MU Libraries New Books: History - Africa

About the new book list

11/4/2009

The RSS feeds for the new books list is updated every Wednesday and contains a list of books added to the Ellis Library collection for the last six weeks. The titles are grouped by call number classification, and are listed by week and alphabetically by title.

Books for the most recent weeks are currently on the New Books Shelves inside the north entrance of Ellis Library. They can be checked out.

Colonialism and violence in Nigeria / Toyin Falola. (11/4/2009)

11/4/2009

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Review

"Colonial violence treated from the point of view of the African victims/colonized, not from the self-serving perspective of European/British conquerors and colonizers." -- Felix Ekechi, Kent State University

"Well-researched, well-written with its richly textured and nuanced analysis, it is the first study to attempt a general and cohesive overview of the connections between violence and imperialism in colonial Nigeria." -- Funso Afolayan, University of New Hampshire

Call #: DT515.7 .F356 2009

Balancing written history with oral tradition : the legacy of the Songhoy people / Hassimi Oumarou Maïga. (10/28/2009)

10/28/2009

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Review

The reinterpretation, by native Africans, of the history of their continent and its myriad societies, in their extreme complexity, is a necessary and inescapable evolution of contemporary African Studies. Therefore, Balancing Written History with Oral Tradition: The Legacy of the Songhoy People, by Malian Professor Hassimi O. Maïga, is a work that deserves the widest and earliest possible diffusion. Dense and original, touching and uncompromising, it required a great deal of research and reflection. It is not easy to undermine in one single book, as Maïga has done, as many simplistic interpretations, when not outright lies, as are current regarding the history of African societies, and in particular that of the Islamicized Songhoy people. This work no doubt has a place in academia as well as in the lay world.

- Carlos Moore, Ph.D, Ethnologist, Author of The Blacks in Africa (CCAA/UCLA/1989) and Co-Author of African Presence in the Americas (African World Press, New Jersey, 1995/USA).

Call #: DT532.27 .M35 2010

Christianity and genocide in Rwanda / Timothy Longman. (10/28/2009)

10/28/2009

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Review

"This book is far more than a profoundly moving and convincing account of one of the late-twentieth century's defining events. It is indispensable for scholars in fields as diverse as conflict and genocide studies, civil society, and religion generally. Longman's analysis of Rwanda's churches as important repositories of power, and thus inherently political organizations, capable both of buttressing authority and of challenging it, constitutes a huge theoretical advance in conceptualizing the role of religion in public life." - Paul Gifford, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

"The massive involvement of Christian communities in the killing of Tutsi is one of the most disturbing and controversial questions in the background of the Rwandan bloodbath. In this path-breaking inquest, Tim Longman brilliantly illuminates this long-neglected aspect of the Rwandan tragedy. His book stands as a major contribution to our understanding of the less than edifying role of the Church in Rwanda and other genocidal settings." - Rene Lemarchand, Emeritus Professor, University of Florida

"This thoughtful study significantly advances our understanding of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. In a bold and nuanced analysis, Longman shows how and why churches linked to the state and imbued with 'a conservative, hierarchical, bigoted version of Christianity' gave moral sanction to violence against Tutsi, making it easier for people to participate in the genocide. Using local case studies, the book elucidates power struggles within churches that mirrored and also shaped conflicts in civil society. This view from below provides valuable insights on the concerns and fears of ordinary people during the turbulent democratization period of early 1990s Rwanda, while Longman's unsettling conclusions constitute a cautionary tale: 'if religious institutions become too closely tied to state power,' he warns, 'they have the capacity to legitimize abhorrent state actions.'" - Catharine Newbury, Five College Professor of Government and African Studies, Smith College

Call #: DT450.435 .L66 2010

Les villes de Basse Egypte au Ier millénaire av. J.- C. : analyse archéologique et historique de la topographie urbaine / François Leclère. (10/28/2009)

10/28/2009

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Call #: DT60 .L436 2008

Towards a Shiʻi Mediterranean empire : Fatimid Egypt and the founding of Cairo : the reign of the Imam-caliph al-Muʻizz from Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad b. ʻAlī al-Maqrīzī's Ittiʻāẓ al-ḥunafāʼ bi-akhbār al-aʼimma al-Fāṭamiyyīn al-khulafāʼ / translated by Shainool J (10/28/2009)

