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Night Dancer by Chika Unigwe
Brief Summary
Mma has just buried her mother, and now she is alone.
She has been left everything.
But she's also inherited her mother's bad name.
A bold, brash woman, the only thing her mother refused to discuss was her past. Why did she flee her family and bring her daughter to a new town when she was a baby? What was she escaping from?
Abandoned now, Mma has no knowledge of her father or her family - but she is desperate to find out.
Night Dancer is a powerful and moving novel about the relationship between mothers and daughters, about the bonds of family, about knowing when to fulfil your duty, and when you must be brave enough not to. Presenting a vista of Nigeria over the past half-century, it is a vibrant and heartfelt exploration of one woman's search for belonging.
ISBN:9780224093835
Author:Chika Unigwe
The Curse of Berlin Africa After the ...
Brief Summary
At the 1884-1885 Conference of Berlin a cartel of largely European states effectively set the rules for the partition of Africa, an event whose historical and structural importance continues to affect and shape Africa's contemporary international relations.
This 'Curse' is a recurring theme in Adebajo's trenchant historical analysis, even though its main focus is on contemporary African issues after the Cold War. The first part of the book examines Africa's quest for security with three essays on Africa's security institutions such as the African Union and sub-regional bodies; another on the political, peacekeeping, and socio-economic roles of the United Nations (UN) in Africa; and a third on Africa's two UN Secretaries-General between 1992 and 2006: Egypt's Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Ghana's Kofi Annan.
The second section of the book focuses on Africa's quest for leadership, and five chapters examine the hegemonic roles of South Africa, Nigeria, the United States, China and France on the continent. The five chapters in the final section of the study analyse Africa's quest for unity, and examine the roles and significance for Africa of six historical figures: Mandela, Mbeki, Kwame Cecil Rhodes, Obama, and Gandhi; as well as assessing the African Union and the EU in comparative perspective.
ISBN:9780199333417
Author:Adekeye Adebajo
The Daily Drucker by Peter Drucker
Brief Summary
The Daily Drucker: 366 Days of Insight and Motivation for Getting the Right Things Done
Revered management thinker Peter F. Drucker is our trusted guide in this thoughtful, day-by-day companion that offers his penetrating and practical wisdom. Amid the multiple pressures of our daily work lives, The Daily Drucker provides the inspiration and advice to meet the many challenges we face. With his trademark clarity, vision, and humanity, Drucker sets out his ideas on a broad swath of key topics, from time management, to innovation, to outsourcing, providing useful insights for each day of the year.
These 366 daily readings have been harvested from Drucker's lifetime of work. At the bottom of each page, the reader will find an action point that spells out exactly how to put Drucker's ideas into practice.
It is as if the wisest and most action-oriented management consultant in the world is in the room, offering his timeless gems of advice. The Daily Drucker is for anyone who seeks to understand and put to use Drucker's powerful words and ideas.
ISBN:9780061802669
Author:Peter Drucker
The Medici Effect What Elephants and ...
Brief Summary
Why do so many world-changing insights come from people with little or no related experience? Charles Darwin was a geologist when he proposed the theory of evolution. And it was an astronomer who finally explained what happened to the dinosaurs.
Frans Johansson's The Medici Effect shows how breakthrough ideas most often occur when we bring concepts from one field into a new, unfamiliar territory, and offers examples how we can turn the ideas we discover into path-breaking innovations.
ISBN:9781422102824
Author:Frans Johansson
I Can I Must I Will The Spirit of Suc...
Brief Summary
This is a powerful account of the story of Africa told through the life of one of its contemporary shapers, Reginald Abraham Mengi of Tanzania. I Can, I Must, I Will comes at a time when Africa is casting a new vision that is guided largely by the power of entrepreneurship.
There could be no better guiding light for that vision than the spirit of courage, determination and dedication to self-improvement that is so vividly represented by the life and work recounted in this book. Like Africa itself, Dr. Mengi is a person of humble origins.
But his character and personality were shaped by a family history that imbued in him a sense of self-confidence and commitment to setting goals and seeking to accomplish them. In addition to these personal values, the book also reveals a self-driven person with unflinching commitment to duty. Nothing seems to stand in the way of Dr. Mengi in his determination to reaffirm his self-worth through the pursuit of excellence.
ISBN:9781717871749
Author:Reginald Abraham Mengi
Making Africa Work A Handbook for Eco...
