Showing results by narrator "Ben Onwukwe" in All Categories

Patrick Vernon's landmark 100 Great Black Britons campaign of 2003 was one of the most successful movements to focus on the role of people of African and Caribbean descent in British history. Frustrated by the widespread and continuing exclusion of the Black British community from the mainstream popular conception of 'Britishness', despite Black people having lived in Britain for more than 1,000 years, Vernon set up a public poll in which anyone could vote for the Black Briton they most admired.

In this timely and very listenable new work, Walvin focuses not on abolitionism or the brutality and suffering of slavery but on resistance, the resistance of the enslaved themselves - from sabotage and absconding to full-blown uprisings - and its impact in overthrowing slavery. He also looks at the whole Atlantic world, including the Spanish Empire and Brazil.

1970, Bristol. What's buried doesn't always stay buried. It's a new decade, and J.T. Ellington has taken himself out of the investigation game. But when an old friend asks him to help a doctor whose son disappeared hours after his wedding, J.T.'s commitment to a life lived under the radar is tested. His quest hurls him back into the underworld he's worked so hard to leave behind. Charred remains in a churchyard, the savage beating of a Hindu priest and a series of cold-blooded threats are stark warnings to J.T. and to everyone he holds dear.

A new translation of the timeless family fables by Hryhorii Skovoroda, about animals that are cunning, lazy, afraid and even pick their noses, just like real people. The heroes of the stories teach us how important it is to look beyond the surface to see the true essence of things, to do our best with what it within our power, and how to value the time that we have.

Many millennia after the fall of Eden, Adam, the first man in creation, still walks the Earth - exhausted by the endless death and destruction, he is a shadow of his former hope and glory. And he is not the only one. The Garden was deconstructed, its pieces scattered across the world and its inhabitants condemned to live out immortal lives, hiding in plain sight from generations of mankind.

In this second title in the London-based Crane and Drake mystery series, Cal Drake has left the police force and is now working as a private detective, having teamed up with the motorcycle-riding Dr Rayhana Crane. The chilling discovery of a severed head on the Tube draws Calil Drake back to the case he failed to solve four years ago which left his police career in tatters. Crane and Drake investigate while also searching for Howeida Almanara - a young international student from the Gulf and the missing girlfriend of a Crane family friend.

A blend of autobiography, business, politics, and personal philosophy, his book offers a unique vantage point on corporate and political life in Africa, Europe, the United States and Asia. In a story that spans from his father’s politically motivated imprisonment to the business principles that took Thiam to the top of global finance, he shares a personal and professional story that is equal parts inspirational and aspirational.

Are you afraid of the dark? They weren't. They've adapted to it. The world has changed beyond all recognition. Six years ago an unknown and dangerous virus left humanity blind. The world is doomed to an eternity in total darkness. People have adjusted as best they can, adjusting their senses...

Things get chilling and scary in this thriller where the secret life of an assassin is about to be revealed. Caring and loving family man Jarmo Kivi lives a slow life in the suburbs where he works for a funeral home and actively takes part in his kids' lives and their activities. But Kivi has...

‘My wife! I think she’s dead!’ Matt frantically calls to park rangers, explaining that he and his wife, Marie, were out hiking when she stumbled on a cliff edge and fell into the raging river below. They start a search but aren’t hopeful: no one could have survived that fall. It’s a tragic accident. But when police discover Matt’s first wife also died in suspicious circumstances - a fire in their family home - they have a lot more questions for him.

Robert Wedderburn (1762-1834/5) was one of the most charismatic, irascible, and radical intellectuals of the eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Atlantic world. Born to an enslaved woman and a slavemaster in Jamaica, and moving in the radical working-class circles of London, Wedderburn made his name as a fiery political writer and orator—before dying, forgotten, in poverty. From award-winning scholar Ryan Hanley, this is the first full-length biography of a man increasingly recognized as central to Black radical political thought in the Revolutionary Atlantic.

A short, essential introduction to Black British history. When did Africans first come to Britain? Who are the well-dressed Black children in Georgian paintings? Why did the American Civil War disrupt the Industrial Revolution? These and many other questions are answered in this essential introduction to 1800 years of the Black British history: from the Roman Africans who guarded Hadrian’s Wall right up to the present day.

It is ordinary homes, not grand public buildings or the mansions of the rich that have all the best stories. The rises and falls, the shifts in the fortunes of neighbourhoods and whole cities are here, tracing the often surprising journey one single house can take from elegant dwelling in a fashionable district to a tenement for society’s rejects. Packed with remarkable human stories, it is a phenomenal insight into living history, a history we can see every day on the streets where we live.

Staying Power is a panoramic history of black Britons. Stretching back to the Roman conquest, encompassing the court of Henry VIII, and following a host of characters from Mary Seacole to the abolitionist Olaudah Equiano, Peter Fryer paints a picture of two thousand years of Black presence in Britain. First published in the 80s, amidst race riots and police brutality, Fryer's history performed a deeply political act; revealing how Africans, Asians and their descendants had long been erased from British history.

In 2020, after three and a half years of bitter negotiations, Britain left the European Union. For some it was a day of freedom, for others a tragedy which would leave Britain isolated and poorer. Vote Brexit, the Remain campaign warned us, and it would be an act of self-harm. The economy would collapse, sending prices and unemployment soaring. Meanwhile, in contrast to xenophobic, inward-looking Britain, the EU would soar ahead without us.

How did the greatest poets in history make the world anew? And what can we learn from the magic, wisdom and humour of their poetry? From the genius of the Ancient Greeks through to the love poetry and metaphysics of the Renaissance, through to the New York poets of the 20th century, this is the ultimate guide to the greatest writers of the human age.

Fifteen-year-old Dimkpa dreams of the day his father will be made village head. He will return to school and maybe even go on to university; his mother will no longer have to break her back foraging wild food to sell at market; they will have the money to build a fine tomb for his aunt Okike; and his family's status as ohu ma, the lowest Igbo caste, won't matter anymore. But when his father is passed over for a younger man, breaking tradition, Dimkpa realizes that he must make his own fate.