Amazon.com
When Africa makes international news, it is usually because war has broken out or some bizarre natural disaster has taken a large number of lives. Westerners are appallingly ignorant of Africa otherwise, a condition that the great Polish journalist and writer Ryszard Kapuœciñski helps remedy with this book based on observations gathered over more than four decades.
Kapuœciñski first went to Africa in 1957, a time pregnant with possibilities as one country after another declared independence from the European colonial powers. Those powers, he writes, had "crammed the approximately ten thousand kingdoms, federations, and stateless but independent tribal associations that existed on this continent in the middle of the nineteenth century within the borders of barely forty colonies." When independence came, old interethnic rivalries, long suppressed, bubbled up to the surface, and the continent was consumed in little wars of obscure origin, from caste-based massacres in Rwanda and ideological conflicts in Ethiopia to hit-and-run skirmishes among Tuaregs and Bantus on the edge of the Sahara. With independence, too, came the warlords, whose power across the continent derives from the control of food, water, and other life-and-death resources, and whose struggles among one another fuel the continent's seemingly endless civil wars. When the warlords "decide that everything worthy of plunder has been extracted," Kapuœciñski writes, wearily, they call a peace conference and are rewarded with credits and loans from the First World, which makes them richer and more powerful than ever, "because you can get significantly more from the World Bank than from your own starving kinsmen."
Constantly surprising and eye-opening, Kapuœciñski's book teaches us much about contemporary events and recent history in Africa. It is also further evidence for why he is considered to be one of the best journalists at work today. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
In 1957, Ryszard Kapuscinski arrived in Africa to witness the beginning of the end of colonial rule as the first African correspondent of Poland's state newspaper. From the early days of independence in Ghana to the ongoing ethnic genocide in Rwanda, Kapuscinski has crisscrossed vast distances pursuing the swift, and often violent, events that followed liberation. Kapuscinski hitchhikes with caravans, wanders the Sahara with nomads, and lives in the poverty-stricken slums of Nigeria. He wrestles a king cobra to the death and suffers through a bout of malaria.
What emerges is an extraordinary depiction of Africa--not as a group of nations or geographic locations--but as a vibrant and frequently joyous montage of peoples, cultures, and encounters. Kapuscinski's trenchant observations, wry analysis and overwhelming humanity paint a remarkable portrait of the continent and its people. His unorthodox approach and profound respect for the people he meets challenge conventional understandings of the modern problems faced by Africa at the dawn of the twenty-first century.
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Ryszard Kapuscinski arrived in Africa in 1957, at the beginning of the end of colonial rule -- the "sometimes dramatic and painful, sometimes enjoyable and jubilant" rebirth of a continent. The Shadow of the Sun sums up the author's experiences ("the record of a 40-year marriage") in this place that became the central obsession of his remarkable career. From the hopeful years of independence through the bloodcurdling disintegration of nations such as Nigeria, Rwanda, and Angola, Kapuscinski recounts great social and political changes through the prism of the ordinary African. He looks at the rough-and-ready physical world and identifies the true geography of Africa: a little-understood spiritual universe, an African way of being. And he offers a moving portrait of Africa in the wake of two epoch-making changes: the arrival of AIDS and the definitive departure of the white man. Kapuscinski's rare humanity invests his subject with a dignity and grandeur unmatched by any other writer on the Third World, and his unique ability to discern the universal in the particular has never been more powerfully displayed than in this work. The Shadow of the Sun is a masterpiece from a modern master.
Customer Reviews:
stellar depiction of Africa.......2007-10-17
The single most accurate, complex, and compelling title on Africa I've ever read--and I lived there.
The real Africa.......2007-07-02
You can really feel the heat and human struggle when reading this book. If you read traveller books about Africa you will learn what to see and where to go. In "the Shadow of the Sun" you will read about what you will see if you turn a wrong corner from a main street and meet ordinary people - or get stuck somewhere. I have lived in Ethiopia and visited several other African countries, but this is the first book I have read that describes how it really is if you don't follow the main tourist stream.
Excellent insight.......2007-03-26
Kapuscinski has a knack for describing both the geographic landscape and the human condition in such a way that you can visualize it. He has a keen eye and mind for observation and analysis. All his books should be compulsory reading for anybody and everybody involved in any kind of aid activity in the third world - government agencies or charities.
Africa .......2007-03-10
The best book about Africa I have read. The reporting is balanced and full of insight and avoids falling into the the various traps of tourist brochure over-identification preaching etc. If there is a fault it is that is somewhat fragmentary. a set of excellent snapshots or shorts rather than a feature film.