Brief Summary
Sub-Saharan Africa faces three big inter-related challenges over the next generation. It will double its population to two billion by 2045. By then more than half of Africans will be living in cities. And this group of mostly young people will be connected with each other and the world through mobile devices.
Properly harnessed and planned for, this is a tremendously positive force for change. Without economic growth and jobs, it could prove a political and social catastrophe. Old systems of patronage and of muddling through will no longer work because of these population increases. Instead, if leaders want to continue in power, they will have to promote economic growth in a more dynamic manner.
Making Africa Work is a first-hand account and handbook of how to ensure growth beyond commodities and create jobs in the continent.
ISBN:9780624080282
Author:Greg Mills, Olusegun Obasanjo, Jeffrey Herbst and Dickie Davis
The Four Dilemmas of the CEO
Brief Summary
The Four Dilemmas of the CEO: Mastering the make-or-break moments in every executive’s career.
Momentum is your greatest ally--with it you can do anything, without it you will stall. As CEO you hate surprises, especially the kind that undermines momentum--yours or the organization you lead.
Every CEO's journey is unique. However, there exists a very predictable, but previously unknown pattern: the CEO life cycle. The Four Dilemmas of the CEO outlines the common challenges that every CEO will face during their tenure, irrespective of geography or industry. Once understood, action can be taken to break through these glass ceilings that cause CEOs to get stuck in the business, while their mandate for working on the business is continually diverted.
Framed within the life cycle of a CEO, the Four Dilemmas are:
• You're in charge of everything, but cannot completely trust anything.
• You know that today's executive cannot deliver tomorrow's results.
• How do you engage the full capability of your executive working on the business when they are at capacity working in the business?
• At what point does the price of remaining personally relevant outweigh your other options?
In the first book to focus on these four issues collectively, the authors draw on their decades of experience as trusted advisers across a range of industries to show every executive how to recognize and anticipate the individual dilemmas, master them, and accelerate through them.
With a foreword by Clayton M. Christensen, Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, and author of The Innovator's Dilemma.
ISBN:9781472946843
Author:Tom Biesinger, Ross Wall and Clifford Herbertson
Secrets to Winning at Office Politics...
Brief Summary
Get Ahead, Gain Influence, Get What You Want
Office politics are an unavoidable fact of life in every workplace. To accomplish your personal and business goals, you must learn to successfully play the political game in your organization. Whether you are a new player or a seasoned veteran, Secrets to Winning at Office Politics can help you increase your personal power without compromising your integrity or taking advantage of others. This smart, practical guide shows you how to stop wasting energy on things you can't change and start taking steps to get what you want.
Written by an organizational psychologist and corporate consultant, Marie G. McIntyre's Secrets to Winning at Office Politics uses real-life examples of political winners and losers to illustrate the behaviors that contribute to success or failure at work.
You will be shown techniques for managing your boss more effectively, improving your influence skills, changing the way you are perceived, and dealing with difficult people. Using these proven strategies for political success, you will then be able to create a Political Game Plan that outlines the steps necessary to accomplish your own individual goals.
ISBN:9780312332181
Author:Marie G. McIntyre
The Power of a Positive Team Proven P...
Brief Summary
A book about teams to help teams become more positive, united and connected.
Worldwide bestseller -- the author of The Energy Bus and The Power of Positive Leadership shares the proven principles and practices that build great teams - and provides practical tools to help teams overcome negativity and enhance their culture, communication, connection, commitment and performance.
Jon Gordon doesn't just research the keys to great teams, he has personally worked with some of the most successful teams on the planet and has a keen understanding of how and why they became great. In The Power of a Positive Team, Jon draws upon his unique team building experience as well as conversations with some of the greatest teams in history in order to provide an essential framework, filled with proven practices, to empower teams to work together more effectively and achieve superior results.
Utilizing examples from the writing team who created the hit show Billions, the National Champion Clemson Football team, the World Series contending Los Angeles Dodgers, The Miami Heat and the greatest beach volleyball team of all time to Navy SEAL's, Marching bands, Southwest Airlines, USC and UVA Tennis, Twitter, Apple and Ford, Jon shares innovative strategies to transform a group of individuals into a united, positive and powerful team.
