Book Description
Indigenous to the savanna zone in West Africa, shea (butyrospermin parkii) has been produced and sold by rural women and circulated on the world market as a low-priced and little-known raw material for more than a century. Locally, shea butter is used for cooking, making soap, leatherworking, dying, and as a medical and beauty aid. Globally, it has been used in producing soaps, candles, margarine, and most significantly, as a substitute for cocoa butter in chocolate production. In the past decade, however, shea has come to occupy a new position at the cutting edge of global capitalism. Now sold in exclusive shops as a high-priced cosmetic and medicinal product, it caters to the desire of cosmopolitan customers worldwide for luxury and exotic self-indulgence.
This ethnographic study traces shea from a pre- to post-industrial commodity to provide a deeper understanding of emerging trends in tropical commoditization, cosmopolitan consumption, global economic restructuring and rural livelihoods. Chalfinchallenges the widely held assumption that globalization makes state institutions and authority unnecessary and also undercuts the neo-liberal argument that streamlining state operations yields greater efficiency and accountability. Also inlcludes seven maps.
Book Description
For more than a thousand years, from A.D. 500 to 1700, the medieval kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay grew rich on the gold, salt, and slave trade that stretched across Africa. Scraping away hundreds of years of ignorance, prejudice, and mythology, award-winnnig authors Patricia and Fredrick McKissack reveal the glory of these forgotten empires while inviting us to share in the inspiring process of historical recovery that is taking place today.
Customer Reviews:
Ghana, Mali, and Songhay: Medieval Africa.......2007-07-17
This is an awesome book. I had purchased this book many years ago at a homeschool curriculum fair because I have a friend who is from Ghana. I did not know, at the time, that medieval Ghana is not the same as present day Ghana.
I student taught 7th grade social studies and science this past fall semester and I relied on this book quite a bit to teach the origins of sub-Saharan trading. The few textbooks we had in class gave very little detail about this critical time in Africa's history and I wanted to expand the students' knowledge about Africa's trading routes and slave trading.
I would highly recommend this book as a classroom reference or as an informative book on the kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Sonhay.
Good introduction to West African history.......2007-02-02
I find that the book is a good introduction to the study of the history of the West African kingdoms. However, it does not give much more than that; little is told about the daily lives of the people, which is what really interests me about any period in history. In addition, I found that the book focuses a bit too much on the mythology, which, let's face it, sounds strange to modern American children, reinforcing the notion that Africans are primitive. The book also does not give enough pictures of what anything or anyone from the kingdoms looked like, forcing the reader to imagine the visuals, which are bound to look more like modern cartoon depictions of Africa than the actual kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay.
That being said, if you have children who are interested in learning a little bit about African history, this book is a good start. It gives bits of information that you don't get in your history classes, even those that teach world history. I learned about these kingdoms way back in the 7th grade, but even then I did not learn that there were Europeans who went to African universities in the Middle Ages, which is quite a switch from today's world. That little fact is powerful, because it forces the question of what happened to Africa that resulted in the widespread poverty, disease, malnutrition, and war we hear about so much in the news today.
Since I am not African-American and do not know many people who are, I am unable to judge with any certainty whether the book is good for enhancing the self-esteem of African-American children (which seems to be one of the purposes of this book). However, I can say that the book is a good introduction to West African history for anyone, regardless of race or age.
Great place to start ..........2003-04-26
This book is short and relatively simplistic in its explanations. You would not want to use it as the pillar to your dissertation on Malian history. Nevertheless, it does give a good general introduction to West African history and the great kingdoms that once flourished by the Niger River.
It starts with the creation myths, and then chronologically, explains very simply the beginnings and endings of the kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhaim. It addresses the mingling of the native religion with Islam, and ends with the downfall of the kingdoms. It also briefly addresses the issue of slavery.
I bought this about a month before visiting a friend who is doing research in Bamako (the Capital of Mali). I vaguely recollected learning about a chapter's worth in seventh grade about the Saharan trade routes and something about Ghana and Songhai and Timbuktu, but could not remember much more than the names of the kingdoms.
This book was excellent, in giving me enough background to be able to appreciate the depth of the history and the people when I visited. That being said, this is an excellent place to START learning about West African history - but hopefully, it is not where you will end your learning, as there are other resources out there that give much deeper and more thorough information about this great region.