A wonderful memoir.......2007-02-18
I'm sad to say that I had never heard of Kapuscinski until his recent death. I've known several foreign correspondents in the past and I was surprised that they had never mentioned his work. All of this makes the "The Shadow of the Sun" all that much stronger for me. Kapuscinski was unique in that he worked for a Soviet Bloc country and had fewer resources than his North American or Western European counterparts. There is little, if any, ideology in his writing, although he clearly views slavery and colonialism as having many negative impacts on the continent. Instead, there is an acute sense of observation and an empathy for everyday people that comes from getting out of the expat ghetto and exploring the daily world of ordinary people, as well as the major stories of the day. Kapuscinski clearly learned a great deal about African history, as well as politics. He chronicles the lives of the prominent and the ordinary and is able to write in a way that is dense, but not overwhelming. Kapuscinski is able to concisely summarize and integrate history, politics, economics, and his knowledge of the various societies he encounters with relatively little recourse to stereotype, although he tends to generalize about people's natures a bit too much. Kapuscinski shows great respect for the subjects of his journalism, particularly those who lack power or influence.
The closest comparison to this book is Paul Theroux's "Dark Star Safari" which covers a similar span of time and also includes encounters with the high and low ends of the social spectrum, and many of the same disappointments about the post-colonial era. Where Theroux tends to be grouchy and sardonic, Kapuscinski invests rather less emotion. He clearly loved the adventure of his work but doe not skirt the drawbacks like malaria and threats to his life. This is a great book for people who want to understand recent history and what a real journalist's eye can capture in an age when far too many in the media seem to be suckers for fame and position.
Book Description
Both on the continent and off, âAfricaâ is spoken of in terms of crisis: as a place of failure and seemingly insurmountable problems, as a moral challenge to the international community. What, though, is really at stake in discussions about Africa, its problems, and its place in the world? And what should be the response of those scholars who have sought to understand not the âAfricaâ portrayed in broad strokes in journalistic accounts and policy papers but rather specific places and social realities within Africa?
In Global Shadows the renowned anthropologist James Ferguson moves beyond the traditional anthropological focus on local communities to explore more general questions about Africa and its place in the contemporary world. Ferguson develops his argument through a series of provocative essays which openâas he shows they mustâinto interrogations of globalization, modernity, worldwide inequality, and social justice. He maintains that Africans in a variety of social and geographical locations increasingly seek to make claims of membership within a global community, claims that contest the marginalization that has so far been the principal fruit of âglobalizationâ for Africa. Ferguson contends that such claims demand new understandings of the global, centered less on transnational flows and images of unfettered connection than on the social relations that selectively constitute global society and on the rights and obligations that characterize it.
Ferguson points out that anthropologists and others who have refused the category of Africa as empirically problematic have, in their devotion to particularity, allowed themselves to remain bystanders in the broader conversations about Africa. In Global Shadows, he urges fellow scholars into the arena, encouraging them to find a way to speak beyond the academy about Africa’s position within an egregiously imbalanced world order.
Customer Reviews:
Ecellent book.......2007-04-04
I love this book
Writing style is amazing and the information is inspiring
I recommend this book 100%
Amazon.com
Out of Africa is Karin Blixen's love letter to the country she called home for nearly 20 years. Arriving in British East Africa (now Kenya) from Denmark in 1914, Blixen--Isak Dinesen was her pen name--was immediately seduced by the landscape of the Ngong hill country, not to mention the animals and people who inhabited it. Her descriptions bring this wonderland alive for readers: out on safari, she recalls the movements of a group of giraffes, "in their queer, inimitable, vegetative gracefulness, as if it were not a herd of animals but a family of rare, long-stemmed, speckled gigantic flowers slowly advancing." Blixen laces into her reverie the account of her coffee plantation--which ultimately succumbed to high altitude, droughts, and tumbling international coffee prices--and tales of her friendships with other colonials in Nairobi. But one should read her memoir for the stories she tells of cooking with her Kikuyu chef (who almost never ate any of the European delicacies he so expertly created), adopting an abandoned infant antelope, flying over the countryside in her lover's plane--"the greatest, most transporting pleasure of my life on the farm"--and watching the children of her tenant farmers collect at her house each day at noon for the spectacle of her cuckoo clock.
