ASRC 1859-How to Write About Africa: Recommended Books

Acclaimed cartoonist Peter Kuper delivers a powerful interpretation of Joseph Conrad's classic novella. Heart of Darkness has unsettled generations of readers with its haunting portrait of colonialism in Africa. Acclaimed illustrator Peter Kuper delivers a visually immersive and profound interpretation of this controversial classic, evoking the danger and suspense at the heart of this brutal story. Longtime admirers of the novella will appreciate his innovative interpretations, while new readers will discover a brilliant introduction to a canonical work of twentieth-century literature.

- Presents the most important 20th-century criticism on major works from "The Odyssey through modern literature- The critical essays reflect a variety of schools of criticism- Contains critical biographies, notes on the contributing critics, a chronology of the author's life, and an index- Introductory essay by Harold Bloom

A summary of some of the issues in which Ngugi has been passionately involved.

Under Sankara's leadership, the revolutionary government of Burkina Faso in West Africa mobilized peasants, workers, women, and youth to carry out literacy and immunization drives; to sink wells, plant trees, build dams, erect housing; to combat the oppression of women and transform exploitative relations on the land; to free themselves from the imperialist yoke and solidarize with others engaged in that fight internationally. Sankara speaks as an outstanding revolutionary leader of working people and youth the world over. Second edition includes a new introduction by editor Michel Prairie, foreword, maps, chronology and glossary, as well as an index. Thirty-two page photo section features many unpublished photos of the Burkina Faso revolution. Of the first edition, published by Pathfinder in 1988, Victoria Brittain wrote in the London Guardian, ?The courage and originality which made him and Burkina Faso the inspiration they were to so many Africans shine out of this collection of his most important speeches.' ?The originality of Sankara's ideas ? along with his awareness of the social and economic realities of his country, his understanding of the international relations of forces ? make this collection a highly useful tool. Expressed with passion and clarity, his views on the necessity of a new balance between the city and the countryside, on the crucial importance of the emancipation of women ? are in perfect keeping with the demands of the peoples of Africa today.'?Le Monde diplomatique

ANew York TimesNotable Book Chinese immigrants of the recent past and unfolding twenty-first century are in search of the African dream. So explains indefatigable traveler Howard W. French, prize-winning investigative journalist and former New York Times bureau chief in Africa and China, in the definitive account of this seismic geopolitical development. China's burgeoning presence in Africa is already shaping, and reshaping, the future of millions of people. From Liberia to Senegal to Mozambique, in creaky trucks and by back roads, French introduces us to the characters who make up China's dogged emigrant population- entrepreneurs singlehandedly reshaping African infrastructure, and less-lucky migrants barely scraping by but still convinced of Africa's opportunities. French's acute observations offer illuminating insight into the most pressing unknowns of modern Sino-African relations- Why China is making these cultural and economic incursions into the continent; what Africa's role is in this equation; and what the ramifications for both parties and their people-and the watching world-will be in the foreseeable future. One of the Best Books of the Year at .The Economist.TheGuardian. Foreign Affairs

More than just a fascinating story, Olaudah Equiano's autobiography - the first slave narrative to be widely read - reveals many aspects of the eighteenth-century Western world through the experiences of one individual. The second edition takes into consideration the latest scholarship on Atlantic history and the history of slavery. Professor Allison s introduction, which places Equiano s narrative in the context of the Atlantic slave trade, has been revised and updated to include a discussion of the geographic origins of African slaves and the debate over Equiano s birthplace. Expanded and improved pedagogical features include contemporary illustrations with extensive captions and a map showing the travels of Equiano in more detail. Helpful footnotes provide guidance throughout the eighteenth-century text, and a chronology and an up-to-date bibliography aid students in their study of this thought-provoking narrative.

