading Level: very good

Two tales of a city: The historical race to reach one of the world's most mythologized places, and the story of how a contemporary band of archivists and librarians, fighting to save its ancient manuscripts from destruction at the hands of al Qaeda, added another layer to the legend. To Westerners, the name "Timbuktu" long conjured a tantalising paradise, an African El Dorado where even the slaves wore gold. Beginning in the late eighteenth century, a series of explorers gripped by the fever for "discovery" tried repeatedly to reach the fabled city. But one expedition after another went disastrously awry, succumbing to attack, the climate, and disease. Timbuktu was rich in another way too. A medieval centre of learning, it was home to tens of thousands of ancient manuscripts, on subjects ranging from religion to poetry, law to history, pharmacology, and astronomy. When al-Qaeda-linked jihadists surged across Mali in 2012, threatening the existence of these precious documents, a remarkable thing happened: a team of librarians and archivists joined forces to spirit the manuscripts into hiding. Relying on extensive research and firsthand reporting, Charlie English expertly twines these two suspenseful strands into a fascinating account of one of the planet's extraordinary places, and the myths from which it it has become inseparable. ...Show more