Mali and Soghani Timbooktu was real.......2001-06-29
OK I am sick and tired of europeans thinking Africans never had a rich culture of their own. The mali dynasty was a great one that grew out of trade with saharan tribes and over the course of history grew into a sucessful and prosperous kingdom. When Europe was in the dark ages scholars like Ahmed baba was writting books,in fact over 3500 of them. I dsiagree with the contact of the meso american cultures,but there is proof in arabic manuscrips that africans was able to sail to the new word. The evidence shows that their is a genous of plantains that grow in brazil called musa x. The name of a king in Mali was musa,and ibn battua an norther african scholar traveled all around the islamic worls and told about the wealth of the african people here. By the way my friend from australia have you been to mali i have I am also white by the way
A Sad Disappointment.......2000-08-08
If you're after a balanced, scholarly history of these fascinating kingdoms, regrettably this is not it.
This authors intent appears principally to raise the esteem and consciousness of pubescent Afro-Americans
Despite falling well outside the scope indicated by the title, the book includes sections on the European Atlantic slave trade as well as wild speculation that fleets of explorers from Mali may have been in contact with Meso-America.
The book is nearly saved from total uselessness by the inclusion of a bibliography, though Time-Life picture book publications feature heavily, so even this fails to do much other than disappoint.
Book Description
The grim history of the slave trade from Africa is one that has had an impact on generations of people all over the world. While much of the initial voyage and inhumane treatment of slavery has been historically analyzed, there has been little written on the several forts and castles along the coast of Ghana that were used as slave holding facilities. This book focuses primarily on Cape Coast Castle, the African headquarters of the British slave trade from 1664 to 1807, through which countless men, women, and children were sold as slaves and carried away on slave ships, often to North America. It tells the story of the people who lived, worked, or were imprisoned within its walls, as well as the construction and upkeep of the building, the arrivals and departures of ships, the negotiations with local African leaders, and the deadly diseases inside.
Customer Reviews:
The Business of Slavery .......2007-08-19
Written with the Gold Coast of Africa as its center, this remarkable book is an amazing piece of work. The author uses records recovered from Britain's slave forts to recreate the business life of the trade. We learn how and why people were bartered for manufactured goods and the process of assembly and shipping of human cargo. The recovered douments also provide the personal side never meant to be viewed by others. I found this book to be excellent and recommend it thoroughly.
The Door of No Return is a welcome addition to public and college library history shelves........2007-06-10
Written by William St Claire (former Senior Research Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge University), The Door of No Return: The History of Cape Coast Castle and the Atlantic Slave Trade is an in-depth history of the Cape Coast Castle in Ghana, Africa, and its role it served as headquarters for the horrific British slave trade, until the slave trade's abolishment in 1807. Drawing heavily from years of personal research into the Castle's vast archive of public records and ledges - from letters and correspondence to scribbled notes and even the recipes of trafficked slaves - The Door of No Return offers a unique, in-depth scrutiny of this dark place and phase of human history. Written in plain terms and illustrated with a handful of black-and-white photographs, The Door of No Return is a welcome addition to public and college library history shelves.
Average customer rating:
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Forest Entomology in West Tropical Africa: Forest Insects of Ghana (Series Entomologica)
Michael R. Wagner , and
J.R. Cobbinah
Manufacturer: Springer
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ASIN: 0792310268 |
Customer Reviews:
Humm..........2007-09-25
I was expecting a little bit more from this book. In fact I am kind of disappointed. It gives an overview of Kwame Nkrumah's life, but does not go in much detail.
Nkrumah Lives.......2006-04-20
This is a good book on one of Africa's greatest sons who had a clear vision of the direction that the continent should follow. Nkrumah led Ghana to its independence but as far as he was concerned, Ghana could not be fully independent until the whole continent was free. He also believed in economic emancipation of the African continent as well as African unity.
Nkrumah's pan-African credentials are second to none. His ideas were too far ahead of most other African leaders who were taking advantage of their newly found status to amass wealth for themselses and not to be interested on ideas about African unity or economic well being for their people. His ideas put him on collision course with the strong and developed Western powers. His doom was, therefore, sealed as he was ultimately overthrown in a military coup.
