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Explorers of the Nile
Brief Summary
Explorers of the Nile: The Triumph and Tragedy of a Great Victorian Adventure
Nothing obsessed explorers of the mid-nineteenth century more than the quest to discover the source of the White Nile. It was the planet's most elusive secret, the prize coveted above all others. Between 1856 and 1876, six larger-than-life men and one extraordinary woman accepted the challenge.
Showing extreme courage and resilience, Richard Burton, John Hanning Speke, James Augustus Grant, Samuel Baker, Florence von Sass, David Livingstone, and Henry Morton Stanley risked their lives and reputations in the fierce competition. Award-winning author Tim Jeal deploys fascinating new research to provide a vivid tableau of the unmapped "Dark Continent," its jungle deprivations, and the courage—as well as malicious tactics—of the explorers.
On multiple forays launched into east and central Africa, the travelers passed through almost impenetrable terrain and suffered the ravages of flesh-eating ulcers, paralysis, malaria, deep spear wounds, and even death. They discovered Lakes Tanganyika and Victoria and became the first white people to encounter the kingdoms of Buganda and Bunyoro. Jeal weaves the story with authentic new detail and examines the tragic unintended legacy of the Nile search that still casts a long shadow over the people of Uganda and Sudan.
ISBN:9780300187397
Author:Tim Jeal
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
In a far future, post-nuclear-holocaust Africa, genocide plagues one region. The aggressors, the Nuru, have decided to follow the Great Book and exterminate the Okeke. But when the only surviving member of a slain Okeke village is brutally raped, she manages to escape, wandering farther into the desert.
She gives birth to a baby girl with hair and skin the color of sand and instinctively knows that her daughter is different. She names her daughter Onyesonwu, which means "Who Fears Death?" in an ancient African tongue.
Reared under the tutelage of a mysterious and traditional shaman, Onyesonwu discovers her magical destiny – to end the genocide of her people. The journey to fulfill her destiny will force her to grapple with nature, tradition, history, true love, the spiritual mysteries of her culture – and eventually death itself.
Birds of the Masai Mara
Brief description
Birds of the Masai Mara is a remarkably beautiful photographic guide featuring the bird species likely to be encountered by visitors to the popular Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. With an eye-catching layout, easy-to-use format, and no-jargon approach, the book contains more than 300 stunning photographs covering over 200 species of birds and is accessible and informative, rather than purely identification-based.
A handy, brief introduction provides visitors with background on the habitats of the national park, and the guide's habitat-based approach makes it simple to identify any bird species according to where it is found. Based on the firsthand experiences of the author, Birds of the Masai Marais an ideal companion to all those visiting the national reserve and to bird aficionados interested in learning more about the region.
1. The only photographic guide to focus solely on the bird species of the Masai Mara National Reserve.
2. More than 300 remarkable photographs covering over 200 species
3. Accessible text explores bird species behavior and species etymology
4. A brief and handy introduction examines the habitats of the Masai Mara
5. Easy-to-use habitat-based layout makes exciting bird watching easy
ISBN:9780691155944
Author:Adam Scott Kennedy
A Noble But Onerous Duty: An Autobiog...
From a humble beginning as a son of employees in white settlers' farms in the central Rift Valley, Dr Francis K. Sang overcame many odds to rise through the ranks of the Kenya Police and become the 4th Kenyan Director of the Criminal Investigation Department. He served in this position for 4 years before he was transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after the changeover of government in Kenya at the end of 2002.
He was tasked with the establishment of the Nairobi Secretariat to coordinate issues to do with small arms in the region. This he did and later helped transform the secretariat into the Regional Centre for Small Arms (RECSA), a regional inter-governmental body that coordinates activities aimed at controlling and reducing the proliferation of small arms and light weapons in the Eastern Africa, Great Lakes and Horn of Africa region and bordering states.
