Africa category: 4903 books

In The Last Great Safari: East Africa in World War I, military historian Corey W. Reigel explores a fascinating and misunderstood theater of operations in the history of the First World War. Unprepared for the Great War, colonial units combined modern industrial weapons and equipment with traditional...

Erik Kennes and Miles Larmer provide a history of the Katangese gendarmes and their largely undocumented role in many of the most important political and military conflicts in Central Africa. Katanga, located in today's Democratic Republic of Congo, seceded in 1960 as Congo achieved independence and...

Only in recent years have historians rediscovered the critical role that French colonial troops played in the twentieth century's two world wars. What is perhaps still deeply under-appreciated is how much General de Gaulle's Free France drew its strength from 1940 to the middle of 1943 from fighting...

One of the outstanding mysteries of the twentieth century, and one with huge political resonance, is the death of Dag Hammarskjold and his UN team in a plane crash in central Africa in 1961. Just minutes after midnight, his aircraft plunged into thick forest in the British colony of Northern Rhodesia...

She was a beautiful German girl in her late teens; he was a handsome German in his late twenties who had settled in East Africa. They were pen pals. The year was 1934, and Hitler was in power. By Hitler’s standards Helga did not qualify as “Aryan,” because her Lutheran mother was born...

This book explores how cricket in South Africa was shaped by society and society by cricket.  It demonstrates the centrality of cricket in the evolving relationship between culture, sport and politics starting with South Africa as the beating heart of the imperial project and ending with the country...

Kongwa, in central Tanganyika (now Tanzania) had been the central location for the post-World War II British government's, 30-million-acre Groundnut Scheme. With its failure, a village of tin roofed and white ant infested abandoned shacks, devoid of water-born sanitation, became available - suited,...

This book's very existence is significant, since the material is that of the end of the seventeenth century, the period when the dramatic changes that took place in the eighteenth century were beginning to materialize. Transatlantic slaving was to become the chief interest and the use of firearms...

African women’s history is a vast topic that embraces a wide variety of societies in over 50 countries with different geographies, social customs, religions, and historical situations. Africa is a predominantly agricultural continent, and a major factor in African agriculture is the central role...

This book examines peacekeeping in Africa, exploring how the various actors are forming an African security regime complex. The changing dynamics of peacekeeping in today’s world have encouraged a more cooperative approach between international and regional actors. At the centre of this book...

Exploring the history and religious community of a group of Muslim Sufi mystics in colonial French West Africa, this study shows the relationship between religious, social and economic change in the region. It highlights the role that intellectuals played in shaping social and cultural change and...

This book considers the promises and challenges of globalization for Africa. Why have African states been perennially unable to diversify their economies and move beyond export of primary produce, even as Southeast Asia has made a tremendous leap into manufacturing? What institutional impediments...

As the epicenter of Christianity has shifted towards Africa in recent decades, Pentecostalism has emerged as a particularly vibrant presence on the continent. This collection of essays offers a groundbreaking study of the complex links between politics and African Pentecostalism. Situated at the intersection...

Throughout his career, the distinguished South African jurist Richard J. Goldstone has been deeply committed to promoting human rights in his own country and abroad. A justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa since 1994, he has also served as chairperson of the Commission of Inquiry Regarding...