"Dr. John Henrik Clarke, the late outstanding African-American historian, has brought the range of his years of scholarly work together in this single and comprehensive volume. The topics he covers are as varied and interesting as his experience in the Pan-Africanist struggle. Notes for an African World Revolution: Africans at the Crossroads is a collection of essays that have been broadly amassed in five thematic sections. Clarke begins with the roots of the African and African-American freedom struggle in the African World. A major section is devoted to a detailed discussion of the uncompleted revolution of five monumental African leaders: Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Marcus Gravey, Malcom X, and Tom Mboya. The rest of the essays focus on topics ranging from the conquest of African to the struggles for freedom in South Africa and the Pan-Africanist movement. Clarke ends his collection with his important and timely essay Can African People Save Themselves?"--Amazon.com
This book is a compilation of selected papers presented during the 8th Africa Institute of South Africa (AISA) Young Graduates and Scholars (AYGS) Conference held at the University of Johannesburg in the year 2014. The three-day conference dubbed, Africa at a Crossroads: Future prospects for Africa after 50 years of the Organisation of African Unity/African Union, voiced young graduates and scholars’ views on Africa’s future and developmental breakthroughs, as well as its challenges and opportunities. While the annual conference is a capacity building platform for young scientists, it provided a platform for participants to engage in critical dialogue about the African realities and possible, plausible and desirable future for the continent. The book thus provides a critical interrogation of the drivers of change in Africa moving forward, especially as the AU was busy churning out new ideas and mapping out a new vision for the next 50 years. Essentially the book provides insights on national systems of innovation, matrices on poverty, climate change and lastly a reflection on Africa’s position in global governance.
Saharan Crossroads: Exploring Historical, Cultural, and Artistic Linkages between North and West Africa counteracts the traditional scholarly conception of the Sahara Desert as an impenetrable barrier dividing the continent by employing an interdisciplinary lens to examine myriad interconnections between North and West Africa through travel, trade, communication, cultural exchange, and correspondence that have been ongoing for several millennia. Saharan Crossroads offers a unique contribution to existing scholarship on the region by uniting a diverse group of African, European, and American scholars working on various facets of trans-Saharan history, social life, and cultural production, and bringing their work together for the first time. This trilingual volume includes eleven chapters written in English, five chapters in French, and three chapters in Arabic, reflecting the multicultural nature of the Sahara and this international project. Saharan Crossroads explores historical and contemporary connections and exchanges between populations living in and on both sides of the Sahara that have led to the emergence of distinctive cultural and aesthetic expressions. This contact has been fostered by a series of linkages that include the trans-Saharan caravan trade, the spread of Islam, the migration of nomadic pastoralists, and European colonization. The book includes three major sections: (1) history, culture, and identity; (2) trans-Saharan circulation of arts, music, ritual performance, and architecture; and (3) religion, law, language, and writing. While the gaze of international political analysts has turned toward the Sahara to follow problematic developments that pose serious threats to human rights and security in the region, it is especially timely to recall that the people and countries of the Sahelo-Saharan world have maintained long histories of peaceful coexistence, interdependence, and cooperation that are too often overlooked in the present.
Raises questions about information and communication technologies (ICT) and their implementation in four East African countries, with particular focus on Kenya. Covers the respective roles of the public and private sectors, the applications of ICT in government, education, and in various economic sectors. Concludes with recommendations for responsible policy making.
This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 2.5 license. This book offers a devastating look at deeply flawed development processes driven by international finance, African governments and the global consulting industry. It examines major river basin development underway in the semi-arid borderlands of Ethiopia, Kenya and South Sudan and its disastrous human rights consequences for a half-million indigenous people. The volume traces the historical origins of Gibe III megadam construction along the Omo River in Ethiopia—in turn, enabling irrigation for commercial-scale agricultural development and causing radical reduction of downstream Omo and (Kenya's) Lake Turkana waters. Presenting case studies of indigenous Dasanech and northernmost Turkana livelihood systems and Gibe III linked impacts on them, the author predicts agropastoral and fishing economic collapse, region-wide hunger with exposure to disease epidemics, irreversible natural resource destruction and cross-border interethnic armed conflict spilling into South Sudan. The book identifies fundamental failings of government and development bank impact assessments, including their distortion or omission of mandated transboundary assessment, cumulative effects of the Gibe III dam and its linked Ethiopia-Kenya energy transmission 'highway' project, key hydrologic and human ecological characteristics, major earthquake threat in the dam region and widespread expropriation and political repression. Violations of internationally recognized human rights, especially by the Ethiopian government but also the Kenyan government, are extensive and on the increase—with collaboration by the development banks, in breach of their own internal operational procedures. A policy crossroads has now emerged. The author presents the alternative to the present looming catastrophe—consideration of development suspension in order to undertake genuinely independent transboundary assessment and a plan for continued development action within a human rights framework—forging a sustainable future for the indigenous peoples now directly threatened and for their respective eastern Africa states. Claudia Carr’s book is a treasure of detailed information gathered over many years concerning river basin development of the Omo River in Ethiopia and its impact on the peoples of the lower Omo Basin and the Lake Turkana region in Kenya. It contains numerous maps, charts, and photographs not previously available to the public. The book is highly critical of the environmental and human rights implications of the Omo River hydropower projects on both the local ethnic communities in Ethiopia and on the downstream Turkana in Kenya. David Shinn Former Ambassador to Ethiopia and to Burkina Faso Adjust Professor of International Affairs, The George Washington University, Washington D.C.