In this autobiography, he relates his experiences, from the difficult circumstances surrounding his birth and childhood, his struggles to get an education in spite of the many obstacles that he faced and his experiences in the police force, particularly in the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) during the tenure of the 2nd President of Kenya, Daniel Arap Moi.
He also relates his experiences after the NARC Government took over in 2002 and sent most senior security officers in the former government packing, either on retirement or on transfer to other less prestigious positions. He further relates how, through determination, he has been able to achieve his academic dreams which had been deferred earlier in his life owing to financial constraints, culminating in the acquisition of a PhD late in life.
He also speaks about the role his family has played in enabling him to achieve all he has in his life. Reflecting on his long journey that has brought him to the place where he is today, the author also gives a number of insights on his work and life. This autobiography should serve as interesting reading to the general public as well as to persons serving in the disciplined forces, considering that it is the first from amongst persons that have served in the police force and risen through the ranks to the very top.
The Shadow of the Sun
Brief summary
In 1957, Ryszard Kapuscinski arrived in Africa to witness the beginning of the end of colonial rule as the first African correspondent of Poland's state newspaper. From the early days of independence in Ghana to the ongoing ethnic genocide in Rwanda, Kapuscinski has crisscrossed vast distances pursuing the swift, and often violent, events that followed liberation.
Kapuscinski hitchhikes with caravans, wanders the Sahara with nomads, and lives in the poverty-stricken slums of Nigeria. He wrestles a king cobra to the death and suffers through a bout of malaria. What emerges is an extraordinary depiction of Africa--not as a group of nations or geographic locations--but as a vibrant and frequently joyous montage of peoples, cultures, and encounters.
Kapuscinski's trenchant observations, wry analysis and overwhelming humanity paint a remarkable portrait of the continent and its people. His unorthodox approach and profound respect for the people he meets challenge conventional understandings of the modern problems faced by Africa at the dawn of the twenty-first century.
ISBN:9780679779070
Author:Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski
Safari Guide to East African Birds
Celebrating Friendship among Women by...
Celebrating Friendship among Women is a book about the power of women connections. A close look at the subject in Kenya reveals that genuine friendship cuts across ethnic, age, class and religious divides.
This book, which is also an autobiography, a cultural account, a historical and a do-it-yourself didactic material, is a must-read.
In it, you find yourself looking in a mirror while getting surprised about a topic that is so simple, so taken for granted, so under-explored.
At a time when Kenya is being ripped apart by negative ethnic, religious and class sentiments, Margery Kabuya’s book goes against the grain.
The Scramble for Africa by Thomas Pak...
Brief Summary
From the rear cover of this 738 page book: "A phenomenal achievement, clear, authoritative and compelling.
Thomas Pakenham's fine book tells the story of this particular gold rush with admirable and judicious poise....Contains some of the best-known episodes of 19th-Century history as well as some of the most mythologized and colorful characters the world has ever seen.....Livingstone and Stanley, Brazza and Rhodes, Kitchener and Gordon, Lugard and Jameson.
Highly readable." and "Taking the entire continent as his canvas, Pakenham has painted a picture of heroism and horror. He writes both with compassion and with an effective combination of detachment and judgement. A splendid book."
Birth of a Dream Weaver by Ngugi wa T...
Brief Summary
Birth of a Dream Weaver charts the very beginnings of a writer’s creative output. In this wonderful memoir, Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o recounts the four years he spent in Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda—threshold years where he found his voice as a playwright, journalist, and novelist, just as Uganda, Kenya, Congo, and other countries were in the final throes of their independence struggles.
James Ngugi, as he was known then, is haunted by the emergency period of the previous decade in Kenya, when his friends and relatives were killed during the Mau Mau Rebellion. He is also haunted by the experience of his childhood in a polygamous family and the brave break his mother made from his father’s home.
Accompanied by these ghosts, Ngugi begins to weave stories from the fibers of memory, history, and a shockingly vibrant and turbulent present.