10/28/2009

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Product Description

The caliph Al-Mu'izz li Din Allah, founder of Cairo, transformed the emergent Fatimid state from a regional power of limited influence to an impressive Mediterranean empire whose authority extended from the shores of the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. Al-Mu'izz (r. 953-75), the dynamic fourth Fatimid caliph, was a ruler whose vision and energy defined the high water mark of Fatimid ambition. Among his crowning achievements was the conquest of Egypt, a cherished goal of the Fatimids, which they governed for over two centuries. The writings of the erudite 13th/14th century Sunni Mamluk scholar al-Maqrizi, presented here for the first time in English, document this Fatimid triumph of the Shi'i, and provide one of the most comprehensive accounts of the era. Al-Maqrizi's Lessons for the Seekers of Truth in the History of the Fatimid Imams and Caliphs is a particularly valuable resource for research into the Fatimid dynasty, being compiled from a range of sources many of which are no longer extant. The author of the text shows a discernment regarding the value and limitations of his sources that is unusual among medieval Muslim historians. Moreover, he records official documents, letters and sermons in their entirety, often making his writings the only available source for this material. Shainool Jiwa's careful translation of such a rare work makes a notable contribution to one of the most fascinating periods in medieval Islamic history.

Call #: DT95.7 .M3713 2009

An island through time : Jerba studies / [edited] by E. Fentress, A. Drine, and R. Holod with contributions by A. Aït Kaci ... [et al.]. (10/21/2009)

10/21/2009

Call #: DT268.J4 I8 2009

Seychelles global citizen : the autobiography of the founding president of the Republic of Seychelles / James R. Mancham. (10/21/2009)

10/21/2009

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Product Description

This title offers an insightful and informative look at the remarkable life and times of Sir James Mancham - founding President of the Republic of the Seychelles. James Mancham (b. 1939) is one of the most remarkable people to have appeared on the international political stage. In 1977, he became the Founding President of the Republic of the Seychelles as he led the country to independence from the Commonwealth. However, just one year later, he was ousted from this position and forced into exile after a coup d'etat which ended with a socialist one-party state being declared. During his years in exile, Sir James became a hugely successful and influential figure in world politics, international relations, and as an advocate for democracy. He returned to the Seychelles in 1992 after multi-party democracy was restored, since then he has dedicated himself to promoting the Seychelles in the international community.

Call #: DT469.S483 M367 2009

Le Tchad et son potentiel économique / [direction, François Soudan]. (10/14/2009)

10/14/2009

Call #: DT546.422 .S68 2009

Oxwagon Sentinel : radical Afrikaner Nationalism and the history of the 'Ossewabrandwag' / Christoph Marx [translated into English by Sheila Gordon-Schröder]. (10/14/2009)

10/14/2009

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Product Description

This new approach to the social history of Afrikaner nationalism looks into the rise of a political movement to shaped South African history profoundly during the 20th Century. The nationalist symbol of the ox wagon was used not only by the National Party, but also by the extra- and antiparliamentarian mass movement Ossewabrandwag, which was founded in 1939. The author discusses which ideological influences on the apartheid policy can be identified as coming from organized right-wing extremism.

Call #: DT1768.A57 M37513 2008

God sleeps in Rwanda : a journey of transformation / Joseph Sebarenzi with Laura Ann Mullane. (10/7/2009)

10/7/2009

Call #: DT450.443.S43 A3 2009

The deaths of Hintsa : postapartheid South Africa and the shape of recurring pasts / Premesh Lalu. (10/7/2009)

10/7/2009

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Product Description

Following the tracks of South African traditional leader Nicholas Gcaleka, this account explores the reasons for his postapartheid journey to Great Britain as well as the public derision that accompanied him. Arguing that the sources of derision can be found in the modes of evidence established by colonial power, this exploration traces Gcaleka’s search for the remains of the tribal leader Hintsa, who was killed by British troops during the South African colonial period. Calling for a postcolonial critique of apartheid and for new models for writing histories, this reconstruction offers a new perspective of the colonial archive, suggesting a blurring of the distinction between history and historiography in order to forge a postapartheid history.