However, Nkrumah's ideas have lived on. The African continent is now completely decolonised. However, the dream of African unity is still to be realised as well as the need to see economic empowerment of the African people. Nkrumah's vision will continue to inspire people towards the realisation of unity and prosperity for the continent and its people.
Hopes, Dreams and Aspirations........2006-03-24
This book is excellent! It provided a wonderful insight into an icon's hopes, dreams and aspirations for his country.
Book Description
In 1957 Ghana became one of the first sub-Saharan African nations to gain independence from colonial rule. Over the next decade, hundreds of African Americans--including Martin Luther King Jr., George Padmore, Malcolm X, Maya Angelou, Richard Wright, Pauli Murray, and Muhammed Ali--visited or settled in Ghana. Kevin K. Gaines explains what attracted these expatriates to Ghana and how their new community was shaped by the convergence of the Cold War, the rise of the U.S. civil rights movement, and the decolonization of Africa.
Posing a direct challenge to U.S. hegemony, Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's president, promoted a vision of African liberation, continental unity, and West Indian federation. Although the number of African American expatriates in Ghana was small, in espousing a transnational American citizenship defined by solidarities with African peoples, these activists waged along with their allies in the United States a fundamental, if largely forgotten, struggle over the meaning and content of the formal American citizenship conferred on African Americans by civil rights reform legislation.
Book Description
In the most comprehensive analysis to date of the world of open air marketplaces of West Africa, Gracia Clark studies the market women of Kumasi, Ghana, in order to understand the key social forces that generate, maintain, and continually reshape the shifting market dynamics.
Probably the largest of its kind in West Africa, the Kumasi Central Market houses women whose positions vary from hawkers of meals and cheap manufactured goods to powerful wholesalers, who control the flow of important staples. Drawing on more than four years of field research, during which she worked alongside several influential market "Queens", Clark explains the economic, political, gender, and ethnic complexities involved in the operation of the marketplace and examines the resourcefulness of the market women in surviving the various hazards they routinely encounter, from coups d'etat to persistent sabotage of their positions from within.
Book Description
Emanating from an international conference on migration and development convened by the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, Legon, the UNDP and the Royal Netherlands Embassy, this collection of papers considers topics such as: patterns of migration in West Africa; the Dutch perspective on contemporary migration; the macroeconomic impact of remittances; the impact of the brain drain on the health and higher education sectors in Ghana; the religious dimension of migration; and the role of diaspora-based organisations in socio-economic development.
Book Description
Kente is not only the best known of all African textiles, it is also one of the most admired of all fabrics worldwide. Originating among the Asante peoples of Ghana and the Ewe peoples of Ghana and Togo, this brilliantly colored and intricately patterned strip-woven cloth was traditionally associated with royalty. Over time, however, it has come to be worn and used in many different contexts. In Wrapped in Pride, seven distinguished scholars present an exhaustive examination of the history of kente from its earliest use in Ghana to its present-day impact in the African Diaspora.
Book Description
Academic research and publication on indigenous slavery in Ghana and in Africa more widely have not received attention commensurate with the importance of the phenomenon: the history of indigenous slavery, which existed long before the trans-Atlantic slave trade, has been a marginal topic in documented historical studies on Ghana. Yet its weighty historical, and contemporary relevance inside and outside Africa is undisputed. This book begins to redress this neglect. Drawing on sources including oral data from so-called slave descendants, cultural sites and trade routes, court records and colonial government reports, it presents historical and cultural analysis which aims to enhance historical knowledge and understanding of indigenous slavery. The author further intends to provide a holistic view of the indigenous institution of slavery as a formative factor in the social, political and economic development of pre- colonial Ghana.
Books:
- Show Biz Tricks for Cats: 30 Fun and Easy Tricks You Can Teach Your Cat
- Simple Path
- Sitting Bull and His World
- South Bay Trails: Outdoor Adventures in & Around Santa Clara Valley : From the Diablo Range to the Pacific Ocean
- State in Society: Studying How States and Societies Transform and Constitute One Another (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics)
- Stoats & Weasels Polecats & Martens (British Natural History)
- Tesla: Man Out of Time
- The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
- The Biology of cytoplasmic microtubules (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences ; v. 253)
- The Book of Irish Families, Great & Small (Third Edition, Expanded)
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