Though some of her references to native Africans will likely make today's readers uncomfortable, Blixen can also be perceptive, particularly in her articulation of the differences between European and African culture and her excitement over what she learns from "her" Africans. It is not long before she is attuned to the rhythms of nature: she can foresee when the rains will come, can spot the new moon before anyone else on the farm, and knows exactly what the silence of night should sound like. Though her sorrow is almost unbearably palpable when at last--after the collapse of the farm, the loss of her lover, and the war looming--Blixen leaves Africa, the reader will close the book richer for her sojourn. --Jordana Moskowitz
Book Description
With classic simplicity and a painter's feeling for atmosphere and detail, Isak Dinesen tells of the years she spent from 1914 to 1931 managing a coffee plantation in Kenya.
Customer Reviews:
Charming, Oblique.......2007-05-24
I came to this book expecting to read one woman's personal experience of living in Africa, and that's what I found. There is no sociology here, and very little historical context. She does not illuminate THE African experience. She records HER African experience. Certainly that is all she owes the reader? One woman's experience, one woman's life in a time very different from our own.
Do some of her observations shock the modern reader's sensibility? Oh certainly. There are things one simply does not SAY, and back when she wrote, she did. On the whole, her love and respect shine through when speaking of the people who entered her life as neighbors, employees and friends.
Dinesen brings to life a physical landscape that most of us will never get to see. She takes passionate delight in her work, her companions, and her surroundings. Even her setbacks are embraced, as they compose part of a life she knew was slipping away from her.
I was intrigued by what she didn't write. The book maintains almost complete silence about her husband, her health, and her relationship with Denys Finch Hatten. It is only in writing of his death that we understand how deep her feelings were. She writes around that love. Her discretion made my heart ache.
Very highly recommended.
the wildness and irregularity of the country.......2007-03-22
Now eclipsed by the Streep-Redford film presentation that appropriated its title, Karen Blixen's memoir of life on her Kenyan coffee farm speaks movingly of the more benign side of colonialism in Africa and of one European's self-evident love for the land she had made her own.
Sadly, Blixen's lush descriptions of 'her people' are often judged too quickly by modern criteria of racial attitudes, a game that is like asking this early twentieth-century writer to wrestle with one arm tied behind her back. If it can be granted that there was anything good about Europe's colonization of Africa, then Bliksen (Isak Dinesen was her pen name) is its face.
She loved the land and its people, entering about as far as was plausible in her time into the remarkable rhythm of both. What more can be asked of any of us, all children of our moment and enveloped in its limitations?
This is a book for lovers of Africa, no matter whence they come. Blixen not only pushed an eloquent pen, she was herself shaped in the biblical and classical language of educated Europeans in a way that prepared her to bridge Africa and Europe in a day when few were equipped to do so.
Blixen's Africa no longer exists, as she already realized within the window of her writing of OUT OF AFRICA and SHADOWS ON THE GRASS. Yet the Africa Blixen knew has children, not to be disinherited for the generations that have passed and the unsavory disease that a legacy of failed leaders has wrought upon this great continent. Though the primary fruit of reaching behind the celluloid to *read* OUT OF AFRICA is the satisfaction of the read itself, it is also true that today's Africa and today's Africans can be glimpsed in the great-grandparents who knew and lived in proximity to this enigmatic and uniquely gifted Danish colonist in a land she mistreated only by calling it hers.
The Best Autobiography I've ever read .......2005-10-13
I find most autobiographies to be masterbatory exercises in which the authors attempt to explain themselves.
But in Out of Africa, Denison does no explaining, no apologizing. It is love poem to the Africa she knew, and while she does display racist views, it is as she unashamedly shows her heartbreak over a world she loved and was lost.
Denison also wrote some very powerful short stories, most notably the ones in "Winter's Tales." "The Sorrow Acre," is technically one of the most masterly presented short stories I have ever read. Despite her later skills, though, Out of Africa sets itself apart as a masterpiece for its ability to elegantly show an individual's gushing sense of loss.
There Is No Africa.......2004-11-28
Underlying Blixen's tale of early 20th century Africa is the presumption that there was such a place; that is, a people or nation of peoples existed to which she went and from which she was forced to depart by economic circumstances. This presumption a priori allows her to reminisce about Africa the way it was or was supposed by her to have been.
As she observed, Africa was, in a sense, leaving her. Peoples were being moved around, new laws restricting tribal behavior were being passed, and the Ngong Hills were being laid out as a suburb of Nairobi. She was there, she professed, before all these changes began.
But was she? Was there a time and place, "Africa", or is this concept mainly her and the European view of the times? Blixen's Africa in fact was not any sort of original. Europeans had already produced vast changes: the tribes were by then being herded into reservations and European ways and goods prevailed. European reporters never reported Africa the way it was or had been. That information remained "dark."