About the Author

Premesh Lalu is an associate professor of history at the University of the Western Cape. He is the chair of the program on the study of the humanities in Africa and a trustee of the District Six Museum Foundation in Cape Town. His work has been featured in the journals Current Writing, History and Theory, History in Africa, Kronos, and The South African Historical Journal.

Call #: DT1776 .L35 2009

The great African war : Congo and regional geopolitics, 1996-2006 / Filip Reyntjens. (10/7/2009)

10/7/2009

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Product Description
This book examines a decade-long period of instability, violence and state decay in Central Africa from 1996, when the war started, to 2006, when elections formally ended the political transition in the Democratic Republic of Congo. A unique combination of circumstances explain the unravelling of the conflicts: the collapsed Zairian/Congolese state; the continuation of the Rwandan civil war across borders; the shifting alliances in the region; the politics of identity in Rwanda, Burundi and eastern DRC; the ineptitude of the international community; and the emergence of privatized and criminalized public spaces and economies, linked to the global economy, but largely disconnected from the state - on whose territory the "entrepreneurs of insecurity" function. As a complement to the existing literature, this book seeks to provide an in-depth analysis of concurrent developments in Zaire/DRC, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda in African and international contexts. By adopting a non-chronological approach, it attempts to show the dynamics of the inter-relationships between these realms and offers a toolkit for understanding the past and future of Central Africa.

Book Description
This book examines a decade-long period of instability, violence and state decay in Central Africa from 1996, when the war started, to 2006, when elections formally ended the political transition in the Democratic Republic of Congo. As a complement to the existing literature, it seeks to provide an in-depth analysis of concurrent developments in Zaire/DRC, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda in African and international contexts and attempts to show the dynamics of the inter-relationships between these realms.

About the Author
Filip Reyntjens is Professor of Law and Politics at the Institute of Development Policy and Management, University of Antwerp. He has worked in and on the Great Lakes Region of Africa for more than thirty years. His main research interests are contemporary history, legal anthropology, political transitions, and human rights, and he has published several books and numerous articles on these subjects. He co-edits a yearbook on current affairs in Central Africa, L'Afrique des grands lacs, which is a major reference work on the region. In addition to his academic work, Reyntjens acts as a consultant for governments, international organizations and NGOs, and as an expert witness before courts in several countries, including the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court.

Call #: DT658.26 .R489 2009

Culture, history and identity : landscapes of inhabitation in the Mount Kilimanjaro area, Tanzania : essays in honour of Paramount Chief Thomas Lenana Mlanga Marealle II (1915-2007) / edited by Timothy A.R. Clack. (9/30/2009)

9/30/2009

Call #: DT449.K4 C85 2009

Delta reports. Vol. 1, Research in Lower Egypt / edited by Donald Redford. (9/30/2009)

9/30/2009

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Product Description
This is a new series reporting on work carried out by Pennsylvania State University in the Delta region of Egypt.

About the Author
edited by Donald B Redford

Call #: DT73.N54 D45 2009

En quête de la lumière = In quest of light : mélanges in honorem Ashraf A. Sadek / edited by Amanda-Alice Maravelia. (9/30/2009)

9/30/2009

Call #: DT60 .E57 2009

Heart of dryness : how the last bushmen can help us endure the coming age of permanent drought / James G. Workman. (9/30/2009)

9/30/2009

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From Publishers Weekly
Passing references to water woes along the Colorado River and rainfall shortages in the Southeast that have cut hydropower pepper this dramatic report on the looming American (and global) water crisis. Workman filters his apocalyptic forecast through a slice of micro history: the (almost genocidal) 2002 decision of Botswana to force a minute population of Bushmen—inhabitants of the arid Kalahari Desert for tens of thousands of years—off their ancestral lands by sealing the only borehole that provided water to 1,000 desert dwellers and then dumping stored water into the dry sand. The heart of this numbing report on the government's use of water as weapon is Bushman matriarch Qoroxloo, whose ability to wring precious liquid from deep roots and animal carcasses is testament to a wise elder's gritty determination to help her band survive against formidable political and geographic odds. The author's belief that water-starved Western cultures might adapt to a coming age of permanent drought based on pragmatic Bushmen ways posits an unlikely cultural transformation, but his journalistic depiction of a tribal David's triumph over a governmental Goliath is riveting. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Description

