This book uncovers very uncanny truth about nations building and economic problems that developing nations faces today. It provides macroeconomic solution in a philosophical view
In 1952, there were probably fewer than 200 Baha'is in all of Africa. Today the Baha'i community claims one million followers on the continent. Yet, the Baha'i presence in Africa has been all but ignored in academic studies up to now. This is the first monograph that addresses the establishment of this New Religious Movement in Africa. Discovering an African presence at the genesis of the religon in Iran, this study seeks to explain why the movement found an appeal in colonial Africa during the 1950s and early 1960. It also explores how the Baha'i faith was influenced and Africanized by its new converts. Finally, the book seeks to make sense of the diverse and contradictory American, Iranian, British, and African elements that established a new religion in Africa.
Grassfields Stories from Cameroon is an anthology of short stories. It comprises animal trickster tales, bird survival tales, and human-interest stories. The compendium is a reflection of the mores, cultures, and value systems of the indigenous peoples of the Northwest Province of Cameroon. It is motivated by the author's keen interest in the preservation of Cameroonian oral traditions in written form. These stories deal with the day-to-day life of the sedentary and the globe-trotter. Each story is sufficient onto itself. The author has intentionally avoided chronology in the order of presentation of the stories. Whether you read the stories in the order in which they are presented or dart about as your fancy dictates, you will feel the abundance of richness and entertainment the book contains. The didactic value of this collection of short stories resides in its suitability to readers of all age groups. The uniqueness of the volume lies in its universal appeal. Peter Wuteh Vakunta was born and raised in the village of Bamunka-Ndop in Cameroon where he worked as senior translator at the Presidency of the Republic before immigrating to America. He is an alumnus of Sacred Heart College-Mankon. Vakunta obtained his Bachelor degrees in Cameroon and Nigeria; MA and MSE degrees in Cameroon and the U.S.A. At present, Vakunta and his family live in Madison, U.S.A. He teaches in the Department of French and Italian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he is also completing his PhD dissertation titled: Translation in Literature: Indigenization in the Francophone Text. Vakunta is poet, storyteller and essayist. His published works include Better English: Mind Your P's and Q's, Lion Man and Other Stories (short stories), Brainwaves (poems), Pandora's Box (poems). African Time and Pidgin Verses (poems), Square Pegs in Round Holes (essays) and It Takes Guts (essays). Vakunta's literary works have earned him several awards in the U.S.A, U.K and Africa.
Employing nearly half of the world's workforce, agriculture is clearly of great economic and social importance. An incredible variety of methods are used globally; the Western world has the latest scientific and industrial advancements at its disposal, yet in the Thrid World a living is made using tools that have hardly changed in two thousand years. An Introduction to Agricultural Geography provides an extensive guide through this diverse and increaslingly important geographical subject, aiming to show that a wide range of factors explain how agricultural practices differ from place to place. Dealing with the physical environment, economic behaviour and demands, institutional and social influences and the impact of farming upon the environment, the author has produced an important introductory text that is topical, incisive and ultimately essential to reach an understanding of the remarkable diversity of the world's major industry.
"The plowshare may well have destroyed more options for future generations than the sword," writes Wes Jackson in a review of practices that have brought U.S. agriculture to the edge of disaster. Tillage has hastened the erosion of irreplaceable topsoil everywhere and a technology based on fossil fuels has increased yields for short-term profits, leaving crops ever more vulnerable to diseases, pests, and droughts. Such, says Jackson, is "the failure of success." As high-technology agriculture becomes more wasteful and expensive, more farmers are being forced off the land or into bankruptcy. ø Jackson's major solution calls for the development of plant combinations that yield food while holding the soil and re-newing its nutrients without plowing or applying fossil-fuel-based fertilizers or pesticides. His new way of raising crops, by working with the soil's natural systems, would keep the world's bread-basket producing perpetually.
A third of a century ago, E. F. Schumacher rang out a timely warning against the idolatry of giantism with his book Small Is Beautiful. Since then, millions of copies of Schumacher’s work have been sold in dozens of different languages; few books before or since have spoken so profoundly to urgent economic and social considerations. Schumacher, a highly respected economist and adviser to third-world governments, broke ranks with the accepted wisdom of his peers to warn of impending calamity if rampant consumerism, technological dynamism, and economic expansionism were not checked by human and environmental considerations. Humanity was lurching blindly in the wrong direction, argued Schumacher. Its obsessive pursuit of wealth would not, as so many believed, ultimately lead to utopia but more probably to catastrophe. Schumacher’s greatest achievement was the fusion of ancient wisdom and modern economics in a language that encapsulated contemporary doubts and fears about the industrialized world. The wisdom of the ages, the perennial truths that have guided humanity throughout its history, serves as a constant reminder to each new generation of the limits to human ambition. But if this wisdom is a warning, it is also a battle cry. Schumacher saw that we needed to relearn the beauty of smallness, of human-scale technology and environments. It was no coincidence that his book was subtitled Economics as if People Mattered. Joseph Pearce revisits Schumacher’s arguments and examines the multifarious ways in which Schumacher’s ideas themselves still matter. Faced though we are with fearful new technological possibilities and the continued centralization of power in large governmental and economic structures, there is still the possibility of pursuing a saner and more sustainable vision for humanity. Bigger is not always best, Pearce reminds us, and small is still beautiful.
A shocking outline of the interlinked crises in energy and agriculture — and appropriate responses The miracle of the Green Revolution was made possible by cheap fossil fuels to supply crops with artificial fertilizer, pesticides, and irrigation. Estimates of the net energy balance of agriculture in the US show that ten calories of hydrocarbon energy are required to produce one calorie of food. Such an imbalance cannot continue in a world of diminishing hydrocarbon resources. Eating Fossil Fuels examines the interlinked crises of energy and agriculture and highlights some startling findings: The world-wide expansion of agriculture has appropriated fully 40% of the photosynthetic capability of this planet. The Green Revolution provided abundant food sources for many, resulting in a population explosion well in excess of the planet's carrying capacity. Studies suggest that without fossil fuel based agriculture, the US could only sustain about two thirds of its present population. For the planet as a whole, the sustainable number is estimated to be about two billion. Concluding that the effect of energy depletion will be disastrous without a transition to a sustainable, relocalized agriculture, the book draws on the experiences of North Korea and Cuba to demonstrate stories of failure and success in the transition to non-hydrocarbon-based agriculture. It urges strong grassroots activism for sustainable, localized agriculture and a natural shrinking of the world's population. Dale Allen Pfeiffer is a novelist, freelance journalist and geologist who has been writing about energy depletion for a decade. The author of The End of the Oil Age, he is also widely known for his web project: www.survivingpeakoil.com.
The image of Africa in the modern world has come to be shaped by perceptions of the drylands and their problems of poverty, drought, degradation, and famine. Michael Mortimore offers an alternative and revisionist thesis, dismissing on theoretical and empirical grounds the conventional view of runaway desertification, driven by population growth and inappropriate land use. In its place he suggests a more optimistic model of sustainable land use, based on researched case studies from East and West Africa where indigenous technological adaptation has put population growth and market opportunities to advantage. He also proposes a more appropriate set of policy priorities to support dryland peoples in their efforts to sustain land and livelihoods. The result is a remarkably clear synthesis of much of the best work that has emerged over past years.