The informational darkness is not entirely their fault. An observer always alters that which he sets out to observe. It is only a presumption that his observations are an approximation of the reality the way it would be without him observing it. That presumption is least justifiable in human affairs. We will never know what the original Masai or Kikuyu were like, or the exact configuration of flora and fauna among which they dwelled, or how they reacted to their environments or each other.
Similarly Blixen's little white light doesn't shine very far. We get some ethnic generalities as the vehicle of which she devises some stock identities, "the Kikuyu", "the Masai" and the like, which, on closer examination, turn out to be of European origin. Blixen manufactures masks and tries to get the Africans to wear them. Sociological and anthropological data are nearly entirely in deficit from these supposed traits. She probably is not alone in this process of inventing peoples. It accounts, perhaps, for why the Mau-mau insurrection caught the Europeans totally by surprise, as though you were to paint doodles on a sleeping man's body and he were to awake suddenly and demand angrily to know what you were doing.
Here I am, where I ought to be........2004-11-19
I'm another reader who comes to Out of Africa by way of Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye; and it became recommended reading before I visited Kenya for myself in the early 90's. So, having just finished it and now half way through Shadows on the Grass, my overall impression is a pleasant one. I enjoyed Dinesen's writing style very much, and would agree with many readers that Out of Africa deserves a place among the classics in English literature. It's Karen Blixen's memoirs of her time in Kenya around WWI, living and working on her coffee plantation near Nairobi. Her descriptions of the Natives, her European friends, the land, the animals, flora and fauna are incredible. The chapters shift back and forth in time, some focused on specific events and individuals, some more whimsical and anecdotal. Reading Out of Africa transports the reader into early 20th Centrury colonial Kenya, and more concretely, onto Ms. Blixen's farm at the foot of the Ngong Hills. Years later she takes up her time in Africa again in Shadows on the Grass, talking more about her loyal Somali servant & right-hand man, Farah, taking a more philosophical tone regarding "masters & slaves", Native superstitions, manners, and so on. Shadows is inferior in many ways to Out of Africa, and it feels more like an "addendum" to the main work, which is poetry by comparison. By the time she writes it, she seems to have grown slightly more distant, and well, Colonist European.
As for Out of Africa, if you've seen the movie version and are looking for it here you're in for a surprise because the book contains no overt romance between Karen & Denys, nor mention of siphylous, nor much in the way of Karen's own personal life. Her ex-husband, Bror is almost non-existant. That makes sense seeing that she wrote under a pseudonym for whatever reaons. Still, I was slightly disappointed not to find more personal thoughts or emotions from her, or discussions regarding the politcal, historical, or economic backdrop of Kenya. Or the workings of the coffee business there. (I have yet to read it, but from what I gather "Uhuru" by Robert Ruark is an excellent novel dealing with these types of affairs in Kenya in the next generations after Blixen, in the 1950's & 1960's). Also, Blixen is very much a product of the times and her colonial attitudes and mindset sometimes come across as condescending or negative towards the Africans (mostly in certain passages in Shadows though). However, I do believe that in her frequent comparisons between the animals, land, and Natives Blixen is actually praising and admiring the people, not being racist or mean, as one reviewer here claims. She frequently praises the Kikuyus, Masai, and Somali she lives with for their numerous attributes (as well as the European settlers) and for their simplicity and harmony with nature, versus the repressed and "civilized" Europe she comes from. One other thing that's different from the movie is her attitude towards hunting. In the movie it's as though she doesn't hunt at all, but in the book she specifically mentions her intitial desire to shoot one of every kind of local game (though she does later express some distaste for hunting, she remains enthusiastic about shooting lions, comparing it in Shadows to "a declaration of love" and hunting to being a sort of "love-affair"). She means respect, but oh how the times have changed now with all the big game enthusiasts shooting game with . . . cameras from pop-top mini-vans!
Once I let go of the movie (its own masterpiece of beauty & cinematography) and my intellectual curiosities, and came to accept Blixen's memoir as it is, I enjoyed it more and more as I read on. I took my time reading it, savoring it, and reflecting upon my own safari experience (with a camera) in Kenya not too many years ago, and found much to admire and contemplate in her writings, even if from a different era. While Out of Africa isn't especially deep or philosphical, nor dramatic or emotional, it somehow comes across as a grand novel, and there are moments when all of the above hit you. This is due primarily, I think, to Blixen's having lived a fascinating life in a unique period and place, and knowing how to tell a story without overdoing it - she just writes her own experiences. One good example of this balance can be found in one of my favorite chapters entitled, "A Fugitive Rests on the Farm" from Part III. In it, a Swedish immigrant and traveler named Emmanuelson stays briefly on Karen's farm, discusses his lonely and peripatetic life with her, and eventually walks off into the Masai reserve all alone, putting his fate into God & the Masai's hands. The sparse detail and images are great. Likewise, her rememberances with Denys Fitch-Hatton are wonderfuly scenic and memorable as well, and subtly romantic. All the vignettes she relates are mostly undramatic, straight-forward, and though unforgettable. Out of Africa is a unique literary memoir and journal of a diverse group of people come together in one specific place and time, bonded together by the very soil in which the coffee trees they lived for were once planted, and live on in these organic pages.