The dramatic story of the Bushmen of the Kalahari is a cautionary tale about water in the twenty-first century—and offers unexpected solutions for our time.
“We don’t govern water. Water governs us,” writes James G. Workman. I n Heart of Dryness, he chronicles the memorable saga of the famed Bushmen of the Kalahari—remnants of one of the world’s most successful civilizations, today at the exact epicenter of Africa’s drought—in their widely publicized recent battle with the government of Botswana, in the process of exploring the larger story of what many feel has become the primary resource battleground of the twenty-first century: the supply of water.

The Bushmen’s story could well prefigure our own. In the United States, even the most upbeat optimists concede we now face an unprecedented water crisis. Reservoirs behind large dams on the Colorado River, which serve thirty million in many states, will be dry in thirteen years. Southeastern drought recently cut Tennessee Valley Authority hydropower in half, exposed Lake Okeechobee’s floor, dried up thousands of acres of Georgia’s crops, and left Atlanta with sixty days of water. Cities east and west are drying up. As reservoirs and aquifers fail, officials ration water, neighbors snitch on one another, corporations move in, and states fight states to control shared rivers.

Each year, around the world, inadequate water kills more humans than AIDS, malaria, and all wars combined. Global leaders pray for rain. Bushmen tap more pragmatic solutions. James G . Workman illuminates the present and coming tensions we will all face over water and shows how, from the remoteness of the Kalahari, an ancient and resilient people is showing the world a viable path through the encroaching Dry Age.

About the Author

James G. Workman began his career as a journalist in Washington, D.C., for the New Republic, Washington Monthly, Utne Reader, Orion, and other publications. H e was a speechwriter in the Clinton administration, working closely with Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, and steering the “dambuster” campaign to tear down river-killing dams. He helped edit and launch the report of the World Commission on Dams, and spent two years filing monthly dispatches on water scarcity in Africa, work which formed the basis of a National Public Radio show and documentary. He is now a water consultant to politicians, businesses, aid agencies, development institutions, and conservation organizations on four continents. He lives with his wife and children in San Francisco.

Call #: DT2458.S26 W67 2009

Africa's world war : Congo, the Rwandan genocide, and the making of a continental catastrophe / Gérard Prunier. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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From Publishers Weekly
The bloodiest modern conflict you've never heard of gets a searching appraisal in this exhaustive history. Africanist Prunier (The Rwanda Crisis) follows the 1996–2002 war in the Democratic Republic of Congo through many bewildering twists and turns. Sparked by a Rwandan army incursion to clear out Hutu-dominated refugee camps on the border between the two countries, the conflict dragged in the armies of eight surrounding countries and an alphabet soup of Congolese guerrilla movements and tribal militias; millions died in the fighting and attendant massacres, starvation and disease. Prunier discerns many layers to the upheaval; a conventional struggle for political control of what had been called Zaire, it was also a multisided act of piracy aimed at looting the country's mineral wealth, an outbreak of generations-long ethnic hatreds and a ghastly symptom of Africa's ongoing crisis of weak and illegitimate governments. The author carefully untangles these complexities while offering unsparing assessments of the participants, including a vigorous indictment of Rwanda's Tutsi leaders for using the 1994 genocide as an excuse for their own atrocities. Lucid, meticulously researched and incisive, Prunier's will likely become the standard account of this under-reported tragedy. (Dec.)
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Review

