Ages 4 to 6 years Alexander the Elephant is a picture book for 4-6 year-olds by successful Australian rock musician/writer Pat Davern and award-winning illustrator/writer Martin Chatterton.Alexander is a somewhat nervous, red-ant sandwich-munching, pink and purple-spotted elephant who lives on the island of Zanzibar with his best friend Miss Alicia Peabody, Alicia's Clever Uncle Gerald and Pedro the parrot.When dastardly loggers threaten The Great Tree of Zanzibar, Miss Alicia Peabody and Uncle Gerald help Alexander find the courage to stand up and be counted.
“A blistering and truly original work of reporting and analysis, uncovering America’s role in homogenizing how the world defines wellness and healing” (Po Bronson). In Crazy Like Us, Ethan Watters reveals that the most devastating consequence of the spread of American culture has not been our golden arches or our bomb craters but our bulldozing of the human psyche itself: We are in the process of homogenizing the way the world goes mad. It is well known that American culture is a dominant force at home and abroad; our exportation of everything from movies to junk food is a well-documented phenomenon. But is it possible America's most troubling impact on the globalizing world has yet to be accounted for? American-style depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and anorexia have begun to spread around the world like contagions, and the virus is us. Traveling from Hong Kong to Sri Lanka to Zanzibar to Japan, acclaimed journalist Ethan Watters witnesses firsthand how Western healers often steamroll indigenous expressions of mental health and madness and replace them with our own. In teaching the rest of the world to think like us, we have been homogenizing the way the world goes mad.
For thousands of years, the majestic elephant has roamed the African continent, as beloved by man as it has been preyed upon. But centuries of exploitation and ivory hunting have taken their toll: now, as wars and poachers continue to ravage its habitat, as disease and political strife deflect attention from its plight, the African elephant faces imminent extinction. What will become of these magnificent beasts? As the elephant's future looms ever darker, Martin Meredith's concise and richly illustrated biography traces the elephant's history from the first ivory expeditions of the Egyptian pharaohs 2500 years ago to today, exploring along the way the indelible imprint the African elephant has made in art, literature, culture, and society. He shares recent extraordinary discoveries about the elephant's sophisticated family and community structure and reveals the remarkable ways in which elephants show compassion and loyalty to each other. Elegant, illuminating, and urgent, Elephant Destiny offers a beautiful and important tribute to one of earth's most magisterial creatures at the very moment it threatens to vanish from being.
From the Intergalactic Space Station, Ali peered through the orbit meter set on Alexandria, Egypt around 2,000 years ago and began to sweat. Seeing the orange flames soaring higher and higher, he imagined the sound of crackling as the precious old parchments vanished. At hand was the very destruction of recorded knowledge! “King Alexander the Great did not have this Library built to lose it now!”, he explained to the city fathers. He went on to suggest, “What we know, once in the now burned books, must be written again creating books both new and old. We must find Zanzibar and his Zany Crew. My glimpse through the orbit meter/time machine reveals a future wherein the diffusion of the English language is as widespread as a fresh carpet of winter snow.” “Hurray!”, they shouted, “if many know English and we write so, the sentences, both new and old, may comprehensively grow!” This is a story recounted in a fanciful way using the true incident of the burning of the famous Library of Alexandria, Egypt, including its contents, more than two thousand years ago as a context. Joyfully in 2008, on the Egyptian coast of the Mediterranean Sea, the inauguration of the new Library of Alexandria was celebrated. The requirement of the Library to make available many texts, both new and old, is used in this book as a context for sharing the mechanics of English sentence construction. Join us as Zanzibar, appointed by the city leaders, finds the crew needed to construct and reconstruct the books, both new and old, of the ancient Library of Alexandria.