Amazon.com
Known for such feats as being the first climber to reach the summit of K2 without bottled oxygen, climbing Antarctica's highest mountain, and leading a team to the top of a formidable 2,000-foot granite tower in the most remote corner of the Amazon's Orinoco jungle, Rick Ridgeway, in his latest book, takes a walk. Of course, it's no ordinary stroll. Accompanied by park officers, Ridgeway treks unprotected among lions and elephants, rhinos and oryxes.
The Shadow of Kilimanjaro is as much a search for answers to an adventurer's most soul-searching questions as an account of a thrilling journey. In the introduction Ridgeway writes,
Henry David Thoreau did not write that in wilderness is the preservation of the world, as he is oft misquoted, but that "In wildness is the preservation of the world." There is a difference, and it is significant. A wildness is intact. In wildness, all the original pieces are there. My own backyard mountains in California, from the Coastal Range through the Sierras, are in many places wilderness, but none of it is wildness because the grizzly is gone. We may have the grizzly on the state flag; having it there, however, is not a celebration of our heritage but a burlesque of what we have done to the most noble patriarch ever to walk the land.
Starting at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro and ending at the Indian Ocean, Ridgeway's aim during this adventure is less to get there and more to be there. During his weeks on foot, he thoughtfully considers the effects of colonial expansion on Africa's indigenous peoples, its landscape, and its awe-inspiring animals--all the while contemplating with a conservationist's heart Africa's uncertain future. --Kathryn True
Book Description
In one of the most acclaimed travel and adventure books of the past year, Rick Ridgeway chronicles his trek from the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro to the Indian Ocean, through Kenya's famed Tsavo Park. His tale is, according to The Boston Globe, "a gripping account of how it feels to be charged by an incensed elephant and kept awake at night by the roaring of stalking lions." But it is more than an adventure story. The Los Angeles Times noted that "the pace of walking gives Ridgeway time to contemplate his great theme and the great men and women who have struggled with the conundrum of whether man can live at peace with the beasts." Ridgeway examines the effects of colonial expansion on the indigenous people, the landscape, and the animals, and contemplates the future for all of them.
Customer Reviews:
A Great Book on East Africa.......2007-06-08
Let me first of all say that Rick Ridgeway is one of my favorite adventure writers. This book is focused on the area around Kilimanjaro and the current state of the conservation movement. Rick does a wonderful job of describing the area as he makes his way on foot from Kilimanjaro to the East coast of Africa.
One of my favorite aspects of this book is that Rick includes all the books he has used in his research to gain a better understanding of the history of East Africa.
If you love a well written adventure, with enough meat to make you want to dig deeper in understanding Africa - this is your book.
Travel, Nature, Adventure, and History all in one package.......2006-02-07
Author Ridgeway writes a well-paced narrative that smoothly ties together his personal adventure in eastern Africa with the area's history and culture, particularly in terms of its ecology, with focus on elephants as the defining megafauna of the area.
Ridgeway provokes thought on the future of Africa's large animals, the past fate of those large mammals that have already disappeared, and how we humans tie into all of this. His primary sources are the people who have shaped and continue to shape Kenya's game and wildlife policies; these sources give his writing the distinct tinge of veracity.
Recommended for any interested in travel, African history, or ecology.
Ethnocentric and quite boring.......2005-09-08
I was so disappointed by this book I could not get through more than a couple of chapters. The author may know about mountaineering, but he seems to know very little about Kenya. Moreover, I found the writing to be ethnocentric and quite boring.
"Whatever happens to beasts happens to man.".......2005-02-26
Combining moments of danger with moments of profound introspection, mountaineer/explorer Ridgeway details his journey from the top of Mount Kilimanjaro through the Tsavo game reserves to Mombasa, a month-long journey on foot, which allows him to experience man's primal relationships with the environment. Traveling with an experienced guide, two members of the Kenya Park and Wildlife Service, and two sharpshooters (in case of life-threatening danger), Ridgeway follows dry riverbeds across the savanna, seeking "tactile knowledge of Africa's wildlands and wild animals."
