An unapologetically African-centered monograph that reveals physical and spiritual forms and systems of female power and leadership in African cultures.Nwando Achebe’s unparalleled study documents elite females, female principles, and female spiritual entities across the African continent, from the ancient past to the present. Achebe breaks from Western perspectives, research methods, and their consequently incomplete, skewed accounts, to demonstrate the critical i...

The Igbo are one of the most populous ethnic groups in Nigeria and are perhaps best known and celebrated in the work of Chinua Achebe. In this landmark collection on Igbo society and arts, Toyin Falola and Raphael Chijioke Njoku have compiled a detailed and innovative examination of the Igbo experience in Africa and in the diaspora. Focusing on institutions and cultural practices, the volume covers the enslavement, middle passage, and American experience of the Igbo as well as their return...

Covers the history of the entire African continent, from prehistory to the present dayA Companion to African History embraces the diverse regions, subject matter, and disciplines of the African continent, while also providing chronological and geographical coverage of basic historical developments. Two dozen essays by leading international scholars explore the challenges facing this relatively new field of historical enquiry and present the dynamic ways in...

In September 2000 the notorious militia gang, 'West Side Boys' kidnapped eleven British soldiers in Sierra Leone and Operation Barras was launched as the rescue operation. Fast roping in from helicopters, the SAS soldiers engaged in a heavy firefight with the militia, killing several, and capturing their leader. Meanwhile the Paras advanced on foot, fighting their way through a village to recover the Land Rovers abandoned by the kidnapped soldiers. The operation was a complete success, wit...

This interesting research publication traces the origins of the Ashanti people, their historical links to the mining and trading of the precious mineral of gold and their migration into the Southern Forests of what is now the modern-day country of Ghana. This publication reveals the origins of trade relations with the European nations in the 15th Century, the truth about the role played by the Ashanti Kingdom in the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade and the reasons why it participated in supplyin...

Through the Dark Continent is essential reading for anyone interested in nineteenth century Africa and the European explorers who travelled through it.Sir Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1904) was a Welsh-American journalist and explorer who was famous for his exploration of central Africa and his search for missionary and explorer David Livingstone. Upon finding Livingstone, Stanley reportedly asked, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" Stanley is also known for his search fo...

It is the rainy season of 1998. An autocratic and corrupt ruler has just died in the arms of courtesans at the presidential villa leaving one hundred million citizens of Africa’s most populous country in comingled states of joy, grief and uncertainty. Through the eyes of eight fictional characters, A Rainy Season tells the story of Nigeria’s latest journey to democracy. Hamed, the government contractor. Ekei, the desperate fashionista. Jude, the underground radical. Kurdi, the womanizing past...

Ondjaki was ranked by The Guardian in 2012 as one of their Top Five African WritersYoung writer (35), already the author of 12 books in 8 languagesKnown for his charming personality and charming young protagonistsLike Mia Couto, he is already a star-figure in Portugal, & Brazil, & his work is well-known in Mexico, Uruguay, Argentina, Italy, and GermanyHas spoken at Brown, Rutgers, Stanford, and universities in the midwest, along with University of L...

When bullets hit Agnes Kamara-Umunna's home in Monrovia, Liberia, she and her father hastily piled whatever they could carry into their car and drove toward the border, along with thousands of others. An army of children was approaching, under the leadership of Charles Taylor. It seemed like the end of the world.Slowly, they made their way to the safety of Sierra Leone. They were the lucky ones.After years of exile, with the fighting seemingly over, Agnes returned to Liberia-...

In early November 1834, an aristocratic young couple from Savannah and South Carolina sailed from New York and began a strange seventeen year odyssey in West Africa. Leighton and Jane Wilson sailed along what was for them an exotic coastline, visited cities and villages, and sometimes ventured up great rivers and followed ancient paths. Along the way they encountered not only many diverse landscapes, peoples, and cultures, but also many individuals on their own odysseys -- including Paul S...

For much of the twentieth century, France recruited colonial subjects from sub-Saharan Africa to serve in its military, sending West African soldiers to fight its battles in Europe, Southeast Asia, and North Africa. In this exemplary contribution to the “new imperial history,” Gregory Mann argues that this shared military experience between France and Africa was fundamental not only to their colonial relationship but also to the reconfiguration of that relationship in the postcolonial era....

Annamaboe--largest slave trading port on the Gold Coast--was home to wily African merchants whose partnerships with Europeans made the town an integral part of Atlantic webs of exchange. Randy Sparks recreates the outpost's feverish bustle and brutality, tracing the entrepreneurs, black and white, who thrived on a lucrative traffic in human beings.