Showing titles in Africa

A moving, often provocative, and ultimately vital collection of firsthand accounts of people living through the Boko Haram conflict. From abducted girls to brash soldiers, and from community leaders to simple fishermen, this collection provides an insight into the realities of those living through the conflict, making this an essential cultural archive. The World Was in Our Hands covers themes of patriarchy, the economy, climate change, and corruption, to paint a picture that is much broader than what has been captured through news coverage.

Eighteen years after the genocide that made Rwanda international news, yet left it all but abandoned by the West, the country has achieved a miraculous turnaround. Rising out of the complete devastation of a failed state, Rwanda has emerged on the world stage yet again - this time with a unique model for governance and economic development under the leadership of its strong and decisive president, Paul Kagame. Here, Patricia Crisafulli and Andrea Redmond look at Kagame’s leadership.

We think we know the story of Africa’s Great Lakes region. Following the Rwandan genocide, an idealistic group of young rebels overthrew the brutal regime in Kigali, ushering in an era of peace and stability that made Rwanda the donor darling of the West, winning comparisons with Switzerland and Singapore. But the truth was considerably more sinister.

For the first time in history, the navies of the world have united against a common enemy - a couple of thousand rag-tag, underfed men and boys in the western Indian Ocean. Crammed into open boats and armed with ancient AK-47s, they range up to a thousand miles from home shores in Somalia. No one knows how many die at sea. But occasionally they hit the jackpot, seizing vessels and crews to be ransomed for millions of dollars.

At the heart of Africa is the Congo, a country the size of western Europe. It borders nine other nations, and since 1996 it has been racked by a brutal war in which millions have died. In Dancing in the Glory of Monsters, renowned political activist and researcher Jason Stearns has written a compelling and deeply reported narrative of how Congo became a failed state that collapsed into a war of retaliatory massacres. Stearns brilliantly describes the key perpetrators, many of whom he met personally, and highlights the nature of the political system that brought these people to power.

One Sunday in 2001 ear, nose and throat specialist Dr Peter Friedland received an unexpected call from Nelson Mandela’s personal physician. The former president was struggling to hear. Could Peter visit him at home? Friedland discovered that Mandela was using antiquated hearing aids and was struggling to maintain them. Soon he became a regular visitor to Mandela’s home in Houghton where he experienced the elderly statesman, in the frailty of old age, away from the crowds. He was full of stories and always bearing a lesson.

In 1925, college student Zora Neale Hurston - the sole black student at Barnard College, New York - was living in the city, ‘desperately striving for a toe-hold on the world.’ During this period, she began writing short works that captured the zeitgeist of African American life and transformed her into one of the central figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Nearly a century later, this singular talent is recognised as one of the most influential and revered American artists of the modern period.

The birth of South Sudan was celebrated the world round. But the celebration would not last: South Sudan's freedom-fighters soon plunged their new nation back into chaos, shattering the promise of liberation and exposing the hubris of their American backers. Drawing on extraordinary personal stories of identity, liberation, and survival, this narrative tells an epic story of paradise won and then lost. Zach Vertin's firsthand accounts, from deadly war zones to the halls of Washington power, bring listeners on an extraordinary journey into the rise and fall of the world's newest state.

Bigger than Watergate! Bigger than Iran-Contra! Ten times bigger than both, said one representative. The Bengahzi scandal may have been covered up by the White House, but the truth is about to come out. The Real Benghazi Story is a groundbreaking investigative work that finally exposes some of the most significant issues related to the murderous September 11, 2012, attack - information with current national security implications.

The first definitive account of Boko Haram’s abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls, their years in captivity, and why this story still matters - by celebrated international journalist Isha Sesay.

What does it take to make a dictator answer for his crimes? Hissene Habre, the former despot of Chad, terrorized, tortured, and killed on a horrific scale over eight years in power—while enjoying full American and Western support. After Habre's overthrow, his victims and their supporters were determined to see him held responsible for his atrocities. Their quest for justice would be long, tense, and unnerving, but they would not back down.

Destructive forces have been eroding the University of Cape Town, Africa’s leading university. This audiobook tells the sad, true tale of what has been transpiring. It is a saga of lunacy, criminality, pandering, and identity politics. The mad and the bad–the deranged, deluded, the depraved–have been granted endless latitude in bullying and abusing others.

Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa is credited with driving through the deal between the apartheid government and the African National Congress that was at the heart of South Africa’s democratic constitution. He was the ANC’s lead negotiator and the man who persuaded one of the most recalcitrant racist governments in the world to buy into a settlement based on one of its most enlightened bills of rights. But once the ink had dried on the constitution, Ramaphosa found himself politically sidelined.

The “Presidency” has developed into the most powerful institution in the world. These individuals can start and end wars, grow or destroy economies, leave their countries in a better or worse place. The impact of political leadership is felt more acutely in countries that are still developing. This is particularly true across Africa where political leaders are a strong determinant of a country’s sustainable growth trajectory, or lack thereof.

Per oltre sessant'anni, Ngugi wa Thiongb ha scritto dell'Africa con indomito coraggio, affrontando domande, ponendo sfide, raccogliendo storie e provando a immaginare un futuro possibile per il suo continente. Nella sua ampia produzione letteraria, "Scrivere per la pace" rappresenta il punto più alto della sua riflessione saggistica, raccogliendo per la prima volta i testi scritti dall'autore in oltre tre decenni su una vasta area di tematiche.

Autentická zpověď českého chirurga Tomáše Šebka z mise v Jižním Súdánu Jižní Súdán, nejmladší stát světa, už celá desetiletí sužují ozbrojené konflikty. Na začátku roku 2017 se do míst s nedostatkem potravin, kde se až příliš daří infekčním a tropickým nemocem, vydává lékař Tomáš Šebek jako jeden ze zástupců mezinárodní organizace Lékaři bez hranic.

In April 2014, the world awoke to the shocking news that the terrorist group Boko Haram had kidnapped nearly 300 school-aged girls and taken them deep into the forests of Nigeria. When veteran journalist Mellissa Fung travelled to Nigeria, she discovered that the scope of the kidnappings had been vastly under-reported. Hundreds—possibly thousands—more girls had been taken against their will and forced to become child brides to soldiers and leaders of Boko Haram. Some of the captives escaped and returned to their villages, many with children in tow.

At a time when many democracies are under strain around the world, Until We Have Won Our Liberty shines new light on the signal achievements of one of the contemporary era's most closely watched transitions away from minority rule. South Africa's democratic development has been messy, fiercely contested, and sometimes violent. But as Evan Lieberman argues, it has also offered a voice to the voiceless, unprecedented levels of government accountability, and tangible improvements in quality of life.

With his 2003 announcement of a program known as PEPFAR, George W. Bush launched an astonishingly successful American war against a global pandemic. PEPFAR played a key role in slashing HIV cases and AIDS deaths in sub-Saharan Africa, leading to the brink of epidemic control. Resilient in the face of flatlined funding and political headwinds, PEPFAR is America’s singular example of how to fight long-term plague - and win.

In 1968, two young medical students, Steve Biko and Mamphela Ramphele, fell in love while dreaming of a life free from oppression and racial discrimination. Their love story is also the story of the founding of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) by a group of 15 principled and ambitious students at the University of Natal in Durban in the early 1970s.