Showing titles in Africa

The Boer War was the defining conflict of South African history and one of the most important conflicts in the history of the British Empire. Naturally, complicated geopolitics underscored it, going back centuries. In fact, the European history of South Africa began with the 1652 arrival of a small Dutch flotilla in Table Bay, at the southern extremity of the African continent, which made landfall with a view to establishing a victualing station to service passing Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) ships.

In the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration commissioned an oral history of the remaining former slaves. Bullwhip Days is a remarkable compendium of selections from these extraordinary interviews, providing an unflinching portrait of the world of government-sanctioned slavery of Africans in America. Here are 29 full narrations, as well as nine sections of excerpts related to particular aspects of slave life, from religion to plantation life to the Reconstruction era.

After Julius Caesar's murder, his mistress Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, fled to Alexandria where she gave birth to their son. Civil war broke out in Rome, and Mark Antony, Caesar's friend, was given control over the East. Summoned to his headquarters, Cleopatra made her entry at dusk on a scented, candle-lit barge: and so began one of the greatest love stories of all time.

Pick up almost any book on early and medieval world history and empire, and where do you find West Africa? On the periphery. This pioneering book tells a different story. Interweaving political and social history and drawing on a rich array of sources, Michael Gomez unveils a new vision of how categories of ethnicity, race, gender, and caste emerged in Africa and in global history. 

The Mau Mau Rebellion took place in Kenya, beginning in 1952. A group of native Kenyan peoples, mostly from the Kikuyu tribe, rose up against their British colonizers, who had held the region since 1895. With a complicated story, it can be difficult to place the Mau Mau Uprising within the larger history of Kenyan nationalism and nationhood. Regardless of nuance, though, its importance in the history of Kenya, Africa, and British colonialism cannot be understated. This is the complete history of the Mau Mau Rebellion.

 On January 22, 1879, the British Army in South Africa was swept aside by the seemingly unstoppable Zulu warriors at the Battle of Isandlwana. Nearby, at a remote outpost on the Buffalo River, a single company of the 24th Regiment and a few dozen recuperating hospital patients were passing a hot, monotonous day. It seemed certain that the Rorke's Drift detachment would share the same fate. And yet, against incredible odds, the British managed to defend their station. 

Africa is a vast continent whose waters, fertile lands, minerals, and diverse wildlife nurtured humankind since ancient times until European colonization and exploitation caused immeasurable suffering and loss. To understand how Africa developed, thrived, suffered, and emerged into the rich tapestry of peoples that it is today, take a trip back to the ancient River Nile and the East African coast.

French Senegal: The History of the French Colony and Senegal’s Transition to Independence examines how France established the colony, and how that colony affected events in the 20th century before Senegal became a modern nation.

Known in the Dominican Republic and Togo as Vodu, in Benin as Vodún, and in Haiti as Vodou, West African religion has, for hundreds of years, served as a repository of sacred knowledge while simultaneously evolving in response to human experience and globalization. Spirit Service: Vodún and Vodou in the African Atlantic World explores this dynamic religion, its mobility, and its place in the modern world.

In a carefully choreographed propaganda video released in February 2015, ISIS militants behead twenty-one orange-clad Christian men on a Libyan beach. In the West, daily reports of new atrocities may have displaced the memory of this particularly vile event. But not in the world from which the murdered came. All but one were young Coptic Christian migrant workers from Egypt. Acclaimed literary writer Martin Mosebach traveled to the Egyptian village of El-Aour to meet their families and better understand the faith and culture that shaped such conviction.

Ífè Myths presents one of the earliest English-language collections of Yoruba sacred stories—gathered directly from the people of Southwestern Nigeria during the author’s years of service as an Assistant District Officer. Living among Yoruba communities, the collector gained rare access to fragments of oral tradition, ritual incantations, and passing references that, when carefully assembled, reveal glimpses of the spiritual worldview that shaped one of Africa’s greatest civilizations.

Brimming with rich, electrifying tales of the precious dye and its ancient heritage, Indigo is also the story of a personal quest: Catherine McKinley is the descendant of a clan of Scots who wore indigo tartan; Jewish "rag traders"; a Massachusetts textile factory owner; and African slaves - her ancestors were traded along the same Saharan routes as indigo, where a length of blue cotton could purchase human life.

In the first book of the Jannah Jewels Adventure Series, Hidayah, Iman, Jaide, and Sara, time-travel to Timbuktu, Mali, in the 13th century! On their quest for the first artifact, a missing manuscript, the Jewels meet the Golden King Mansa Musa and learn all about the world traveller Ibn Battuta. Just as the Jewels are about to complete their mission, they meet their arch nemesis, Jaffar! Will the Jannah Jewels find the missing manuscript before time runs out? Will they find the secret written on a scroll hidden in a box inside the Golden Clock?

Cleopatra VII Philopator was the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, nominally survived as pharaoh by her son Caesarion. She was also a diplomat, naval commander, polyglot, and medical author. As a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, she was a descendant of its founder, Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian Greek general and companion of Alexander the Great.

The story of the intelligence war in South Africa during the Second World War is one of suspense, drama and dogged persistence. In 1939, when the Union of South Africa entered the war on Britain’s side, the German government secretly contacted the political opposition, and the leadership of the anti-war movement, the Ossewabrandwag. The Nazis’ aim was to spread sedition, undermine the Allied war effort, and - given the strategic importance of the Cape of Good Hope sea route - gain naval intelligence. Soon U-boat packs were sent to operate in South African waters, to deadly effect.

Journey to a glittering hub of Islamic scholarship and trans-Saharan trade that reshaped the premodern world. Perfect for your daily commute, this immersive African history saga transports you to the shifting sands of the Sahara. Experience the meteoric rise of a seasonal camp into an...

Step into ancient history and witness the epic military clash that destroyed a legendary maritime empire. Perfect for your daily commute, this immersive journey transports you to the bustling ports of North Africa and the bloody battlefields of the Punic Wars. Transform your focused learning...

The Kebra Nagast stands as one of the most revered and spiritually potent works in the Christian world—a foundational text of Ethiopian identity and a testament to a lineage believed to descend from the union of King Solomon of Israel and Makeda, the Queen of Sheba. More than a historical chronicle, it is a sacred epic, preserved through centuries by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, weaving together divine providence, royal authority, and the unfolding destiny of a nation chosen to safeguard one of the holiest treasures of antiquity.

Ten million people had been murdered. For 15 years, atrocities had been perpetrated by King Leopold II of Belgium and his Force Publique in the Congo Free State. By 1909, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle could stand it no longer and felt the need to speak out and inform the general public of exactly what was going on. This new edition of his passionate plea for action includes contemporary newspaper reports and an introduction by Tim Dalgleish. His book is a classic in the annals of genocide and remains a shocking portrayal of humanity’s "heart of darkness".

In the heart of ancient Africa, a formidable queen emerged to defend her people and her kingdom against the encroaching Roman Empire. Queen Amanirenas is a gripping short book that unveils the captivating story of one of history's most remarkable and fearless female leaders. Amanirenas, the queen of the Kingdom of Kush in the first century BCE, was not your typical monarch.