Jon not only infuses this book with the latest research, compelling stories, and strategies to maintain optimism through adversity... he also shares his best practices to transform negativity, build trust (through his favorite team building exercises) and practical ways to have difficult conversations--all designed to make a team more positive, cohesive, stronger and better.
The Power of a Positive Team also provides a blueprint for addressing common pitfalls that cause teams to fail--including complaining, selfishness, inconsistency, complacency, unaccountability--while offering solutions to enhance a team's creativity, grit, innovation and growth.
This book is meant for teams to read together. It's written in such a way that if you and your team read it together, you will understand the obstacles you will face and what you must do to become a great team. If you read it together, stay positive together, and take action together you will accomplish amazing things TOGETHER.
ISBN:9781119430599
Author:Jon Gordon
The Dichotomy of Leadership Balancing...
Brief Summary
THE INSTANT #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER
From the #1 New York Times bestselling authors of Extreme Ownership comes a new and revolutionary approach to help leaders recognize and attain the leadership balance crucial to victory.
With their first book, Extreme Ownership (published in October 2015), Jocko Willink and Leif Babin set a new standard for leadership, challenging readers to become better leaders, better followers, and better people, in both their professional and personal lives.
Now, in THE DICHOTOMY OF LEADERSHIP, Jocko and Leif dive even deeper into the unchartered and complex waters of a concept first introduced in Extreme Ownership: finding balance between the opposing forces that pull every leader in different directions. Here, Willink and Babin get granular into the nuances that every successful leader must navigate.
Mastering the Dichotomy of Leadership requires understanding when to lead and when to follow; when to aggressively maneuver and when to pause and let things develop; when to detach and let the team run and when to dive into the details and micromanage. In addition, every leader must:
• Take Extreme Ownership of everything that impacts their mission, yet utilize Decentralize Command by giving ownership to their team.
• Care deeply about their people and their individual success and livelihoods, yet look out for the good of the overall team and above all accomplish the strategic mission.
• Exhibit the most important quality in a leader—humility, but also be willing to speak up and push back against questionable decisions that could hurt the team and the mission.
With examples from the authors’ combat and training experiences in the SEAL teams, and then a demonstration of how each lesson applies to the business world, Willink and Babin clearly explain THE DICHOTOMY OF LEADERSHIP—skills that are mission-critical for any leader and any team to achieve their ultimate goal: VICTORY.
ISBN:9781250195784
Author:Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
Business in Africa Corporate Insights...
Brief Summary
High-growth, high-return Africa, with much improved trading conditions, is the most sought after frontier destination for global investment today. However, there are 54 countries on the continent and even rigorous business plans can run aground on the unique and complex set of circumstances found in each of them.
Business in Africa: Corporate Insights takes the reader to the coal face of doing business on the continent in articles by and interviews with people at the forefront of developments. They offer unique insights into the challenges and peculiarities of operating in Africa, and point out trends and likely future opportunities.
Drawing on McKinsey & Associates, the Brenthurst Foundation and the Gordon Institute of Business Science for a picture of Africa’s economic performance and future trends, contributions to the book also come from individuals such as veteran Africa analyst Dr. Duncan Clarke, Nigerian business leader Tony Elumelu, economic commentator Greg Mills of the Brenthurst Foundation, South African publisher Khanyi Dhlomo and Africa branding expert Doug de Villiers.
The book also includes insights from global companies such as GE, Coca-Cola, Actis, Du Pont, Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group, Nando’s and Anglogold Ashanti and household names in Africa such as MTN, MultiChoice, UBA, Webber Wentzel, Imperial Logistics, TBWA, Liberty Properties, Seed Co, Wilderness Holdings and SacOil.
ISBN:9780143538493
Author:Dianna Games
Nairobi Today The Paradox of a Fragme...
Brief Summary
Despite being a large capital city in Africa in terms of size and its regional role, Nairobi is an unrecognized entity. For the majority of its inhabitants, the capital of Kenya is a transit point rather than a dwelling place. Since its origins, Nairobi has been a city of migrants, more predisposed to their rural roots than to their current city status.
It is a non-conforming town, which conceals its urbanity more than it claims it, and whose identity remains evasive. Nairobi presents itself as a mosaic of residential areas which bring to mind the city’s history. The racial segregation that stratified the development of the colonial city has today disappeared, but it has given way to a form of social segregation.