"Mr. Prunier points out, the genocide in Rwanda acted as an incendiary bomb, setting fire to disputes that go back generations...Help(s) disentangle the fiendishly complicated histories of national and tribal identities, real and invented."--The Economist
"This unique and hugely ambitious book may turn out to be one of the most important to emerge on Africa for a long time."--Financial Times
"Lucid, meticulously researched and incisive, Prunier's will likely become the standard account of this under-reported tragedy."--Publishers Weekly
"Africa's World War is the most ambitious of several remarkable new books that reexamine the extraordinary tragedy of Congo and Central Africa since the Rwandan genocide of 1994."--New York Review of Books
"The book is remarkable not just because Gerard Prunier, who has spent his life studying African conflicts, is able to call on every academic discipline required to comprehend this gigantic disaster, but also because he was an eyewitness to much of it himself, and frequently has telling details to offer about the behaviour and motivation of key individuals. He writes, moreover, with a verve, sophistication and wit equalled, in my experience, only by fellow French intellectual Regis Debray."--The Sunday Times, UK
"Runier is immensely knowledgeable and passionate about his subject.... [He sorts] out some of the strands of an immenseley complicated and enormously devastating conflict, and for that we are surely in his debt."--Books & Culture
"Africa's World War is one of the first books to lay bare the complex dynamic between Rwanda and Congo that has been driving this disaster."--Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times Book Review

Product Description
The Rwandan genocide sparked a horrific bloodbath that swept across sub-Saharan Africa, ultimately leading to the deaths of some four million people. In this extraordinary history of the recent wars in Central Africa, Gerard Prunier offers a gripping account of how one grisly episode laid the groundwork for a sweeping and disastrous upheaval.
Prunier vividly describes the grisly aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, when some two million refugees--a third of Rwanda's population--fled to exile in Zaire in 1996. The new Rwandan regime then crossed into Zaire and attacked the refugees, slaughtering upwards of 400,000 people. The Rwandan forces then turned on Zaire's despotic President Mobutu and, with the help of a number of allied African countries, overthrew him. But as Prunier shows, the collapse of the Mobutu regime and the ascension of the corrupt and erratic Laurent-Desire Kabila created a power vacuum that drew Rwanda, Uganda, Angola, Zimbabwe, Sudan, and other African nations into an extended and chaotic war. The heart of the book documents how the whole core of the African continent became engulfed in an intractible and bloody conflict after 1998, a devastating war that only wound down following the assassination of Kabila in 2001. Prunier not only captures all this in his riveting narrative, but he also indicts the international community for its utter lack of interest in what was then the largest conflict in the world.
Here then is a gripping eyewitness account of the most bloody upheaval of recent times, a book of passionate and unblinking intensity that is our best record to date of one of the great tragedies of the post-Cold War era.

About the Author

Gerard Prunier is a widely acclaimed journalist as well as Director of the French Centre for Ethiopian Studies in Addis Ababa. He has published over 120 articles and five books, including The Rwanda Crisis and Darfur.

Call #: DT658.26 .P78 2009

From Toussaint to Tupac : the Black international since the age of revolution / edited by Michael O. West, William G. Martin, & Fanon Che Wilkins. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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Product Description
Transcending geographic and cultural lines, From Toussaint to Tupacis an ambitious collection of essays exploring black internationalism and its implications for a black consciousness. At its core, black internationalism is a struggle against oppression, whether manifested in slavery, colonialism, or racism. The ten essays in this volume offer a comprehensive overview of the global movements that define black internationalism, from its origins in the colonial period to the present.

From Toussaint to Tupac focuses on three moments in global black history: the American and Haitian revolutions, the Garvey movement and the Communist International following World War I, and the Black Power movement of the late twentieth century. Contributors demonstrate how black internationalism emerged and influenced events in particular localities, how participants in the various struggles communicated across natural and man-made boundaries, and how the black international aided resistance on the local level, creating a collective consciousness.

In sharp contrast to studies that confine Black Power to particular national locales, this volume demonstrates the global reach and resonance of the movement. The volume concludes with a discussion of hip hop, including its cultural and ideological antecedents in Black Power.

