Crossroads of a Continent

Crossroads of a Continent

Author: Peter A. Hansen

Publisher: Railroads Past and Present

Published: 2022-08-09

Total Pages: 440

ISBN-13: 9780253062369

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Crossroads of a Continent: The Missouri Railroad tells the story of the state's railroads and their vital role in American history. Missouri and St. Louis, its largest city, are strategically located within the American Heartland. On July 4, 1851, when the Pacific Railroad of Missouri began construction in St. Louis, the city took its first step to becoming a major hub for railroads. By the 1920s, the state was crisscrossed with railways reaching toward all points of the compass. Authors Peter A. Hansen, Don L. Hofsommer, and Carlos Arnaldo Schwantes explore the history of Missouri railroads through personal, absorbing tales of the cutthroat competition between cities and between railroads that meant the difference between prosperity and obscurity, the ambitions and dreams of visionaries Fred Harvey and Arthur Stilwell, and the country's excitement over the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904. Beautifully illustrated with over 100 color images of historical railway ephemera, Crossroads of a Continent is an engaging history of key American railroads and of Missouri's critical contribution to the American story.


Africa at a Crossroads

Africa at a Crossroads

Author: Simelane, Thokozani

Publisher: Africa Institute of South Africa

Published: 2018-06-22

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 0798305150

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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

Saharan Crossroads

Author: Tara F. Deubel

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2014-06-26

Total Pages: 425

ISBN-13: 1443862894

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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.


Africa at the Crossroads

Africa at the Crossroads

Author: Nhemachena, Artwell

Publisher: Langaa RPCIG

Published: 2017-04-11

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 9956764086

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This volume interrogates and theorises various forms of fundamentalism and fetishism that impinge on Africa and the African people. The book valiantly rethinks and unpacks these forms of fundamentalisms and fetishisms, offering in the process critical vistas for students, scholars and activists on matters of decoloniality and transformation. By meticulously and painstakingly unpacking pertinent issues, the book provides unparalleled intellectual milestones and platforms for the oncoming revolution and quest for justice in the form of decoloniality and transformation. Drawing from several disciplinary domains such as Development Studies, Security Studies, Political Anthropology and Sociology, Economic Anthropology and Social studies, English Studies, History, Philosophy and Religious Studies, and drawing from scholars from across different universities in the Southern African region, the book provides multiple lenses from which to understand the complex goings on in a continent that can no longer afford to simply fold hands and watch while its citizens suffer multiple forms of coloniality, fetishisms and fundamentalisms.


Eritrea at a Crossroads

Eritrea at a Crossroads

Author: Andebrhan Welde Giorgis

Publisher: Strategic Book Publishing

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 693

ISBN-13: 1628573317

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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)


Illinois

Illinois

Author: Lois Carrier

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 1998-01-15

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 9780252068089

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With a major port on the Great Lakes, an extensive network of railroads and canals, and a river system including the Mississippi, the Illinois, and the Ohio, Illinois has long played a critical role in linking East Coast industrial cities, the agricultural heartland, and the Gulf Coast. Writing in a fast-paced, down-to-earth style, Lois Carrier introduces a host of innovations and innovators associated with Illinois: Jane Addams and Louis Armstrong, Frank Lloyd Wright and Walt Disney, Cracker Jack and the Ferris wheel. From the Cahokia Mounds to Chicago, Illinois: Crossroads of a Continent provides a panoramic history for students and general readers.


Africa at a Crossroads

Africa at a Crossroads

Author: Jennifer G. Cooke

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2014-05-08

Total Pages: 25

ISBN-13: 1442228482

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Many of Africa’s economies are at a crossroads, with an unprecedented opportunity for sustained growth, structural change, and accelerated development. Each will face a unique set of economic and political circumstances, but key to the success of all will be building critically needed infrastructure, deepening regional integration, and building a skilled workforce. Across these three challenges there are new possibilities for corporate and public actors to work in partnership to overcome barriers to investment and structural transformation. This report highlights examples of progress and positive collaboration and identifies areas where African governments can do more to make the most of current opportunities.


Louisiana

Louisiana

Author: Cecile Vidal

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2013-10-09

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0812208730

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Located at the junction of North America and the Caribbean, the vast territory of colonial Louisiana provides a paradigmatic case study for an Atlantic studies approach. One of the largest North American colonies and one of the last to be founded, Louisiana was governed by a succession of sovereignties, with parts ruled at various times by France, Spain, Britain, and finally the United States. But just as these shifting imperial connections shaped the territory's culture, Louisiana's peculiar geography and history also yielded a distinctive colonization pattern that reflected a synthesis of continent and island societies. Louisiana: Crossroads of the Atlantic World offers an exceptional collaboration among American, Canadian, and European historians who explore colonial and antebellum Louisiana's relations with the rest of the Atlantic world. Studying the legacy of each period of Louisiana history over the longue durée, the essays create a larger picture of the ways early settlements influenced Louisiana society and how the changes in sovereignty and other circulations gave rise to a multiethnic society. Contributors examine the workings of empire through the examples of slave laws, administrative careers or on-the-ground political negotiations, cultural exchanges among landowners, slave holders, and slaves, and the construction of race through sexuality, marriage, and household formation. As a whole, the volume makes the compelling argument that one cannot write Louisiana history without adopting an Atlantic perspective, or Atlantic history without referring to Louisiana. Contributors: Guillaume Aubert, Emily Clark, Alexandre Dubé, Sylvia R. Frey, Sylvia L. Hilton, Jean-Pierre Le Glaunec, Cécile Vidal, Sophie White, Mary Williams.


Crossroads of a Continent

Crossroads of a Continent

Author: Peter A. Hansen

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2022-09-20

Total Pages: 608

ISBN-13: 0253062381

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Crossroads of a Continent: Missouri Railroads, 1851-1921 tells the story of the state's railroads and their vital role in American history. Missouri and St. Louis, its largest city, are strategically located within the American Heartland. On July 4, 1851, when the Pacific Railroad of Missouri began construction in St. Louis, the city took its first step to becoming a major hub for railroads. By the 1920s, the state was crisscrossed with railways reaching toward all points of the compass. Authors Peter A. Hansen, Don L. Hofsommer, and Carlos Arnaldo Schwantes explore the history of Missouri railroads through personal, absorbing tales of the cutthroat competition between cities and between railroads that meant the difference between prosperity and obscurity, the ambitions and dreams of visionaries Fred Harvey and Arthur Stilwell, and the country's excitement over the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904. Beautifully illustrated with over 100 color images of historical railway ephemera, Crossroads of a Continent is an engaging history of key American railroads and of Missouri's critical contribution to the American story.