What unfolds in this moving and thought-provoking memoir is both the birth of one of the most important living writers—lauded for his "epic imagination” (Los Angeles Times)—and the death of one of the most violent episodes in global history.
Waiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote b...
Ahmadou Kourouma's remarkable novel is narrated by Bingo, a West African sora - storyteller and king's fool. Over the course of five nights he tells the life story of Koyaga, President and Dictator of the Gulf Coast.
Orphaned at the age of seven, Koyaga grows up to be a terrible hunter; he fights mythical beasts, and is a shape-shifter, capable of changing himself into beasts and birds.
He fights in the French colonial armies, in Vietnam and Algeria, but on his return he mounts a coup and becomes ruler and dictator of the Gulf Coast.
For thirty years he runs a corrupt but 'clean' state, surviving repeated assassination attempts and gaining support and investment from abroad. But when the 'First World' decides it no longer want to support dictatorships and call for democracy, he needs another ruse to maintain himself in power...Part magic, part history, part savage satire, Waiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote is nothing less than a history of post-colonial Africa itself.
Too Close to the Sun
Denys Finch Hatton was adored by women and idolized by men. A champion of Africa, legendary for his good looks, his charm, and his prowess as a soldier, lover, and hunter, Finch Hatton inspired Karen Blixen to write the unforgettable stories in Out of Africa.
Now esteemed British biographer Sara Wheeler tells the truth about this extraordinarily charismatic adventurer.Born to an old aristocratic family that had gambled away most of its fortune, Finch Hatton grew up in a world of effortless elegance and boundless power. Tall and graceful, with the soul of a poet and an athlete’s relaxed masculinity, he became a hero without trying at Eton and Oxford.
In 1910, searching for novelty and danger, Finch Hatton arrived in British East Africa and fell in love–with a continent, with a landscape, with a way of life that was about to change forever.Wheeler brilliantly conjures the mystical beauty of Kenya at a time when teeming herds of wild animals roamed unmolested across pristine savannah. No one was more deeply attuned to this beauty than Finch Hatton–and no one more bitterly mourned its passing when the outbreak of World War I engulfed the region in a protracted, bloody guerrilla conflict.
Finch Hatton was serving as a captain in the Allied forces when he met Karen Blixen in Nairobi and embarked on one of the great love affairs of the twentieth century.With delicacy and grace, Wheeler teases out truth from fiction in the liaison that Blixen herself immortalized in Out of Africa. Intellectual equals, bound by their love for the continent and their inimitable sense of style, Finch Hatton and Blixen were genuine pioneers in a land that was quickly being transformed by violence, greed, and bigotry.
Ever restless, Finch Hatton wandered into a career as a big-game hunter and became an expert bush pilot; his passion that led to his affair with the notoriously unconventional aviatrix Beryl Markham. But Markham was no more able to hold him than Blixen had been. Mesmerized all his life by the allure of freedom and danger, Finch Hatton was, writes Wheeler, "the open road made flesh.”In painting a portrait of an irresistible man, Sara Wheeler has beautifully captured the heady glamour of the vanished paradise of colonial East Africa. In
ISBN:2147483647
Author:Sara Wheeler
UNsilenced by Rasna Warah
In a world experiencing increasing conflicts, terrorism and displacement, many people are wondering what the United Nations – the organization established in 1945 to save future generations from the scourge of war – should or could have done to prevent these disasters from escalating.
UNsilenced shows that, in fact, the UN has remained a bystander in many of these conflicts and that peace-building efforts have not only been undermined by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, but also by the UN's many agencies and programmes.
The book exposes how, under the guise of development, stability and the "war on terror", the UN fails to prevent conflicts in many parts of the world, and in some cases, misleads the public about the scale of a problem. The book also reveals the web of lies, cover-ups, corruption and impunity within the United Nations that has allowed wrongdoing to continue unabated.