Far more than a search for thrills, the journey offers Ridgeway an opportunity to observe breath-taking vistas and the full panoply of wildlife, from the elephant to the tiniest of birds, paying equal attention to all. Mourning the absence of once-plentiful animals from the bushlands near Kilimanjaro, and the decline of species elsewhere, Ridgeway contemplates the long-term effects of colonialism, big game hunting, poaching, traditional tribal values, climatic changes, and tourism, as well as man's seemingly innate tendency to kill certain species into extinction.
Ridgeway, long a hunter himself, is an engaging author, both observant and thoughtful. A great admirer of hunter-turned-game-park-adminstrator Bill Woodley, whose two sons from the Park and Wildlife Service are on the journey, he provides a sensitive and impartial treatment of conservation issues. Extolling the work of elephant researchers Cynthia Moss and Joyce Poole, the latter of whom joins the group for part of the journey, he points out that they have acquired through study a kind of knowledge not available to hunters. Without preaching, he conveys "the big picture," making a compelling case for the fact that to preserve Africa's large mammals one must "fight fiercely not only to preserve, but even to expand, their wild habitat." Mary Whipple
Not at all patronizing.......2002-04-01
Rick Ridgeway has written a very informative and entertaining account of his 300 mile hike West to East across southern Kenya in 1997. The walk was metaphorically in THE SHADOW OF KILIMANJARO beginning on the summit of that great mountain and spanning the different ecological zones of mountain moraine, foothills, savannah, scrub, desert, and finally tropical white sand beaches of the Indian Ocean coast near Malindi. More significantly Ridgeway writes about his journey in the shadow of others who have written famously on Kenya, most significantly Hemingway, Dinesen, and Blixen. At yet another level this story is set in the shadow of Kenya's colonial history and its current struggles as a developing nation trying to make its way in the modern world.
Ridgeway deals with all the relevant issues - ecology and the environment, conservation, domestic politics, the economy, tourism, the romantic literary images, the colonial legacy, the Mau Mau uprisings, cultural, ethnic, and social issues. And he deals with them in the way good travel writing should. Simply present the facts as you get them and let others speak their truths. No moralizing and very little contextualizing and therefore very refreshing.
The image of Kenya that emerges is that of a real country. Not too much of the fantasy and gloss of a romantic wilderness nor the equally unreal vision of warring tribes at THE ENDS OF THE EARTH. Just reality. Strengths, weaknesses, beauty, blemishes, issues, agendas, and concerns. All the things that face a people making their way on a rapidly globalizing planet. Although Ridgeway's Kenya is a very different place than the country I knew in the 1960's when I lived there in my youth, it's still as rich and as alive as I remember it and Ridgeway has done an excellent job of bringing it home.
Average customer rating:
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In the Shadow of South Africa: Lesotho's Economic Future (Making of Modern Africa)
Mats Lundahl ,
Colin L. McCarthy , and
Lennart Petersson
Manufacturer: Ashgate Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 Development & Growth
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Economic Conditions
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ASIN: 0754634612 |
Average customer rating:
- A fine survey of the wilderness of South Africa
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Zulu Wilderness: Shadow and Soul
Ian Player
Manufacturer: Fulcrum Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
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| Business & Investing
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Zoology
| Biological Sciences
| Science
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| Amphibians
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ASIN: 1555913636 |
Customer Reviews:
A fine survey of the wilderness of South Africa.......2004-11-09
Ian Player's Zulu Wilderness could also have been featured in our biography section, for really, it's as much a personal memoir of the author's experiences traveling in the African wilderness and his work as a conservationist as it is a travelogue of the region - but it's featured here for its fine survey of the wilderness of South Africa, the social and conservation issues at hand, and its exciting 'you are there' adventure sensation. Very highly recommended: gripping and hard to put down.