`So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!'These words, said to have been uttered by Abraham Lincoln, signal the celebrity of Uncle Tom's Cabin. The first American novel to become an international best-seller, Stowe's novel charts the progress from slavery to freedom of fugitives who escape the chains of American chattel slavery, and of amartyr who transcends all earthly ties. At the middle of the nineteenth-century, the names of its characters - Little Eva, Topsy, Uncle Tom - were renowned. A hundred years later, `Uncle Tom' still had meaning, but, to Blacks everywhere it had become a curse.This edition firmly locates Uncle Tom's Cabin within the context of African-American writing, the issues of race and the role of women. Its appendices include the most important contemporary African-American literary responses to the glorification of Uncle Tom's Christian resignation as well asexcerpts from popular slave narratives, quoted by Stowe in her justification of the dramatization of slavery, Key to Uncles Tom's Cabin.

Cabral is among the great figures of our time -- these texts provide the evidence.

This extended sequence of poems explores eccentric fathers and other adult relationships through an examination of patriarchal values that includes such figures as the 19th-century explorer David Livingstone, Irish patriot Roger Casement, and the poet's own father. The second part of this collection includes a long narrative poem that celebrates the relationship between two 17th-century Englishmen--a diplomat and a doctor. Inspired by portraits hanging in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, the verses detail their passionate and erudite life together in Constantinople.

Speeches from the last year of Malcolm X's life through which readers can follow the evolution of his views on racism, U.S. intervention in the Congo and Vietnam, capitalism, socialism, political action, and more. "To understand this remarkable man, one must turn to Malcolm X Speaks.… All but one of the speeches were made in those last eight tumultuous months of his life after his break with the Black Muslims when he was seeking a new path. In their pages one can begin to understand his power as a speaker and to see, more clearly than in the Autobiography [of Malcolm X], the political legacy he left his people in its struggle for full emancipation … [This book] will have a permanent place in the literature of the Afro-American struggle."-I.F. Stone in New York Review of Books"Formidably articulate, especially in terms of international political analysis…. [W]hat made Malcolm X dangerous-in the eyes and ears of the Federal Bureau of Investigation-was his cogent critique of not just violent white racism, but of U.S. imperialism, and his ability to connect both practices."-Globe and Mail, CanadaForeword, eight-page photo section, index.

"Pan-African Connections brings to the reader a combination of Reflections and Testimonies from writers, politicians, activists, colleagues; with essays on intellectual activism, the building of Pan-African institutions and the voices of women in Panafricanism. Stories abound from writers such as Ngugi wa Thiongo and Anyang Nyongo. Locksley Edmondson who is featured in this collection, like Walter Rodney, lived and worked on the African continent physically, but also engaged Africa politically, culturally and intellectually in teaching and research in the Caribbean and the United States. The lives and work of these scholars embodied precisely the brining together of African, Caribbean and African-American Studies in the intellectual arena. Through this generation of intellectual/activists, the rubric of Panfricanism [sic] remains one of the key areas of the key areas of academic and political discourse." -- From the back cover.

The untold story of African-born migrants and their vibrant African influence in Harlem. From the 1920s to the early 1960s, Harlem was the intellectual and cultural center of the Black world. The Harlem Renaissance movement brought together Black writers, artists, and musicians from different backgrounds who helped rethink the place of Black people in American society at a time of segregation and lack of recognition of their civil rights. But where is the story of African immigrants in Harlem's most recent renaissance? Africans in Harlem examines the intellectual, artistic, and creative exchanges between Africa and New York dating back to the 1910s, a story that has not been fully told until now. From Little Senegal, along 116th Street between Lenox Avenue and Frederick Douglass Boulevard, to the African street vendors on 125th Street, to African stores, restaurants, and businesses throughout the neighborhood, the African presence in Harlem has never been more active and visible than it is today. In Africans in Harlem, author, scholar, writer, and filmmaker Boukary Sawadogo explores Harlem's African presence and influence from his own perspective as an African-born immigrant. Sawadogo captures the experiences, challenges, and problems African émigrés have faced in Harlem since the 1980s, notably work, interaction, diversity, identity, religion, and education. With a keen focus on the history of Africans through the lens of media, theater, the arts, and politics, this historical overview features compelling character-driven narratives and interviews of longtime residents as well as community and religious leaders. A blend of self-examination as an immigrant member in Harlem and research on diasporic community building in New York City, Africans in Harlem reveals how African immigrants have transformed Harlem economically and culturally as they too have been transformed. It is also a story about New York City and its self-renewal by the contributions of new human capital, creative energies, dreams nurtured and fulfilled, and good neighbors by drawing parallels between the history of the African presence in Harlem with those of other ethnic immigrants in the most storied neighborhood in America.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The highly acclaimed, provocative essay on feminism and sexual politics--from the award-winning author of Americanah "A call to action, for all people in the world, to undo the gender hierarchy." --Medium In this personal, eloquently-argued essay--adapted from the much-admired TEDx talk of the same name--Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie offers readers a unique definition of feminism for the twenty-first century. Drawing extensively on her own experiences and her deep understanding of the often masked realities of sexual politics, here is one remarkable author's exploration of what it means to be a woman now--and an of-the-moment rallying cry for why we should all be feminists.