Based on a legal history of international biodiversity treaties from the late nineteenth century to the present, Rachelle Adam argues that todayÕs biodiversity crisis is rooted in European colonial history, especially in the conservation treaties that the colonial powers (and their non-governmental counterparts) negotiated to protect AfricaÕs big-game animals. Reflecting on the colonial pastÑparticularly on efforts to manage the commerce in elephant ivoryÑAdam sheds light on why more recent attempts to arrest the decline in biodiversity by way of international agreement have failed. This volume will spur a rethinking of such agreements and trigger a search for alternatives outside of existing international structures.
E. Alexander Powell's 'The Last Frontier: The White Man's War for Civilisation in Africa' is a detailed and insightful account of the European colonization of Africa in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Powell's writing style is both engaging and informative, providing readers with a thorough understanding of the political, social, and economic factors that drove the expansion of European powers into Africa. The book delves into the complexities of colonialism and its impact on both the native African populations and the European colonizers, offering a balanced perspective on this controversial period in history. E. Alexander Powell, a renowned journalist and author, draws on his extensive knowledge of African history and politics to present a nuanced analysis of the white man's quest for domination in Africa. His firsthand experiences in the region lend authenticity to his narrative, making 'The Last Frontier' a valuable resource for scholars and history enthusiasts alike. Powell's commitment to uncovering the truth behind the civilizing mission in Africa sets this book apart from other accounts of colonial history. I highly recommend 'The Last Frontier' to anyone interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the complexities of European colonialism in Africa. Powell's meticulous research and compelling storytelling make this book a must-read for anyone seeking to explore the lasting impact of imperialism on the continent.
After a lifetime's close observation of the continent, one of the world's finest Africa correspondents has penned a landmark book on life and death in modern Africa. It takes a guide as observant, experienced, and patient as Richard Dowden to reveal its truths. Dowden combines a novelist's gift for atmosphere with the scholar's grasp of historical change as he spins tales of cults and commerce in Senegal and traditional spirituality in Sierra Leone; analyzes the impact of oil and the internet on Nigeria and aid on Sudan; and examines what has gone so badly wrong in Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Congo. Dowden's master work is an attempt to explain why Africa is the way it is, and enables its readers to see and understand this miraculous continent as a place of inspiration and tremendous humanity.
Assembled from previously unpublished items in the Russian archives, this is a lively and detailed account of Bulatovich's travels, at the behest of Ethiopian Emperor Meneik II, in the northwestern border regions of the country, at a time when war with England seemed imminent. Bulatovich provides an insightful assessment of England's likely moves and what Menelik could do to block them, even including an invasion of the Sudan. Once again he provides previously unknown details about a critical time in Ethiopia's history. There's also a brief account of Bulatovich's fourth journey to Ethiopia in 1911, at which time he was a Russian Orthodox monk and sought to found a monastery at a lake to the south of Addis Ababa. This is a companion to Ethiopia Through Russian Eyes, about which the Kenyan journal Old Africa said, "... this is the most important book on the history of eastern Africa to have been published for a century."
Half of Tanzania's elephants have been killed for their ivory since 2007. A similar alarming story can be told of the herds in northern Mozambique and across swathes of central Africa, with forest elephants losing almost two-thirds of their numbers to the tusk trade. The huge rise in poaching and ivory smuggling in the new millennium has destroyed the hope that the 1989 ivory trade ban had capped poaching and would lead to a long-term fall in demand. But why the new upsurge? The answer is not simple. Since ancient times, large-scale killing of elephants for their tusks has been driven by demand outside Africa's elephant ranges - from the Egyptian pharaohs through Imperial Rome and industrialising Europe and North America to the new wealthy business class of China. And, who poaches and why do they do it? In recent years lurid press reports have blamed mass poaching on rebel movements and armed militias, especially Somalia's Al Shabaab, tying two together two evils - poaching and terrorism. But does this account stand up to scrutiny? This new and ground-breaking examination of the history and politics of ivory in Africa forensically examines why poaching happens in Africa and why it is corruption, crime and politics, rather than insurgency, that we should worry about.
