Best of
Africa

1971

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa


Walter Rodney - 1971
    Power is the ultimate determinant in human society, being basic to the relations within any group and between groups. It implies the ability to defend one's interests and if necessary to impose one’s will by any means available. In relations between peoples, the question of power determines maneuverability in bargaining, the extent to which a people survive as a physical and cultural entity. When one society finds itself forced to relinquish power entirely to another society, that in itself is a form of underdevelopment.Before a bomb ended his life in the summer of 1980, Walter Rodney had created a powerful legacy. This pivotal work, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, had already brought a new perspective to the question of underdevelopment in Africa. his Marxist analysis went far beyond the heretofore accepted approach in the study of Third World underdevelopment. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa is an excellent introductory study for the student who wishes to better understand the dynamics of Africa’s contemporary relations with the West.

Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race From 4500 B.C. To 2000 A.D.


Chancellor Williams - 1971
    A widely read classic exposition of the history of Africans on the continent—and the people of African descent in the United States and in the diaspora—this well researched analysis details the development of civiliza

Moja Means One: Swahili Counting Book


Muriel L. Feelings - 1971
    A Caldecott Honor BookMoja Means One introduces children to counting in Swahili with helpful pronunciation keys, while presenting East African culture and lifestyles through an easy-to-understand narrative and vivid illustrations."Magnificient, full-page drawings throb with the feeling of East African life."--Child Study AssociationLook for the Caldecott Honor Book and companion title: Jambo Means Hello: Swahili Alphabet Book

Gassires Lute: A West African Epic


Alta Jablow - 1971
    As an example of the relatively unknown oral literature of Africa, this poem is rich in historical and cultural interest. But it can be read and enjoyed simply as a beautiful and exciting story that shows clearly the universality of art and of human experience.

The Ox of the Wonderful Horns and Other African Folktales


Ashley Bryan - 1971
    Reissue.

Schweitzer: A Biography


George Marshall - 1971
    He made his philosophy of "reverence for life" an ethic for the world. The hospital he founded in LambarA(c)nA(c) (still in operation in present-day Gabon) is a model of what Europeans might have given to Africans throughout colonial history. But above all, Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) was a talented and compassionate human being. This biography probes beyond the timeworn image of Schweitzer as "the old man in the pith helmet" to reveal the philosopher, scholar, husband, father, humanitarian, and liberal rebel in a conservative church.

Tribaliks: Contemporary Congolese Stories


Henri Lopes - 1971
    The author concentrates on the many problems and contradictions which confront educated black minorities in their attempts to develop modern, egalitarian states.

Olduvai Gorge: My Search for Early Man


Mary Leakey - 1971
    The formations discussed in this volume, Beds I and II, were deposited in the Lower and Middle Pleistocene and have yielded large quantities of the remains of early man, in the form of bones and stone tools and evidence of the environment in which they lived. Bed I, in which remains of Australopithecus boisei and Homo habilis have been found, is firmly dated between 1.9 million years for the lowest level and 1.65 million years for a level below the top. This third volume describes the excavations. In Part I, starting with the lowest levels and devoting a chapter to each main level, Dr Leakey describes the actual process of excavation and the finding of the principal remains. In Part II, Dr Leakey describes the circumstances of the discovery of the hominid skeletal remains. These range from purposive excavation to accidental discovery while collecting small stones for mixing in concrete. Finally, mammalian bones, as tools and as food remains are discussed.

Scramble for Africa: The Great Trek to the Boer War


Anthony Nutting - 1971
    Though the author ranges over much of the huge continent, the principal focus of Anthony Nutting's narrative is South Africa, where the struggle was sharpest and the stakes highest. The Dutch had been in Africa since the late 16th century and the Portuguese, with their missionary settlements, long before. The British did not arrive till the period of the Napoleonic Wars, when the possibility of a hostile French presence at the Cape was not one England could lightly overlook, for Holland had joined France in declaring war against her. On June 11th, 1795, nine English men-of-war anchored in False Bay and landed a small force of redcoats with an order signed by Holland's refugee king, bidding the Dutch garrison to allow them to occupy the Cape. Thus began the long period of British hegemony in South Africa.

Back to Africa: A History of Sierra Leone and Liberia


Richard West - 1971
    

The Rich Man and the Singer: Folktales from Ethiopia


Mesfin Habte-Mariam - 1971
    Thirty-two folktales from Ethiopia, twenty-seven of which are from the Amhara people of the central high country.