The classic work of political, economic, and historical analysis, powerfully introduced by Angela Davis In his short life, the Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution, leading movements in North America, South America, the African continent, and the Caribbean. In each locale, Rodney found himself a lightning rod for working class Black Power. His deportation catalyzed 20th century Jamaica's most significant rebellion, the 1968 Rodney riots, and his scholarship trained a generation how to think politics at an international scale. In 1980, shortly after founding of the Working People's Alliance in Guyana, the 38-year-old Rodney would be assassinated. In his magnum opus, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Rodney incisively argues that grasping "the great divergence" between the west and the rest can only be explained as the exploitation of the latter by the former. This meticulously researched analysis of the abiding repercussions of European colonialism on the continent of Africa has not only informed decades of scholarship and activism, it remains an indispensable study for grasping global inequality today.

Decolonization revolutionized the international order during the twentieth century. Yet standard histories that present the end of colonialism as an inevitable transition from a world of empires to one of nations--a world in which self-determination was synonymous with nation-building--obscure just how radical this change was. Drawing on the political thought of anticolonial intellectuals and statesmen such as Nnamdi Azikiwe, W.E.B Du Bois, George Padmore, Kwame Nkrumah, Eric Williams, Michael Manley, and Julius Nyerere, this important new account of decolonization reveals the full extent of their unprecedented ambition to remake not only nations but the world. Adom Getachew shows that African, African American, and Caribbean anticolonial nationalists were not solely or even primarily nation-builders. Responding to the experience of racialized sovereign inequality, dramatized by interwar Ethiopia and Liberia, Black Atlantic thinkers and politicians challenged international racial hierarchy and articulated alternative visions of worldmaking. Seeking to create an egalitarian postimperial world, they attempted to transcend legal, political, and economic hierarchies by securing a right to self-determination within the newly founded United Nations, constituting regional federations in Africa and the Caribbean, and creating the New International Economic Order. Using archival sources from Barbados, Trinidad, Ghana, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, Worldmaking after Empire recasts the history of decolonization, reconsiders the failure of anticolonial nationalism, and offers a new perspective on debates about today's international order.

The "woman question," this book asserts, is a Western one, and not a proper lens for viewing African society. A work that rethinks gender as a Western construction, The Invention of Women offers a new way of understanding both Yoruban and Western cultures. Author Oyeronke Oyewumi reveals an ideology of biological determinism at the heart of Western social categories-the idea that biology provides the rationale for organizing the social world. And yet, she writes, the concept of "woman," central to this ideology and to Western gender discourses, simply did not exist in Yorubaland, where the body was not the basis of social roles. Oyewumi traces the misapplication of Western, body-oriented concepts of gender through the history of gender discourses in Yoruba studies. Her analysis shows the paradoxical nature of two fundamental assumptions of feminist theory: that gender is socially constructed and that the subordination of women is universal. The Invention of Women demonstrates, to the contrary, that gender was not constructed in old Yoruba society, and that social organization was determined by relative age. A meticulous historical and epistemological account of an African culture on its own terms, this book makes a persuasive argument for a cultural, context-dependent interpretation of social reality. It calls for a reconception of gender discourse and the categories on which such study relies. More than that, the book lays bare the hidden assumptions in the ways these different cultures think. A truly comparative sociology of an African culture and the Western tradition, it will change the way African studies and gender studies proceed.