Many of these acts of wrongdoing occur or continue because the UN fails to protect whistleblowers; on the contrary, most UN whistleblowers experience severe retaliation.
UNsilenced describes how whistleblowers have been denied justice within the UN system and how the immunity accorded to UN officials and the conflict of interest inherent in the UN's internal justice system allow the perpetrators of criminal or unethical activities to go unpunished.
The book is an urgent call for a serious reform of this bureaucratic, arcane and increasingly politicized organization – because not doing so constitutes a betrayal of the trust invested in it by the people and countries that depend on it.
City of Thorns by Ben Rawlence
To the charity workers, Dadaab refugee camp is a humanitarian crisis; to the Kenyan government, it is a 'nursery for terrorists'; to the western media, it is a dangerous no-go area; but to its half a million residents, it is their last resort. Situated hundreds of miles from any other settlement, deep within the inhospitable desert of northern Kenya where only thorn bushes grow, Dadaab is a city like no other.
Its buildings are made from mud, sticks or plastic, its entire economy is grey, and its citizens survive on rations and luck.
Over the course of four years, Ben Rawlence became a first-hand witness to a strange and desperate limbo-land, getting to know many of those who have come there seeking sanctuary. Among them are Guled, a former child soldier who lives for football; Nisho, who scrapes an existence by pushing a wheelbarrow and dreaming of riches; Tawane, the indomitable youth leader; and schoolgirl Kheyro, whose future hangs upon her education.
In City of Thorns, Rawlence interweaves the stories of nine individuals to show what life is like in the camp and to sketch the wider political forces that keep the refugees trapped there.
Rawlence combines intimate storytelling with broad socio-political investigative journalism, doing for Dadaab what Katherinee Boo's Behind the Beautiful Forevers did for the Mumbai slums. Lucid, vivid and illuminating, City of Thorns is an urgent human story with deep international repercussions, brought to life through the people who call Dadaab home.
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ISBN:2147483647
Author:Ben Rawlence
Love Life and Elephants
Brief Summary
The first person to successfully raise newborn elephants, Dame Daphne Sheldrick has saved countless African animals from certain death.
In this indelible and deeply heartfelt memoir, Daphne tells of her remarkable career as a conservationist and introduces us to a whole host of orphans—including Bushy, a liquid-eyed antelope, and the majestic elephant Eleanor.
Yet she also shares the incredible human story of her relationship with David Sheldrick, the famous Tsavo National Park warden whose death inspired the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and the orphans' nursery, where Daphne works to this day.
From her tireless campaign to preserve Kenya's wildlife to the astonishing creatures she befriended along the way, Love, Life, and Elephants is alive with compassion and humor, providing rare insight into the life of one of the world's most fascinating women.
ISBN:9780374104573
Author:Daphne Sheldrick
Remembering Africa
Brief Summary
Can you really re-member Afrika in the images, symbols and languages of the master? Can you really dream the dreams of liberation in the language of the oppressors? These are among the questions raised in a new book by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Re-membering Africa, Issa Shivji writes in Pambazuka News.
In a commentary shared at the launch of the book, Shivji says that wa Thiong’o’s latest work ‘captures an important intellectual moment in the long struggle of African people to re-claim and recover our collective memory.’
European renaissance marked the beginning of the dis-membering of Africa, her body and soul were torn apart as her resources were raped and her beauty disfigured. Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1498 – ‘good hope’ for the invaders and ‘bad omen’ for the invaded.
In early 1500s the great city states of Kilwa, Mombasa and Malindi, which were the centres of blossoming Swahili civilization, were ruthlessly cannoned. European civilization came to Africa, (to use Marx’s phrase in relation to capital), ‘dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt’. Four centuries of slave trade dis-membered mother Africa into the continent and diaspora, as a century of colonialism dis-membered it into, what Mwalimu called, vinchi – statelets.
