A Prospect Best Book of 2021‘A fascinating and timely book.’ William Boyd‘Gripping…a must read.’ FT‘Compelling…humane, reasonable, and ultimately optimistic.’ Evening Standard‘[A] valuable guide to a complex narrative.’ The TimesIn 1897, Britain sent a punitive expedition to the Kingdom of Benin, in what is today Nigeria, in retaliation for the killing of seven British officials and traders. British soldiers and sailors captured Benin, exiled its king and annexed the territory. They also made off with some of Africa’s greatest works of art.This is the story of the ‘Benin Bronzes’: their history before the British took them, their fate since 1897, and the intense debate about their future. When they were first displayed in London their splendour and antiquity challenged the prevailing view of Africa as a continent without culture or history. They are now amongst the most admired and valuable artworks in the world. But seeing the Benin Bronzes in the British Museum today is, in the words of one Benin City artist, like ‘visiting relatives behind bars’. In a time of huge controversy about the legacy of empire, racial justice and the future of museums, what does the future hold for the Bronzes? Read more

In A Continent for the Taking Howard W. French, a veteran correspondent for The New York Times, gives a compelling firsthand account of some of Africa's most devastating recent history-from the fall of Mobutu Sese Seko, to Charles Taylor's arrival in Monrovia, to the genocide in Rwanda and the Congo that left millions dead. Blending eyewitness reportage with rich historical insight, Frenchsearches deeply into the causes of today's events, illuminating the debilitating legacy of colonization and the abiding hypocrisy and inhumanity of both Western and African political leaders. While he captures the tragedies that have repeatedly befallen Africa's peoples, French also opens our eyes to the immense possibility that lies in Africa's complexity, diversity, and myriad cultural strengths. The culmination of twenty-five years of passionate exploration and understanding, this is a powerful and ultimately hopeful book about a fascinating and misunderstood continent. Read more

To truly understand the present, one must understand the past. And that past begins with Africa. And this book.“A must buy for anyone interested in African or human history as a whole”.The Ancient history of Africa can be thought of as a history of beginnings, for it is in Africa that the human story first begins. Although we do not yet know how this human story ends, it is a story with many of its chapters having already been written: How did Africa get its name, shape, rivers and languages? What was life like for the very first humans? How did these humans end up leaving Africa? Why did our ancestors start farming and raising livestock? How does the story of metals relate to the story of civilization? How did the very first African civilizations come to be? How did Ancient Africa influence the wider world?These are but a few of the questions that this book answers.In telling this story of Africa’s past, a variety of images and maps are included — which means that you’ll never get “lost” in a “sea” of text. And like the cover says, everything is “fully explained” (without becoming — tedious, boring, dull etc.).The end-result of all this is a truly engaging book, suitable for all, that will likely change how you think about Africa (forever).So what are you waiting for?Grab your copy now, and enjoy the subsequent read!P.S. all parts of the continent are covered in this book i.e. North, East, South and West Africa. Feel free to "Look inside" the book to discover all of the kingdoms covered — some of which may be new to you. Or you could just click “Buy Now”. Read more

Winner of the Duff Cooper Prize, King Leopold’s Ghost is the true and haunting account of Leopold's brutal regime and its lasting effect on a ruined nation. With an introduction by award-winning novelist Barbara Kingsolver.In the late nineteenth century, a time when Africa was being parcelled among European powers, King Leopold of Belgium seized vast, untapped territories around the Congo River. Under his brutal regime, resources were plundered, natives oppressed and populations halved. Amidst the corruption, Leopold maintained a façade of a compassionate leader.In King Leopold's Ghost, author Adam Hochschild introduces us to a group of missionaries and idealists who, upon their arrival in Africa, found themselves in the middle of a horrifying holocaust. Their courage to stand against Leopold shines a light on this often overlooked chapter of history.A devastating piece of African history, King Leopold's Ghost explores the grave cost paid by those silenced by colonial terror.'All the tension and drama that one would expect in a good novel' - Robert Harris, author of Fatherland Read more