Average customer rating:
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Flickering Shadows: Cinema and Identity in Colonial Zimbabwe (Ohio RIS Africa Series)
James M. Burns
Manufacturer: Ohio University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Movies
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History & Criticism
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General
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Zimbabwe
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ASIN: 0896802248 |
Customer Reviews:
Why Not a Movie?.......2002-07-18
As a student of Sub-Saharan Africa I found this history of British Empire propaganda efforts through cinema showings in Rhodesia fascinating reading. This is the stuff of great drama -- the British investment in moving picture development and censorship efforts directed at forging a "tool of Empire" in order to pacify Africans and assimilate them into the new colonial order. Most of othe propaganda tools later employed by the Nazis in Germany and the Soviets in Russia were originally in play in the prolonged and heavily subsidized business of developing a cinema oriented to promoting the white rule administrations. The book is a fast paced, engrossing read -- if there is one criticism to be levied it seems that perhaps in the interest of brevity the author passed over quickly some of the engrossing tales of how certain motion pictures were required to be bowdlerized in order to negotiate them into a colonial atmosphere. For example, a full chapter might have been devoted to the reaction of the Rhodesian natives to cowboy movies, a campaign that stretched over decades, changing in scope and intent to accommodate the growing sophistication of the native audiences. Has anyone made an attempt to produce a motion picture not centered in the Hollywood concept of African colonialism? Perhaps the author has this in mind for a future project -- I would look forward to watching a drama concerned with Rhodesian cinema development in a style of "Out of Africa" presentation, demonstrating the power of film to shape credulous audiences, and how that same influence backfired in fomenting political unrest and revolution.
Book Description
In this provocative and compelling examination of the deep politics of war, Carolyn Nordstrom takes us from the immediacy of war-zone survival, through the offices of power brokers, to vast extra-legal networks that fuel war and international profiteering. She captures the human face of the front lines, revealing both the visible and the hidden realities of war in the twenty-first century. Shadows of War is grounded in ethnographic research carried out at the epicenters of political violence on several continents. Its pages are populated not only with the perpetrators and victims of war but also with the scoundrels, silent heroes, and average families who live their lives in the midst of explosive violence. War reconfigures our most basic notions of humanity, Nordstrom demonstrates. This book, of crucial importance at the present moment, shows that war is enmeshed in struggles over the very foundations of the sovereign state, the crafting of economic empires both legal and illegal, and innovative searches for peace.
Nordstrom describes the multi-trillion-dollar international financial networks that support warfare. She traces the entangled routes by which illegal drugs, precious gems, weapons, basic food supplies, and pharmaceuticals are moved by an international cast of businesspeople, profiteers, and black-market operators. Shadows of War demonstrates how the experiences of both the architects of war and of ordinary people are deleted from media accounts and replaced with stories about soldiers, weapons, and territory. For the first time, this book retrieves from the shadows the faces of those whose stories seldom reach the light of international recognition.
Customer Reviews:
Another great work from Nordstrom.......2006-08-19
Dr. Nordstrom consistently goes where most of us never will, both physically and intellectually. Another great work.
A tremendously rich work, a revelation........2004-11-24
This book reveals aspects of war normally "in the shadows"--the vast profits to be made from conflicts in resource-rich regions; the informal systems through which the resources move north to the "peaceful" developed countries and the weapons, medicines, technology of the north move south to fuel the wars and also sometimes to help heal them. This is wonderful anthropology, rich in quotes and stories from the winners and losers in war--from UN officials, profiteers, development bankers to resourceful homeless children of the streets. Shadows of War will change the way you see the world. It has tremendous implicatons for the future of all of us in the 21st century, who live amongst the realities of extra-state power (like bin Laden's) that we are hardly beginning to understand.
Good Storyteller, Poor Academic.......2004-09-18
Attempting to do research in the field of war and developing, I have mixed feelings about the utility of this book. As a collection of first-hand stories about conflict in Mozambique, the book does an admirable job, and I suspect that anyone who treats it as a adventure travel book with some political overtones will enjoy it. Treat it like early Robert Kaplan, and it will be worth your while.
However, if you're looking for some substantial insight into the living conditions of a ravaged permament conflict-ridden region of the world, I find it lacks academic rigour. Prof Nordstrom begins to chart economic relationships that both fuel and rape the region, yet does so half-heartedly. She discusses the societal strain that the conflict has caused, yet again does so as a storyteller rather than an academic. Although there were a few interesting anecdotes, I felt like I was reading "Chicken Soup for the Soul".
The bottom line is, if you're looking for academic insight, look elsewhere. As a description of life in Mozambique, the book is fine.
I won't even go into the fact that little is given in the way of solution at the end of the book. Regardless what you feel your role is as an academic, I would have thought rational due diligence would have at least inspired you to write guidance on potential solutions. Otherwise, why read the book?
As a postscript, if you've spent any time yourself in developing nations and are looking for this to supplement your experience, you'll find nothing new here.
Lessons and realities of life in shadows of armed conflict.......2004-07-23
This is a wonderful book to understand what is ?normality? outside the vision of the Media but the essence of our century for much of the world. Simplistic phrases like ?failed state? don?t cut it and their use by diplomats, policy makers, or pundits merely proves their ignorance and/or superficiality. It is usually also evidence that they don?t really care a bit so long as raw materials from these areas make it to world markets.
