Consuming the Congo

Consuming the Congo
Author :
Publisher : Chicago Review Press
Total Pages : 260
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781569769003
ISBN-13 : 1569769001
Rating : 4/5 (03 Downloads)

Synopsis Consuming the Congo by : Peter Eichstaedt

Describes the "conflict minerals" mined in the Congo amidst armed conflict and human rights abuses including gold, diamonds, coltan, tin, and tungsten used in cell phones, computers, and other electronics. Explores the slave labor, violence, and disease killing millions of Congolese mining these resources, and offers ways one can help.

Coltan

Coltan
Author :
Publisher : Polity
Total Pages : 232
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780745649313
ISBN-13 : 0745649319
Rating : 4/5 (13 Downloads)

Synopsis Coltan by : Michael Nest

In this book, Michael Nest unravels this complex story to offer a clear and compelling analysis of the relationship between coltan and violence in the Congo, and the battle between activists and corporations to reshape the global tantalum supply chain.

Sexual Violence and Armed Conflict

Sexual Violence and Armed Conflict
Author :
Publisher : Polity
Total Pages : 256
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780745641874
ISBN-13 : 0745641873
Rating : 4/5 (74 Downloads)

Synopsis Sexual Violence and Armed Conflict by : Janie Leatherman

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the causes and consequences of, as well as responses to, sexual violence in contemporary armed conflict. It explores the functions and effects of wartime sexual violence as part of a global political economy of violence. To understand the motivations of the men (and occasionally women) who perpetrate this violence, the book analyzes the role played by systemic and situational factors such as patriarchy and militarized masculinity in a tangled web of plunder and profit. Difficult questions of accountability are tacked; in particular, the caes of child soldiers, who often suffer a double victimization when forced to commit sexual atrocities and other crimes.

If You Poison Us

If You Poison Us
Author :
Publisher : Museum of NM Press/Red Crane Books
Total Pages : 304
Release :
ISBN-10 : UOM:39015017426738
ISBN-13 :
Rating : 4/5 (38 Downloads)

Synopsis If You Poison Us by : Peter H. Eichstaedt

"The untold story of the Native Americans who were the patriotic but unwitting victims of America's quest for nuclear superiority during the Cold War." Stewart L. Udall, former Secretary of the Interior (from the back cover).

Measured Excess

Measured Excess
Author :
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Total Pages : 267
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780231529136
ISBN-13 : 0231529139
Rating : 4/5 (36 Downloads)

Synopsis Measured Excess by : Laura C. Nelson

-- Elise Mellinger, University of Hawaii--Manoa, Korean Studies

Coltan, Congo and Conflict

Coltan, Congo and Conflict
Author :
Publisher : The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies
Total Pages : 87
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9789491040818
ISBN-13 : 9491040812
Rating : 4/5 (18 Downloads)

Synopsis Coltan, Congo and Conflict by : Artur Usanov

This report evaluates the links between coltan trade and violence in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and examines the potential for recent legislation to break such links and reduce conflict.

Congo Inc.

Congo Inc.
Author :
Publisher : Indiana University Press
Total Pages : 214
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780253031914
ISBN-13 : 0253031915
Rating : 4/5 (14 Downloads)

Synopsis Congo Inc. by : In Koli Jean Bofane

To the sound of machine gun fire and the smell of burning flesh, award-winning author In Koli Jean Bofane leads readers on a perilous, satirical journey through the civil conflict and political instability that have been the logical outcome of generations of rapacious multinational corporate activity, corrupt governance, widespread civil conflict, human rights abuses, and environmental degradation in Africa. Isookanga, a Congolese Pygmy, grows up in a small village with big dreams of becoming rich. His vision of the world is shaped by his exploits in Raging Trade, an online game where he seizes control of the world's natural resources by any means possible: high-tech weaponry, slavery, and even genocide. Isookanga leaves his sleepy village to make his fortune in the pulsating capital Kinshasa, where he joins forces with street children, warlords, and a Chinese victim of globalization in this blistering novel about capitalism, colonialism, and the world haunted by the ghosts of Bismarck and Leopold II. Told with just enough levity to make it truly heartbreaking, Congo Inc. is a searing tale about ecological, political, and economic failure.