WINNER OF THE 1999 DUFF COOPER PRIZE. 'Brilliant .. this book must be read and re-read' Neal Ascherson'. 'A hundred years ago, enlightened people in the western world were outraged by a holocaust in Africa which left millions dead. Denunciations thundered from speaker's platforms around the US and Europe. One open letter to The Times was signed by 11 peers, 19 bishops and 75 MPs. Viscount Grey, Britain's foreign secretary, declared that no overseas issue had so intensely aroused the British public for 30 years. Conan Doyle wrote a pamphlet on the Congo atrocities which sold 25,000 copies in the first week alone. Yet today not one person in a thousand could say what the fuss was all about, unless, of course, they have read this amazing book.' Tariq Ali, Financial Times 'Fascinating ...brilliant and gripping' Mail on Sunday 'An exemplary piece of history writing: urgent, vivid and compelling' Literary Review Read more

A fearless act of journalism in 1960s Nigeria and the true story behind the international bestselling novel The Dogs of War.   The Nigerian civil war of the late 1960s was one of the first occasions when Western consciences were awakened and deeply affronted by the level of suffering and the scale of atrocity being played out in the African continent. This was thanks not just to advances in communication technology but to the courage and journalistic skills of foreign correspondents like Frederick Forsyth, who had already earned an enviable reputation for tenacity and accuracy working for Reuters and the BBC.   In The Biafra Story, Forsyth reveals the depth of the British Government’s active involvement in the conflict—information which many in power would have preferred to remain secret. General Gowon’s genocide of the Biafran people was facilitated by a ready supply of British arms and advice. Still tragically relevant in its depiction of global affairs, this powerful book also launched Frederick Forsyth to literary stardom by providing him with the background material for The Dogs of War.   The dramatic events and shocking political exposures, all delivered with Forsyth’s bold and perceptive style, makes The Biafra Story a compelling lesson in courage. Read more

This is a true story of a force of 'licensed to kill' secret agents, commanded by a real war time secret service chief code names M, with whom Ian Fleming worked, and upon whom his James Bond stories were based.Brigadier Colin Gubbins was M, the Special Operations Executive was his Secret Service, Professor Dudley Newitt was Q and Captain Gus March-Phillips commanded 'Maid of Honor Force', the team of 'James Bonds' who, in a daring operation, sailed a Q ship to West Africa and stole three enemy ships from a neutral Spanish port on the volcanic island of Fernando Po. Ian Fleming worked closely with M to oil the wheels that made the operation possible, and prepared the cover story, in which the British Government lied in order to conceal British responsibility for the raid. M's agents prepared the ground on Fernando Po, even enmeshing the Governor in a honey trap. March-Phillips and his team carried out the raid successfully in January 1942, despite much opposition from the local regular Army and Navy commanders, and in the face of overwhelming odds. Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden told Fleming's lies on the international stage, denying any British complicity in the operation. As a result, a secrecy embargo enveloped Operation POSTMASTER until recently.The author, an experienced criminal QC, proves beyond doubt that this thrilling operation, and the men who carried it out, were the inspiration for Fleming's James Bond. Read more

This comparison of the political and social systems of Europe and black Africa from antiquity to the formation of modern states demonstrates the black contribution to the development of Western civilization. Read more

Cobalt Red is the searing, first-ever expose of the immense toll taken on the people and environment of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by cobalt mining, as told through the testimonies of the Congolese people themselves. Activist and researcher Siddharth Kara has traveled deep into cobalt territory to document the testimonies of the people living, working, and dying for cobalt. To uncover the truth about brutal mining practices, Kara investigated militia-controlled mining areas, traced the supply chain of child-mined cobalt from toxic pit to consumer-facing tech giants, and gathered shocking testimonies of people who endure immense suffering and even die mining cobalt. Cobalt is an essential component to every lithium-ion rechargeable battery made today, the batteries that power our smartphones, tablets, laptops, and electric vehicles. More than 70 percent of the world's supply of cobalt is mined in the Congo, often by peasants and children in sub-human conditions. Billions of people in the world cannot conduct their daily lives without participating in a human rights and environmental catastrophe in the Congo. In this stark and crucial book, Kara argues that we must all care about what is happening in the Congo-because we are all implicated. Read more