Many people and a very significant part of the world economy is in this ?unofficial? and shadowlike area. Many depend upon it without even knowing that it exists. (Violent ?terrorism? is our present obsession but not the only storyline to understand much of the world.)
The author is an Anthropologist who has spent considerable time in various no-man?s lands especially in Southern Africa and explains some of the illicit ?order? that keeps things going in war, borderlands, and general chaos. There are brief comparative references to Latin America as well. The analysis and description is the best I have ever seen in print (much deeper than Kaplan?s Coming Anarchy which might be the nearest comparison although very different in style and with little real analysis).
Perhaps a fifth of the book is telling anecdotes that humanize the book and are relevant but which could be skipped if a reader had little time (these are clearly identified in small print and spacing.) Other readers will find these the most approachable part of the book.
Crime, violence, child soldiers, smuggling, viciousness are here. But so are some means of continuing trade and human relations, some sparks of peace and order and even some hopeful examples of places gradually finding their path back to more civil society. From children living in ?clean? storm drains as family, to unrecognized states formed in areas of noted violence, to gradual reconciliation after war and violence ? there are lessons to be learned and some small ray of hope.
Average customer rating:
- Excellent nature writing combined with great art.
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Shadows of Africa
Peter Matthiessen , and
Mary Freank
Manufacturer: Harry N Abrams
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
African
| Regional
| History & Criticism
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Nature & Ecology
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
Natural History
| Nature & Ecology
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Zoology
| Biological Sciences
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Conservation
| Outdoors & Nature
| Subjects
| Books
Wildlife
| Conservation
| Outdoors & Nature
| Subjects
| Books
Reference
| Outdoors & Nature
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0810938286 |
Customer Reviews:
Excellent nature writing combined with great art........2001-01-30
"Shadows of Africa" is a collection of Peter Matthiessen's writings about the African continent, its wildlife and indigenous cultures. These beautiful writings, at times lyrical, at other times documentary, convey the past, present and future of the continent. The writing is supplemented by Mary Frank's beautiful impressionistic drawings that reflect her feelings toward Matthiessen's prose. The reader is submerged in East African savannas as well as in West African rainforests. The author's description of Botswana's wildlife is a real gem. The descriptions of Chobe national park, Savuti and Okavango delta transplant the reader to these magical places. The prose makes you feel, see and smell Southern African bush. This collection of nature writings and drawings is as timeless as Africa itself. Great book to read as well as to possess!
Average customer rating:
- Air war in the nigerian civil war
- We want more ...
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Shadows : Airlift and Airwar in Biafra and Nigeria 1967-1970
Michael I. Draper
Manufacturer: Howell Press Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Africa
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Nigeria
| Africa
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Europe
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Aviation
| Military
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Pictorials
| Military
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Strategy
| Military
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| World
| History
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 1902109635 |
Book Description
The Nigerian Civil War broke out in 1967 after the country's Eastern Region declared itself the independent state of Biafra. The war lasted three years, pitting the Nigerian Air Force against the ill-equipped Biafran Air Force in one of the most intense conflicts ever to occur on African soil. The Biafran Air Force was armed with a motley mix of antiquated and modem aircraft, whereas the Nigerian Air Force was made up of mostly mercenary-crewed MiG 17s, Il 28s and L-29 Delfins. Biafra was not only overshadowed and outclassed by Nigeria, but it was also landlocked for most of the conflict. However, despite the many setbacks, the Biafran Air Force held out, supporting an amazing airlift of food and arms, second only to the Berlin Airlift of 1948. Fusing firsthand accounts and much original documentation, Shadows is the story of the largest civilian relief airlift ever mounted. Shadows was officially launched at the House of Commons in London on January 12, 2000, the 30th anniversary of the end of the Nigerian Civil War. It has already been named the book of the month of April by Aeroplane Monthly and other special features are to appear in Flypast Magazine.
Customer Reviews:
Air war in the nigerian civil war.......2001-07-25
This book is the best book about the Nigerian civil war written.
It is very detailed with a very complet information about the activities of the diferent aircraft in this war. It give information about the aerial operations of both parties but the book is focusing in the biafran side.
I recomend this book to all people interested in the african conflicts and especially in the air war.
We want more ..........2000-06-27
This book could serve as the master template for future books on air warfare and its associated civil aviation involvement. When reading and looking at this book I was immediately wondering which other conflicts should be devoted a book like this: the 1960s conflicts in Zaire/Congo, the Libyan arm airlift in the 70s, the Vietnam War (Air America/World etc.), etc. The quality of the information and the photographs are outstanding. A definite "to buy" book.
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