ISBN:9789966256287
Author:Ngugi wa Thiong’o
Cooking the East African Way
Lets Cook Kenya by Susan Kamau
With every passing year, the unique melting pot of communities and cultures mix and blend, allowing Kenyans to live together in relative harmony.
Distinct cultural lines have become less distinguishable with the passing of time as people get on with their daily chores. While Kenyans are not without their problems, their peaceful example stands out among the countries of the world.
Susan Kamau's 1st cook book Jikoni Magic brought you a 2 week meal plan and hit the best selling list at the national paper Nation. This, her 2nd cook book, is a journey through Kenya's diverse countryside and ethnic communities, a book of national heritage.
A journey of culinary delights aimed at bringing back to life long forgotten recipes that our grandparents grew up on. Recipes made from ingredients that withstood drought and that were nutritious and healthy. Susan Kamau has selected these dishes and brought them to you without spoiling their authenticity.
ISBN:2147483647
Author:Susan Kamau
Left to Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza
Brief Summary
Immaculee Ilibagiza grew up in a country she loved, surrounded by a family she cherished. But in 1994 her idyllic world was ripped apart as Rwanda descended into a bloody genocide. Immaculee’s family was brutally murdered during a killing spree that lasted three months and claimed the lives of nearly a million Rwandans.
Incredibly, Immaculee survived the slaughter. For 91 days, she and seven other women huddled silently together in the cramped bathroom of a local pastor while hundreds of machete-wielding killers hunted for them.
It was during those endless hours of unspeakable terror that Immaculee discovered the power of prayer, eventually shedding her fear of death and forging a profound and lasting relationship with God. She emerged from her bathroom hideout having discovered the meaning of truly unconditional love—a love so strong she was able seek out and forgive her family’s killers. The triumphant story of this remarkable young woman’s journey through the darkness of genocide will inspire anyone whose life has been touched by fear, suffering, and loss."
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ISBN:2147483647
Author:Immaculee Ilibagiza
Marriage Built to Last
Marriage is a journey that begins with a decision. But that decision belies the myriad challenges that often wreck many marriage relationships, even before they take shape. How can you make your marriage survive the mile and make it to the finish line? In Marriage Built to Last, Jennifer Karina addresses the key challenges that face the modern marriage: communication, intimacy, sex, infidelity, and finances.
Using her experience of over 30 years as both wife and mother, as well as those of others from her counselling sessions, she shows that there is no challenge too impossible to overcome. Beginning with the marriage proposal, she walks the marriage journey step by step, in a way that makes it so easy to follow. This is a useful guide to all women, especially young women, who are determined to find and sustain a happy and lasting marriage.
ISBN:2147483647
Author:Jeniffer Karina
The Fortunes of Africa by Martin Mere...
Africa has been coveted for its riches ever since the era of the Pharaohs. In past centuries, it was the lure of gold, ivory, and slaves that drew fortune-seekers, merchant-adventurers, and conquerors from afar.
In modern times, the focus of attention is on oil, diamonds, and other valuable minerals. Land was another prize. The Romans relied on their colonies in northern Africa for vital grain shipments to feed the population of Rome. Arab invaders followed in their wake, eventually colonizing the entire region.
More recently, foreign corporations have acquired huge tracts of land to secure food supplies needed abroad, just as the Romans did. In this vast and vivid panorama of history, Martin Meredith follows the fortunes of Africa over a period of 5,000 years.
With compelling narrative, he traces the rise and fall of ancient kingdoms and empires; the spread of Christianity and Islam; the enduring quest for gold and other riches; the exploits of explorers and missionaries; and the impact of European colonization.
He examines, too, the fate of modern African states and concludes with a glimpse of their future. His cast of characters includes religious leaders, mining magnates, warlords, dictators, and many other legendary figures—among them Mansa Musa, ruler of the medieval Mali empire, said to be the richest man the world has ever known. "I speak of Africa,” Shakespeare wrote, "and of golden joys.” This is history on an epic scale."