Conspicuous Consumption in Africa

Conspicuous Consumption in Africa
Author :
Publisher : Wits University Press
Total Pages : 256
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781776143641
ISBN-13 : 1776143647
Rating : 4/5 (41 Downloads)

Synopsis Conspicuous Consumption in Africa by : Ilana van Wyk

A collection of essays examining cultures of consumption on the African continent From early department stores in Cape Town to gendered histories of sartorial success in urban Togo, contestations over expense accounts at an apartheid state enterprise, elite wealth and political corruption in Angola and Zambia, the role of popular religion in the political intransigence of Jacob Zuma, funerals of big men in Cameroon, youth cultures of consumption in Niger and South Africa, queer consumption in Cape Town, middle-class food consumption in Durban and the consumption of luxury handcrafted beads, this collection of essays explores the ways in which conspicuous consumption is foregrounded in various African contexts and historical moments. The essays in Conspicuous Consumption in Africa put Thorstein Veblen’s concept under robust critical scrutiny, delving into the pleasures, stresses and challenges of consuming in its religious, generational, gendered and racialised aspects, revealing conspicuous consumption as a layered set of practices, textures and relations. This volume shows how central and revealing conspicuous consumption can be to fathoming the history of Africa’s projects of modernity, and their global lineages and legacies. In its grounded, up-close case studies, it is likely to feed into current public debates on the nature and future of African societies – South African society in particular.

Consumed Nostalgia

Consumed Nostalgia
Author :
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Total Pages : 372
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780231539609
ISBN-13 : 0231539606
Rating : 4/5 (09 Downloads)

Synopsis Consumed Nostalgia by : Gary Cross

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. For many of us, modern memory is shaped less by a longing for the social customs and practices of the past or for family heirlooms handed down over generations and more by childhood encounters with ephemeral commercial goods and fleeting media moments in our age of fast capitalism. This phenomenon has given rise to communities of nostalgia whose members remain loyal to the toys, television, and music of their youth. They return to the theme parks and pastimes of their upbringing, hoping to reclaim that feeling of childhood wonder or teenage freedom. Consumed nostalgia took definite shape in the 1970s, spurred by an increase in the turnover of consumer goods, the commercialization of childhood, and the skillful marketing of nostalgia. Gary Cross immerses readers in this fascinating and often delightful history, unpacking the cultural dynamics that turn pop tunes into oldies and childhood toys into valuable commodities. He compares the limited appeal of heritage sites such as Colonial Williamsburg to the perpetually attractive power of a Disney theme park and reveals how consumed nostalgia shapes how we cope with accelerating change. Today nostalgia can be owned, collected, and easily accessed, making it less elusive and often more fun than in the past, but its commercialization has sometimes limited memory and complicated the positive goals of recollection. By unmasking the fascinating, idiosyncratic character of modern nostalgia, Cross helps us better understand the rituals of recall in an age of fast capitalism.

An All-Consuming Century

An All-Consuming Century
Author :
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Total Pages : 333
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780231502535
ISBN-13 : 0231502532
Rating : 4/5 (35 Downloads)

Synopsis An All-Consuming Century by : Gary Cross

The unqualified victory of consumerism in America was not a foregone conclusion. The United States has traditionally been the home of the most aggressive and often thoughtful criticism of consumption, including Puritanism, Prohibition, the simplicity movement, the '60s hippies, and the consumer rights movement. But at the dawn of the twenty-first century, not only has American consumerism triumphed, there isn't even an "ism" left to challenge it. An All-Consuming Century is a rich history of how market goods came to dominate American life over that remarkable hundred years between 1900 and 2000 and why for the first time in history there are no practical limits to consumerism. By 1930 a distinct consumer society had emerged in the United States in which the taste, speed, control, and comfort of goods offered new meanings of freedom, thus laying the groundwork for a full-scale ideology of consumer's democracy after World War II. From the introduction of Henry Ford's Model T ("so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one") and the innovations in selling that arrived with the department store (window displays, self service, the installment plan) to the development of new arenas for spending (amusement parks, penny arcades, baseball parks, and dance halls), Americans embraced the new culture of commercialism—with reservations. However, Gary Cross shows that even the Depression, the counterculture of the 1960s, and the inflation of the 1970s made Americans more materialistic, opening new channels of desire and offering opportunities for more innovative and aggressive marketing. The conservative upsurge of the 1980s and '90s indulged in its own brand of self-aggrandizement by promoting unrestricted markets. The consumerism of today, thriving and largely unchecked, no longer brings families and communities together; instead, it increasingly divides and isolates Americans. Consumer culture has provided affluent societies with peaceful alternatives to tribalism and class war, Cross writes, and it has fueled extraordinary economic growth. The challenge for the future is to find ways to revive the still valid portion of the culture of constraint and control the overpowering success of the all-consuming twentieth century.