The African Genius presents the ideas, social systems, religions, moral values, arts, and metaphysics of a range of African peoples. Basil Davidson points toward the Africa that might emerge from an ancient civilization that was overlaid and battered by colonialism, then torn apart by the upheaval of colonialism’s dismantlement. Davidson disputes the notion that Africa gained under colonialism by entering the modern world. He sees, instead, an ancient order replaced by modern dysf...

The classic history of Africa from the green Sahara and the Iron Age through the 20th century.Basil Davidson's Africa in History was a landmark in the restoration of African history. For centuries the myth had prevailed that Africa had no history prior to direct contact with European "civilization". This new edition of Basil Davidson's book not only eradicated these myths, but takes account of much of the most recent scholarship about native African civilizations.

No Fist Is Big Enough to Hide the Sky stands as a key text in the history of the eleven-year struggle against Portuguese rule in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde. Though perhaps less well known than the struggles in Angola and Mozambique, the liberation war waged by the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) easily ranks alongside those conflicts as an example of an African independence movement triumphing against overwhelming odds.Basil Davidson, ...

This book provides a balanced view about a charismatic leader, Kwame Nkrumah during an exciting period of history in Ghana. It discusses the failure of Nkrumah's means and abilities to meet the challenge of his aims from the standpoint of Ghana's welfare.

Basil Davidson's famous book -- now updated in a welcome Third Edition -- reviews the social and political history of Africa in the twentieth century. It takes the reader from the colonial era through the liberation movements to independence and beyond. It faces squarely the disappointments and breakdowns that have dulled the early successes of the post-colonial era; yet, for all the sorrows and uncertainties of Africa today, Basil Davidson shows how much has been achieved since decoloniza...

This is a survey of pre-colonial West Africa, written by the internationally respected author and journalist, Basil Davidson. He takes as his starting point his successful textA History of West Africa 1000-1800, but he has reworked his new text specially for a wider international readership. In the process he offers a fascinating introduction to the rich societies and cultures of Africa before the coming of the Europeans.

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

A collection of historical documents from the African National Congress. The ANC, led by Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, and Oliver Tambo, was, in partnership with the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the core of the movement against the white supremacist Apartheid regime in South Africa.

‘An exemplary work of investigative journalism that is also a wonderfully colourful book of history and travel’ Observer, Books of the Year‘A piece of postmodern historiography of quite extraordinary sophistication and ingenuity… [written with] exceptional delicacy and restraint’ TLSTo Westerners, the name ‘Timbuktu’ long conjured a tantalising paradise, an African El Dorado where even the slaves wore gold. Beginning in the late eighteenth ...

Now in paperback, the updated and expanded edition: David Graeber’s “fresh . . . fascinating . . . thought-provoking . . . and exceedingly timely” (Financial Times) history of debtHere anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: he shows that before there was money, there was debt. For more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods—that ...

The Land Is Ours tells the story of South Africa’s first black lawyers, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In an age of aggressive colonial expansion, land dispossession and forced labour, these men believed in a constitutional system that respected individual rights and freedoms, and they used the law as an instrument against injustice.The book follows the lives, ideas and careers of Henry Sylvester Williams, Alfred Mangena, Richard Msimang, Pixley ka Isaka Seme...

A leading scholar of South Africa provides a fresh and penetrating exploration of that country’s history, from the earliest known human inhabitation of the region to the present. Focusing primarily on the experiences of its black inhabitants, this richly illustrated book is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the historical patterns behind the conflicts that rage in this troubled land.