One must, therefore, not seek a unique identity in Nairobi, but rather, several identities those of different communities that comprise the city and whose dynamics are seen at village and residential estate level. However, Nairobi is also a city that is contradictory. This East African capital city is often associated with slums and crime, and their increase and growth stigmatizes the failure of urban policies.
Therefore, it is at these cracks and fringes of the city that we should seek out the identities and dynamics that have shaped the city for a century. Nairobi is a fragmented city that can be understood in steps. The 13 contributory articles in Nairobi Today thus reveal the city.
This multidisciplinary collective work invites us to gain entry into certain areas of the city, to visit its communities and to familiarize ourselves with its formal and informal institutions. This is a requirement in order to fully understand what makes Nairobi what it is today.
ISBN:9789987080939
Author:Deyssi Rodriguez-Torres and Helene Charton-Bigot
The Power of Babel A Natural History ...
Brief Summary
There are approximately six thousand languages on Earth today, each a descendant of the tongue first spoken by Homo sapiens some 150,000 years ago.
While laying out how languages mix and mutate over time, linguistics professor John McWhorter reminds us of the variety within the species that speaks them, and argues that, contrary to popular perception, language is not immutable and hidebound, but a living, dynamic entity that adapts itself to an ever-changing human environment.
Full of humor and imaginative insight, The Power of Babel draws its illustrative examples from languages around the world, including pidgins, Creoles, and nonstandard dialects.
ISBN:9780060520854
Author:John McWhorter
Lost Islamic History Reclaiming Musli...
Brief Summary
Islam has been one of the most powerful religious, social and political forces in history. Over the last 1400 years, from origins in Arabia, a succession of Muslim polities and later empires expanded to control territories and peoples that ultimately stretched from southern France to East Africa and South East Asia.
Yet many of the contributions of Muslim thinkers, scientists and theologians, not to mention rulers, statesmen and soldiers, have been occluded. This book rescues from oblivion and neglect some of these personalities and institutions while offering the reader a new narrative of this lost Islamic history.
The Umayyads, Abbasids, and Ottomans feature in the story, as do Muslim Spain, the savannah kingdoms of West Africa and the Mughal Empire, along with the later European colonization of Muslim lands and the development of modern nation-states in the Muslim world.
Throughout, the impact of Islamic belief on scientific advancement, social structures, and cultural development is given due prominence, and the text is complemented by portraits of key personalities, inventions and little known historical nuggets. The history of Islam and of the world's Muslims brings together diverse peoples, geographies and states, all interwoven into one narrative that begins with Muhammad and continues to this day.
ISBN:9781849043977
Author:Firas Alkhateeb
Bury the Chains by Adam Hochschild
Brief Summary
From the author of the widely acclaimed King Leopold's Ghost comes the taut, gripping account of one of the most brilliantly organized social justice campaigns in history - the fight to free the slaves of the British Empire.
In early 1787, twelve men - a printer, a lawyer, a clergyman, and others united by their hatred of slavery - came together in a London printing shop and began the world's first grass-roots movement, battling for the rights of people on another continent.
Masterfully stoking public opinion, the movement's leaders pioneered a variety of techniques that have been adopted by citizens' movements ever since, from consumer boycotts to wall posters and lapel buttons to celebrity endorsements. A deft chronicle of this groundbreaking antislavery crusade and its powerful enemies, Bury the Chains gives a little-celebrated human rights watershed its due at last.
ISBN:9780618619078
Author:Adam Hochschild
Further Along the Road Less Traveled ...
Brief Summary
Further Along the Road Less Traveled: The Unending Journey towards Spiritual Growth
Further Along the Road Less Traveled takes the lectures of Dr. Peck and presents his profound insights into the issues that confront and challenge all of us today: spirituality, forgiveness, relationships, and growing up. In this aid for living less simplistically, you will learn not to look for the easy answers but to think multidimensionality.
You will learn to reach for the "ultimate step," which brings you face to face with your personal spirituality. It will be this that helps you appreciate the complexity that is life.
Continue the journey of personal and spiritual growth with this wise and insightful book.
ISBN:9780684847238
Author:M. Scott Peck
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsi...
Brief Summary
At a café table in Lahore, a bearded Pakistani man converses with an uneasy American stranger. As dusk deepens to night, he begins the tale that has brought them to this fateful encounter…
Changez is living an immigrant's dream of America. At the top of his class at Princeton, he is snapped up by an elite valuation firm. He thrives on the energy of New York, and his budding romance with elegant, beautiful Erica promises entry into Manhattan society at the same exalted level once occupied by his own family back in Lahore.