I congratulate Andebrhan Welde Giorgis on his high quality and extremely informative book that has not only the merit to be an update on the political situation in Eritrea but also asks the pertinent questions on the future of his marvelous country. He does it with tact and success, based on his long experience as freedom fighter, as senior public servant, as Ambassador and his rich experience of Africa. Each country in Africa must be able to determine its own future. Freedom, responsibility, control over its destiny, and solidarity, are the key ideas of the new vision for international cooperation that will help ensure the sustainability of the development process. The urgent need to create a democratic government resonates throughout the book. Good governance, respect for human rights, principles of democracy, and rule of law are essential universal values underpinning it. Andebrhan is one of those men, visionaries, and open to dialogue, reform and change. Eritrea at a Crossroads is key to understanding the challenges facing Eritrea and Africa. It is an eye opener on a complex and little understood crisis that is festering in Africa and holding the continent back. The book provides a solid intellectual foundation to understanding the region and will give anyone who wants to build a better future for Africa a great starting point. I congratulate him on this most valuable book which finds its place among all the lovers of Africa. Louis Michel Member of European Parliament, European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid (2004-2009) and Foreign Minister of Belgium (1999-2004) Freedom fighter, scholar, central banker, diplomat, and now unhappy exile, no-one could be better placed than Andebrhan Welde Giorgis to trace Eritrea's distressing slide from triumph to tragedy. It's a harrowing story, but the author tells it comprehensively, objectively and lucidly in this excellent study. The future can be rescued, as Andebrhan makes clear, but only if the past is understood, and the present confronted -- by decent, concerned Eritreans, acting with the moral, political and economic support of the wider international community. May his voice be heard. Gareth Evans Chancellor, Australian National University; President, International Crisis Group (2000-09) and Foreign Minister of Australia (1988-96)
Cameroon is characterized by an extraordinary geographical, cultural, and linguistic diversity. This collection of essays by eminent historians and anthropologists summarizes three generations of research in Cameroon that began with the collaboration of Phyllis Kaberry and E. M. Chilver soon after the Second World War and continues to this day. The idea for this book arose from a concern to recognize the continuing influence of E. M. Chilver on a wide variety of social, historical, political and economic studies. The result is a volume with a broad historical scope yet one that also focuses on major contemporary theoretical issues such as the meaning and construction of ethnic identities and the anthropological study of historical processes. For more information on this title and related publications, go to http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk/Chilver/index.html
African Asylum at a Crossroads: Activism, Expert Testimony, and Refugee Rights examines the emerging trend of requests for expert opinions in asylum hearings or refugee status determinations. This is the first book to explore the role of court-based expertise in relation to African asylum cases and the first to establish a rigorous analytical framework for interpreting the effects of this new reliance on expert testimony. Over the past two decades, courts in Western countries and beyond have begun demanding expert reports tailored to the experience of the individual claimant. As courts increasingly draw upon such testimony in their deliberations, expertise in matters of asylum and refugee status is emerging as an academic area with its own standards, protocols, and guidelines. This deeply thoughtful book explores these developments and their effects on both asylum seekers and the experts whose influence may determine their fate. Contributors: Iris Berger, Carol Bohmer, John Campbell, Katherine Luongo, E. Ann McDougall, Karen Musalo, Tricia Redeker Hepner, Amy Shuman, Joanna T. Tague, Meredith Terretta, and Charlotte Walker-Said.
The children of a South African village eagerly gather at the crossroads to welcome their fathers, who have been away for months working in the mines. The children wait, but the men don't come. So the children keep waiting. And waiting. They wait all through the night, until the dawn brings both the day and the longed-for loved ones.A "lively portrayal of young children in a South African village eagerly awaiting their fathers' homecoming after ten months of working in the mines....A unique glimpse...and one that deserves a place in all collections."--School Library Journal
Issued in conjunction with the exhibition Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time, held January 26, 2019-July 21, 2019, Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.