The revelatory Pulitzer Prize finalist for General Nonfiction, New York Times and Publishers Weekly bestseller, shortlisted for the Financial Times Best Business Book of the Year Award.An unflinching investigation reveals the human rights abuses behind the Congo’s cobalt mining operation—and the moral implications that affect us all.Cobalt Red is the searing, first-ever exposé of the immense toll taken on the people and environment of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by cobalt mining, as told through the testimonies of the Congolese people themselves. Activist and researcher Siddharth Kara has traveled deep into cobalt territory to document the testimonies of the people living, working, and dying for cobalt. To uncover the truth about brutal mining practices, Kara investigated militia-controlled mining areas, traced the supply chain of child-mined cobalt from toxic pit to consumer-facing tech giants, and gathered shocking testimonies of people who endure immense suffering and even die mining cobalt.Cobalt is an essential component to every lithium-ion rechargeable battery made today, the batteries that power our smartphones, tablets, laptops, and electric vehicles. Roughly 75 percent of the world’s supply of cobalt is mined in the Congo, often by peasants and children in sub-human conditions. Billions of people in the world cannot conduct their daily lives without participating in a human rights and environmental catastrophe in the Congo. In this stark and crucial book, Kara argues that we must all care about what is happening in the Congo—because we are all implicated. Read more

When President Habyarimana’s jet was shot down in April 1994, Rwanda erupted into a hundred-day orgy of killing – which left up to a million dead. Fergal Keane travelled through the country as the genocide was continuing, and his powerful analysis reveals the terrible truth behind the headlines.‘A tender, angry account … As well as being a scathing indictment – Keane says the genocide inflicted on the Tutsis was planned well in advance by Hutu leaders – this is a graphic view of news-gathering in extremis. It deserves to become a classic’ Independent. Read more

SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE 2022‘Superb’ The Times‘Engrossing and revelatory' Observer‘Powerful, compelling and meticulously researched’ New StatesmanA new book from the award winning author of In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz,Do Not Disturb explores the controversial career of Paul Kagame and the legacy of the Rwandan genocideDo Not Disturb is a dramatic recasting of the modern history of Africa’s Great Lakes region, an area blighted by the greatest genocide of the twentieth century. This bold retelling, vividly sourced by direct testimony from key participants, tears up the traditional script.In the old version, an idealistic group of young rebels overthrows a genocidal regime in Kigali, ushering in an era of peace and stability that makes Rwanda the donor darling of the West, winning comparisons with Switzerland and Singapore. The new version examines afresh questions which dog the recent past: Why do so many ex-rebels scoff at official explanations of who fired the missile that killed the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi? Why didn’t the mass killings end when the rebels took control? Why did those same rebels, victory secured, turn so ruthlessly on one another?Michela Wrong uses the story of Patrick Karegeya, once Rwanda’s head of external intelligence and a quicksilver operator of supple charm, to paint the portrait of a modern African dictatorship created in the chilling likeness of Paul Kagame, the president who sanctioned his former friend’s murder.‘A withering assault on the murderous regime of Kagame, and a melancholy love song to the last dreams of the African Great Lakes’ John Le Carre Read more

The Forest People is an astonishingly intimate and life-enhancing account of a hunter-gatherer tribe living in harmony with nature -- and an all-time classic of anthropology.For three years, Colin Turnbull lived with an isolated group of Pygmies deep in the forest of the African Congo, experiencing their daily life first-hand. He attended their hunting parties and initiation ceremonies, witnessed their music and their rituals, observed their quarrels and love affairs. He documented them as an anthropologist but was accepted among them as a friend.A ground-breaking work in its time, The Forest People made him one of the most famous intellectuals of the 1960s and 1970s. It remains a transporting account of an earthly paradise and of a legendary and fascinating people.With a new foreword by Horatio Clare. Read more

