Showing titles in Africa

Four Years in a Cave documents a painful, real life-experience of an elementary school teacher who survives a brutal, barbaric, and tribally-charged military purge of the 1980s in Zimbabwe. A secretly selected and specially trained brigade abducts the teacher from a minority tribe, falsely accusing him of collaborating with dissidents seeking to destabilize the regime dominated by the majority tribe. The teacher is savagely tortured but he manages to escape and hide in a remote cave for four years.

The author spent several years as an assistant district officer among the Yorubas in Nigeria, and was thus enabled to collect the folklore contained in this book from native sources. The reticence of the natives on religious subjects made it necessary to piece much together from incantations and chance remarks, but it is hoped that the notes will show that no great liberty has been taken with the beliefs of a tribe which inhabits a large area in West Africa.

In inimitable, rhythmic prose, the author and winner of the prestigious Windham-Campbell Prize Emmanuel Iduma tells the story of his return to Nigeria, where he grew up, after years of living in New York. He traveled home with an elusive mission: to learn the fate of his uncle Emmanuel, his namesake, who disappeared in the Nigerian Civil War in the late 1960s. A conflict that left so many families broken, the war remains at the margins of the history books, almost taboo to discuss. To find answers, Iduma stopped in city after city throughout the former Biafra region.

The story of Amy Biehl is well known in South Africa. The 26-year-old white American Fulbright scholar was brutally murdered on August 25, 1993, during the final, fiery days of apartheid by a mob of young black men in a township outside Cape Town. Her parents' forgiveness of two of her killers became a symbol of the truth and reconciliation process in South Africa. Justine van der Leun decided to introduce the story to an American audience. But as she delved into the case, the prevailing narrative started to unravel.

This audiobook provides an introduction to one of the most intriguing wars of modern times - a war that saw several innovations, including the use of heliography and indirect fire, and caused the complete overhaul of the great Imperial British fighting machine in its aftermath. It also tells of the first example of the brilliant use of guerrilla warfare by the people who, to this day, have never been outclassed: the Boer commandos.

Nelson Mandela is a figure who has been revered throughout the world. Even his enemies eventually had to admit that there was something extraordinary about Nelson Mandela; he was the kind of bold yet gracious leader who only comes once in a lifetime. Mandela led his people to freedom, became the first president of his nation, and then — like some South African George Washington — humbly stepped down from power so that he could pass the torch of democracy to others.

El día a día del faraón y sus súbditos a orillas del Nilo. El campesino que cultivaba en las orillas del Nilo recibía la visita regular del recaudador de impuestos, quien necesitaba del escriba para que nada se le escapara y todos pagaran lo que debían, de lo cual rendía cuentas al visir. Éste era el responsable de hacerse cargo de todo en nombre de su señor, el soberano de la Dos Tierras, el faraón, a quien informaba en profundidad y a diario de lo que sucedía en el país....

Kaum ein anderer Politiker dieses Jahrhunderts symbolisierte in solchem Maße die Friedenshoffnungen der Menschheit und den Gedanken der Aussöhnung aller Völker auf Erden wie der ehemalige südafrikanische Präsident und Friedensnobelpreisträger Nelson Mandela, dessen Rolle für seinen Kontinent mit der Gandhis für Indien verglichen wurde.

Un extraordinario reportaje, ganador de numerosos premios internacionales, sobre el genocidio ruandés. El 6 de abril de 1994, el avión del presidente de Ruanda fue abatido por un misil. Al día siguiente el gobierno animaba a la mayoría hutu a asesinar a sus vecinos tutsis junto con aquellos hutus que intentasen protegerlos. De este modo daba comienzo el mayor genocidio de las últimas décadas.

Captain David Grief, South Pacific tycoon, owns plantations and trading stations from New Guinea to Samoa, pearling fisheries in the Paumotus, and rubber acreages in the Louisiades. His own vessels recruit contract labor, and he operates three steamers on ocean runs. He came to the South Seas at the age of 20 and, blessed with a blond skin impervious to tropical rays, became browner through two decades as a true "son of the sun". At 40 years of age, he looks no more than 30.

Flight for Life is the heart-stopping account of one of the most gripping rescue missions in African history, told by a doctor involved in saving the lives of Nigerian workers who became victims of a tragic American chemical company explosion. Dr. Stewart and his colleague moved mountains and cut red tape to fly patients to one of the premiere burn centers in the United States.

Delve into the myth-enshrouded origins of Carthage, relive the tale of Queen Elissa, popularly known as Dido, and explore the city’s Tyrian roots. Discover the legendary maritime prowess that turned Carthage into a major power player of the ancient Mediterranean, and the complex social, political, and economic structures that underpinned its rise.

Renowned Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson leads us through space as much as time: From the river's mystical sources (the Blue Nile which rises in Ethiopia, and the White Nile coursing from majestic Lake Victoria); to Thebes, with its Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, and Luxor Temple; the fertile Delta; Giza, home of the Great Pyramid, the sole surviving Wonder of the Ancient World; and finally, to the pulsating capital city of Cairo, where the Arab Spring erupted on the bridges over the Nile.

In A Man Apart Richard Steyn once again brings to life a South African icon. Louis Botha was the first Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, a union he did much to create in the decade after the devastation of the Anglo-Boer War. During the war Botha was a brilliant young Boer general who through his battlefield strategy won significant victories over the British in the early stages of the war.

On the morning of April 15, 2004, the world woke up to the extraordinary news of the kidnap in a little known hamlet of Nigeria of some 276, primarily Christian schoolgirls, by the radical militant Nigerian insurgent group Boko Haram.

Nelson Mandela is known the world over. The essential story of his remarkable life is not. Peter Hain chronicles a life and legacy of courage, sacrifice, values, and leadership in an insightful and accessible biography. Everyone should know Mandela's extraordinary story. Now they can.

As the world progressed through medieval times, great empires rose and fell across Europe and Africa. However, in the 15th century, trans-oceanic voyages were allowing imperialism to reach distant shores. This new form of control became rampant, and untamed capitalism put the slave trade at its core.

The biography of Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua was compiled by the abolitionist, Samuel Moore. Born in West Africa (now Benin) around 1830, Baquaqua was sold as a slave and lived in Brazil, Haiti, Canada, and the US where he escaped from slavery in New York City. He also visited England, but it is not known whether he realized his dream of returning to Africa.

The modern history of Africa was, until very recently, written on behalf of the indigenous races by the White man, who had forcefully entered the continent during a particularly hubristic and dynamic phase of European history. In 1884, Prince Otto von Bismark, the German chancellor, brought the plenipotentiaries of all major powers of Europe together to deal with Africa's colonization in such a manner as to avoid provocation of war.

A reportage from the turbulent, chaotic birth of the free Angola; the author calls it his “first real book”. Ryszard Kapuściński arrives to a country divided by two armies. For some time he's the only foreign correspondent there. Among the unbelievable chaos, he meets more and more people whose fates become the illustration of the cruelty of war. This book is a unique combination of war reportage with literary artistry - so characteristic of Ryszard Kapuściński.