Search results

Portugal fought a bush war in Mozambique - one of the most beautiful countries in the world - for over a decade. The small European nation was ranged against formidable odds and in the end was unable to muster the resources required to effectively take on the might of the Soviet Union and its collaborators - every single communist country on the planet and almost all of sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, Al Venter argues, Portugal did not actually lose the war, and indeed fought in difficult terrain with...

"A touching, contemplative chronicle of loss and self-discovery." - Publishers Weekly From the acclaimed biographer of Norway's most treasured cultural icons, Henrik Ibsen and Edvard Munch, comes a story of a migrant family in search of roots and for each other. Ivo de Figueiredo's lyrical and imagistic memoir navigates a difficult search for the origins of his estranged father, which opens a door to a family history spanning four continents, five centuries and the rise and fall of two empire...

A New York Times Editors' Choice "A welcome addition to the vast literature produced by jailed writers across the centuries . . . [a] thrilling testament to the human spirit."--Ariel Dorfman, The New York Times Book Review "Wrestling with the Devil is a powerful testament to the courage of Ngugi and his fellow prisoners and validation of the hope that an independent Kenya would eventually emerge."--Minneapolis Star Tribune "The Ngugi of Wrestling with the Devil called not just for adding a b...

Gone to Ground is an investigation into the material and political forces that transformed the cityscape of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in the 1970s and early 1980s. It is both the story of a particular city and the history of a global moment of massive urban transformation from the perspective of those at the center of this shift. Built around an archive of newspapers, oral history interviews, planning documents, and a broad compendium of development reports, Emily Brownell writes about how urbanit...

In the late 19th century, the port of Massawa on the Red Sea was a thriving, vibrant, multiethnic commercial hub. Red Sea Citizens tells the story of how Massawa rose to prominence as one of Northeast Africa's most important shipping centres. Jonathan Miran reconstructs the social, material, religious, and cultural history of this mercantile community in a period of sweeping change. He shows how Massawa and its citizens benefited from migrations across the Indian Ocean, the Arabian peninsula, Eg...

On August 7, 1998, three years before President George W. Bush declared a War on Terror, the radical Islamist group al-Qaeda bombed the American embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, where Prudence Bushnell was serving as U.S. ambassador. Terrorism, Betrayal, and Resilience is her account of what happened, how it happened, and its impact twenty years later. When the bombs went off in Kenya and neighboring Tanzania that day, Congress was in recess and the White House, along with the entire country, was...

"This is an interesting book written by an objective observer who has witnessed the gradual decline of a country that showed so much promise" -Dries Brunt, Citizen Originally published in 1999, Kenya Cowboy has been updated and re-released with a new analytical postscript. This is a stylish, first-hand account of Britain's futile and often tragic struggle to retain its rich stake in East Africa in the face of the relentless Mau Mau uprising. Previous to the social unrest that began in Decemb...

On December 12, 1963, people across Kenya joyfully celebrated independence from British colonial rule, anticipating a bright future of prosperity and social justice. As the nation approached the fiftieth anniversary of its independence, however, the people's dream remained elusive. During its first five decades Kenya has experienced assassinations, riots, coup attempts, ethnic violence and political corruption. The ranks of the disaffected, the unemployed and the poor have multiplied. In this a...