He wanted a war. And, for his sins, he got one. James Brabazon was an ambitious young war reporter when he entered the chaos of the Liberian Civil War in 2002. Running with the infamous LURD rebels, he survived numerous deadly ambushes and a dramatic two-hundred-mile escape from Government troops through dense equatorial jungle. He even had a bounty put on his head. Surrounded by child soldiers, cannibals and ruthless rebels, Brabazon was accompanied by Nick du Toit, a South African mercenary with a dangerous past. Before long, Nick promised James the scoop of his life: a front seat, beside Simon Mann, in an audacious coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea. And the offer was too good to refuse. Read more

In the late 1890s Edmund Morel, a shipping company official working in Antwerp, noticed something suspicious. When his company's ships docked from the Congo, they were filled with valuable cargoes of rubber and ivory. Yet when they sailed back to Africa they carried nothing in exchange. Nothing, that is, except soldiers, military supplies and firearms. Horrified, Morel realized that there could only be one explanation for the lucrative cargo: slave labour on a vast scale.;Morel abandoned his job and became an investigative journalist. A man of energy and conviction he almost single-handedly made the Congo's slave-labour regime and the lives it took into a cause which would unite the world. Mark Twain, Booker T. Washington, Anatole France and even the Archbishop of Canterbury took up the crusade. this text seeks to highlight this footnote of history which has been largely forgotten. Read more

'Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure.' In The Theory of the Leisure Class Thorstein Veblen sets out 'to discuss the place and value of the leisure class as an economic factor in modern life'. In so doing he produced a landmark study of affluent American society that exposes, with brilliant ruthlessness, the habits of production and waste that link invidious business tactics and barbaric social behaviour. Veblen's analysis of the evolutionary process sees greed as the overriding motive in the modern economy; with an impartial gaze he examines the human cost paid when social institutions exploit the consumption of unessential goods for the sake of personal profit. Fashion, beauty, animals, sports, the home, the clergy, scholars - all are assessed for their true usefulness and found wanting. The targets of Veblen's coruscating satire are as evident today as they were a century ago, and his book still has the power to shock and enlighten. Veblen's uncompromising arguments and the influential literary force of his writing are assessed in Martha Banta's Introduction. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. Read more

‘Joyous … a book that makes other journalists weep with envy’ The Economist'Provocative, touching, and sensitively written … an eloquent, brilliantly researched account’ Sunday TimesOne of The Economist’s best books by foreign correspondents.A story of grim comedy amid the apocalypse and a celebration of the sheer indestructibility of the human spirit in a nation run riot: Michela Wrong’s vision of Congo/Zaire during the Mobutu years is incisive, ironic and revelatory.Mr Kurtz, the colonial white master, brought evil to the remote upper reaches of the Congo River. A century after Conrad’s 'Heart of Darkness' was first published, Michela Wrong revisits the Congo as the era of Mobutu Sese Seko collapses into absurdity, anarchy and corruption. Hers is a brilliant portrait of the grotesque as confusion takes over: pink lipsticked rebel soldiers mingle with tracksuited secret policemen in hotels where fin de siecle dinner parties are ploughing through hotel wine cellars rather than see bottles lost to the new regime.Congo, Africa’s richest country in terms of its natural resources, has institutionalised kleptomania: everyone is on the take. In a country where the minimum wage has dropped to below $150 a year, the government over twenty-five years spent $250 million providing courtesy cars. Congo has a vanity nuclear reactor built on a subsiding slope and one of its uranium rods is missing…The Mobutu reign, successor to Belgium’s failed imperial experiment in Africa, was fed by World Bank dollars and IMF loans. Having presided over unprecedented looting of the country’s wealth, Mobutu, like Kurtz, retreated deep within the jungle to his absurdly overwrought palace of marble floors and gold taps. A century on, nothing seems to have changed at the heart of Africa: it is lawless, graceless and it slaughters its own. Read more

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