Contributors:
Hakim Adi, Middlesex University, London
Sylvia R. Frey, Tulane University
William G. Martin, Binghamton University
Brian Meeks, University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica
Marc D. Perry, University of Illinois, Urbana-ChampaignLara Putnam, University of Pittsburgh
Vijay Prashad, Trinity College
Robyn Spencer, Lehman College
Robert T. Vinson, College of William and Mary
Michael O. West, Binghamton University
Fanon Che Wilkins, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan

From the Inside Flap
This collection of essays explores black internationalism--the struggle against oppression, whether manifested in slavery, colonialism, or racism. Contributors focus on three moments in global black history: the American and Haitian revolutions, the Garvey movement and the Communist International following World War I, and the Black Power movement of the late twentieth century to demonstrate how black internationalism emerged and influenced events in particular localities, how participants in the various struggles communicated across natural and man-made boundaries, and how the black international aided resistance on the local level, creating a collective consciousness.

About the Author
Michael O. West is professor of sociology and Africana studies at Binghamton University.

William G. Martin is professor of sociology at Binghamton University.

Fanon Che Wilkins is associate professor of African American history and culture in the Graduate School of American Studies at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan.

Call #: DT16.5 .F766 2009

Gatekeepers of the Arab past : historians and history writing in twentieth-century Egypt / Yoav Di-Capua. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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Product Description
This groundbreaking study illuminates the Egyptian experience of modernity by critically analyzing the foremost medium through which it was articulated: history. The first comprehensive analysis of a Middle Eastern intellectual tradition, Gatekeepers of the Past examines a system of knowledge that replaced the intellectual and methodological conventions of Islamic historiography only at the very end of the nineteenth century. Covering more than one hundred years of mostly unexamined historucal literature in Arabic, Yoav Di-Capua explores Egyptian historical thought, examines the careers of numerous critical historians, and traces this tradition's uneasy relationship with colonial forms of knowledge as well as with the post-colonial state.

From the Inside Flap
"An enormous contribution to the study of Egyptian history writing and historiography. Sure to become the basic manual for understanding the trajectory of modern Egyptian thinking."--Roger Owen, author of State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East

About the Author
Yoav Di-Capua is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin.

Call #: DT107.824 .D53 2009

Mau Mau in Harlem? : the U.S. and the liberation of Kenya / Gerald Horne. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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Review

"This is a fast-moving, readable account— -- stunningly well-researched in a wide range of archives on three continents— -- of hitherto little-known connections between the United States in general, and African-Americans in particular, with the history of the colonization and then liberation of Kenya."--John Lonsdale, Fellow of Trinity College and Emeritus University Professor of Modern African History, University of Cambridge

Product Description

From the inception of a the British colony in Kenya in the late 19th nineteenth century, the United States has been intimately involved in the country’s development. African-Americans were particularly attracted to Kenya from early on, not least because the apparent “black-white” conflict there, while symbolizing Africa’s struggle for freedom from European colonialism, also seemed to mirror what they were experiencing in the U.S. The struggle in Kenya symbolized Africa’s struggle for freedom from European colonialism. It was thought that lessons could be learned from Kenya, demonstrated when Malcolm X proclaimed a “Mau Mau in Harlem” might be necessary. To counter Soviet propaganda that suggested that the U.S. was supportive of colonialism, John F. Kennedy was among those who backed a campaign to bring Kenyans to the U.S. for higher education – included among these students was Barack H. Obama, Sr., who was brought to the University of Hawaii. Based on extensive archival research in the U.S., the U.K., and Kenya, this book not only sheds light on the historical forces that created a U.S. President but also the unshakeable bonds that historically have historically conjoined Black America, Africa, and the United States as a whole.

Horne offers important context in understanding how a man of Kenyan descent could one day occupy the White House.

Book Description

Based on archival research on three continents, this book addresses the interpenetration of two closely related movements: the struggle against white supremacy and Jim Crow in the U.S., and the struggle against similar forces and for national liberation in Colonial Kenya.

About the Author

Gerald Horne is John and Rebecca Moores Professor of African-American History at the University of Houston. He has published over two dozen books, including From the Barrel of a Gun: The United States and the War Against Zimbabwe, 1965-1980.