But in the wake of September 11, Changez finds his position in his adopted city suddenly overturned, and his relationship with Erica shifting. And Changez's own identity is in seismic shift as well, unearthing allegiances more fundamental than money, power, and maybe even love.
ISBN:B004IPPINW
Author:Mohsin Hamid
The 4 Hour Body An Uncommon Guide to ...
Brief Summary
Thinner, bigger, faster, stronger... which 150 pages will you read?
Is it possible to:
Reach your genetic potential in 6 months?
Sleep 2 hours per day and perform better than on 8 hours?
Lose more fat than a marathoner by bingeing?
Indeed, and much more. This is not just another diet and fitness book.
The 4-Hour Body is the result of an obsessive quest, spanning more than a decade, to hack the human body. It contains the collective wisdom of hundreds of elite athletes, dozens of MDs, and thousands of hours of jaw-dropping personal experimentation. From Olympic training centers to black-market laboratories, from Silicon Valley to South Africa, Tim Ferriss, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The 4-Hour Workweek, fixated on one life-changing question:
For all things physical, what are the tiniest changes that produce the biggest results?
Thousands of tests later, this book contains the answers for both men and women.
From the gym to the bedroom, it’s all here, and it all works.
YOU WILL LEARN (in less than 30 minutes each):
How to lose those last 5-10 pounds (or 100+ pounds) with odd combinations of food and safe chemical cocktails.
• How to prevent fat gain while bingeing (X-mas, holidays, weekends)
• How to increase fat-loss 300% with a few bags of ice
• How Tim gained 34 pounds of muscle in 28 days, without steroids, and in four hours of total gym time
• How to sleep 2 hours per day and feel fully rested
• How to produce 15-minute female orgasms
• How to triple testosterone and double sperm count
• How to go from running 5 kilometers to 50 kilometers in 12 weeks
• How to reverse "permanent” injuries
• How to add 150+ pounds to your lifts in 6 months
• How to pay for a beach vacation with one hospital visit
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are more than 50 topics covered, all with real-world experiments, many including more than 200 test subjects.
You don't need better genetics or more discipline. You need immediate results that compel you to continue.
That’s exactly what The 4-Hour Body delivers.
ISBN:9780091939526
Author:Tim Ferriss
Coming of Age Strides in African Publ...
The sixteen chapters in this book form a Festschrift in honour of Henry Chakava, the distinguished Kenyan publisher. With a Forward by Tanzanian publisher Walter Bgoya , his long-time collaborator in furthering the causes of independent African publishing, the topics cover the full range of issues in which he has been central over more than forty years.
His notable achievements include the first local buy-out of a British multinational publishing house, being one of the founders of African Books Collective and the African Publishers' Network, and participation in international counsels such as the Bellagio Publishing Network.
Amongst the contributors are prominent Kenyan authors Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Simon Gikandi and Micere Githae Mugo; Kenyan colleagues from the book trade world; close collaborators in Uganda and Nigeria, and some international colleagues.
The greatest range of the contributors are from within Africa. There are subject specific chapters on such issues as training, copyright, publishing in the digital age, and an overview of publishing at Codesria including the vexed issue of marginalisation of African language publishing.
Give to Get A Senior Leader’s G...
Brief Summary
Why do some people succeed in corporate careers, while others crash and burn?
What if you had a guidebook for navigating corporate life?
An executive career can bring wealth, prestige, and fame. But it also comes with unique challenges. Vishal Agarwal has written an essential handbook for business leaders to successfully negotiate the high-stakes complexities of any corporate culture.
Give to Get illuminates rarely discussed challenges for those in business leadership roles, from overcoming "new guy syndrome," to creating a stakeholder map, taking your credit to the bank, finding your why, earning trust and building support, and overcoming burnout.
Drawing on decades of experience, Agarwal shares essential strategies to help executives avoid the most common causes of failure at any stage of their career and replace them with skills every corporate superstar needs to master.
Filled with allegories, personal stories, and memorable "Vishal-isms," this is a must-read. Whether you're a senior-level decision-maker or on your way to becoming one, Give to Get will help you take charge and navigate to success.
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ISBN:9781619618282
Author:Vishal Agarwal