Call #: DT433.577 .H67 2009

The legacies of transition governments in Africa : the cases of Benin and Togo / Jennifer C. Seely. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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Review

“There is much in this project – particularly the focus on transition bargaining among political actors – that could help to advance our understanding of democratization in Africa and around the world. Jennifer Seely unites insights from the two literatures, namely, the pact-making view that the process matters and the path-dependency view that structures are difficult to change. She also has deep country knowledge of the two cases. It is rare to find this kind of extensive use of interviews.”—Leonardo Arriola, Assistant Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley

"Professor Seely gives us a powerful set of analytic and empirical tools with which to understand the democratic transitions of the 1990s and their consequences. I could not be more pleased with this excellent study."—Victor T. LeVine, Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Science, Washington University

Product Description

The revolutionary political upheavals in Africa in the early 1990s continue to have an impact almost two decades later. Drawing on original interviews, this book argues we must look to the defining period of transition, and the workings of the transition governments, to understand how politics in these countries changed since the fall of dictatorial one-party states. Transition governments leave legacies with respect to the relevant political players and their strategies, the institutions of government, and the nature of the political agenda. These legacies are apparent in Benin, which successfully transitioned to democracy, as well as Togo, which failed to democratize.

Book Description

The revolutionary political upheavals in Africa in the early 1990s continue to have an impact almost two decades later. Drawing on original interviews, this book argues we must look to the defining period of transition, and the workings of the transition governments, to understand how politics in these countries changed since the fall of dictatorial one-party states, as apparent in Benin, which successfully transitioned to democracy, as well as Togo, which failed to democratize.

About the Author

Jennifer C. Seely is an Assistant Professor in the Politics Department at Earlham College. After earning her Ph.D. in Political Science from Washington University in 2001, she was awarded a Carnegie Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Democracy from Brandeis University. Her research has appeared in the Journal of Modern African Studies, Electoral Studies, and the journal Democratization. She has lived and worked in Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Togo and Benin.

Call #: DT541.845 .S446 2009

Bulletproof : afterlives of anticolonial prophecy in South Africa and beyond / Jennifer Wenzel. (9/16/2009)

9/16/2009

Call #: DT1863 .W46 2009

Crossing the Zambezi : the politics of landscape on a Central African frontier / JoAnn McGregor. (9/16/2009)

9/16/2009

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Review
"Crossing the Zambezi is a magnificent study of how a great river can structure the lives of the people who live along it. ...Europeans perceived the Zambezi as a boundary rather than a uniting force, and McGregor traces out the consequences of that boundary-making as people became defined as citizens of different countries... This is a major contribution both to ethnography and the history of the region. A book for ecologists, anthropologists, political geographers, historians and Africanists." --Elizabeth Colson, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley

"[A] richly documented, beautifully written and powerfully argued book. ... a significant contribution to landscape history and to our understanding of the politics of meaning and memory." --Allen Isaacman, Regents Professor of History, University of Minnesota

`Crossing the Zambezi is a magnificent study of how a great river can structure the lives of the people who live along it. ...Europeans perceived the Zambezi as a boundary rather than a uniting force, and McGregor traces out the consequences of that boundary-making as people became defined as citizens of different countries... This is a major contribution both to ethnography and the history of the region. A book for ecologists, anthropologists, political geographers, historians and Africanists.' - Elizabeth Colson, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley `... a richly documented, beautifully written and powerfully argued book. ... a significant contribution to landscape history and to our understanding of the politics of meaning and memory.' - Allen Isaacman, Regents Professor of History, University of Minnesota

Product Description
This book is a history of claims to the Zambezi, focussed on the stretch of the river extending from the Victoria Falls downstream into Lake Kariba, which today constitutes the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. It is a story of 150 years of conflict over the changing landscape of the river, in which the tension between the Zambezi's 'river people' and more powerful others has been centrally important. The Zambezi is one of Africa's longest and most important rivers - securing access to its waters and control over its banks, traffic and commerce were crucial political priorities for leaders of precolonial states no less than their colonial and postcolonial successors. The book is about the ways in which the course of the Zambezi has shaped history, its shifting role as link, barrier or conduit, the political, economic and cultural uses of the technological projects that have transformed the landscape, and their legacies in the conflicts of today. By investigating how the claims made today by Zambezi 'river people' relate to longer history of claims and appropriations, the book contributes to long-standing debates over the relationship between geography and history, landscape and power.

Call #: DT1190.Z36 M34 2009

Oxyrhynchus : a city and its texts / edited by A.K. Bowman ... [et al.]. (9/16/2009)

9/16/2009

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Product Description
The volume offers an account of Oxyrhynchus as an ancient city and archaeological site by surveying its material culture and art objects, including sculpture and draftsmanship, against the backdrop of the papyrus texts. It includes treatments of the site itself (city plan, topography, monuments, art and architecture), the history of the excavations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as a synthesis of the study of social, cultural and intellectual life under Greek, Roman and Byzantine rule. Original contributions by E. G. Turner and W. M. F. Petrie are reprinted; the original archaeological reports are edited with notes.

About the Author
edited by A K Bowman, R A Coles, N Gonis, D Obbink, and P J Parsons

Call #: DT73.O8 O89 2007

With faith in the works of words : the beginnings of reconciliation in South Africa, 1985-1995 / Erik Doxtader. (9/16/2009)

9/16/2009

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Review
This is simply the best available record and analysis of the debate leading to the adoption of the South African TRC and its implementation. No one interested in the South African transition from apartheid to the beginning of democracy can afford not to read it. --Charles Villa-Vicencio, Executive Director of the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation in Cape Town, and the former National Research Director for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Product Description
With Faith in the Works of Words is the first book to look behind the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and examine reconciliation's larger and fundamental role in the transition from apartheid to nonracial democracy. In doing so, it finds that there have been many beginnings of reconciliation in South Africa. Based on documents that have received little public attention, including controversial texts from the religious community and fascinating transcripts from South Africa's constitutional negotiations, the book reveals how reconciliation was used to energize the struggle against apartheid and the ways in which it underwrote the negotiated revolution, including the development of a constitution whose very promise was pegged to the willingness of South Africans to pursue the work of 'reconciliation and reconstruction.' Faith in the Works of Words challenges many common assumptions about the discourse and dynamics of reconciliation in South Africa. An important history of reconciliation's rhetorical power, this book shows how reconciliation shaped the process of South African nation-building long before the TRC took to the stage and captured the world's imagination.

About the Author
Erik Doxtader is Professor of Rhetoric at the University of South Carolina and a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation. A former Social Science Research Council MacArthur Foundation Fellow, he has authored several-award winning essays on the theory and practice of reconciliation and co-edited a number of books addressed to reconciliation and the South African transition, including Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa The Fundamental Documents and To Repair the Irreparable: Reparation and Reconstruction in South Africa. He lives in Cape Town and Columbia, South Carolina.

Call #: DT1945 .D695 2009

Treatise on the rivers of Cuama = (Tratado dos rios de Cuama) / by António da Conceição edited and translated by Malyn Newitt. (9/9/2009)

9/9/2009

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Product Description
This volume publishes one of the most important early Portuguese accounts of east central Africa.

The author, Antonio da Conceicao, was the ecclesiastical administrator of the Portuguese Zambesi settlements at the end of the seventeenth century. He set out to describe the Portuguese community in the valley and in the gold-bearing regions of the high veldt. In doing so he commented in detail on the African kingdoms of the region and their relations with the Portuguese. He witnessed the rise of a powerful new African dynasty in the area of modern Zimbabwe, that of Changamira, and he described the destruction of the Portuguese fairs and settlements during the wars which followed.

Prior to the wars of the 1690s the Portuguese had appeared to be the dominant influence throughout much of the region of modern Zimbabwe, but their position was more fragile than it looked. Conceicao points to weaknesses in the commercial structure of the Portuguese settlements and to the difficult relations which existed with traditional African authorities. He also mounted a wide-ranging critique of the missionary policy of the Dominicans which had concentrated on achieving the nominal conversion of members of the ruling Monomotapa dynasty.

This account, written by a highly intelligent and well-informed cleric, is essential for understanding the history of central Africa at a period of radical change. It is now available for the first time to an English as well as a Portuguese readership.

About the Author
Malyn Newitt is Emeritus Professor at King's College London.

Call #: DT3410.Z36 C6613 2009