An award-winning correspondent on PBSs "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer" offers a fresh and surprisingly optimistic assessment of modern Africa, revealing that there is more to the continent than the bad news of disease, disaster, and despair.

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, French searches 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.

Not Out of Africa has sparked widespread debate over the teaching of revisionist history in schools and colleges. Was Socrates black? Did Aristotle steal his ideas from the library in Alexandria? Do we owe the underlying tenets of our democratic civilizaiton to the Africans? Mary Lefkowitz explains why politically motivated histories of the ancient world are being written and shows how Afrocentrist claims blatantly contradict the historical evidence. Not Out of Africa is an important book that protects and argues for the necessity of historical truths and standards in cultural education.For this new paperback edition, Mary Lefkowitz has written an epilogue in which she responds to her critics and offers topics for further discussion. She has also added supplementary notes, a bibliography with suggestions for further reading, and a glossary of names.

Our Continent, Our Future presents the emerging African perspective on this complex issue. The authors use as background their own extensive experience and a collection of 30 individual studies, 25 of which were from African economists, to summarize this African perspective and articulate a path for the future. They underscore the need to be sensitive to each country's unique history and current condition. They argue for a broader policy agenda and for a much more active role for the state within what is largely a market economy. Finally, they stress that Africa must, and can, compete in an increasingly globalized world and, perhaps most importantly, that Africans must assume the leading role in defining the continent's development agenda.

In Out of Africa, author Isak Dinesen takes a wistful and nostalgic look back on her years living in Africa on a Kenyan coffee plantation. Recalling the lives of friends and neighbours—both African and European—Dinesen provides a first-hand perspective of colonial Africa. Through her obvious love of both the landscape and her time in Africa, Dinesen’s meditative writing style deeply reflects the themes of loss as her plantation fails and she returns to Europe. HarperTorch brings great works of non-fiction and the dramatic arts to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperTorch collection to build your digital library.

Looking at decolonization in the conditional tense, this volume teases out the complex and uncertain ends of British and French empire in Africa during the period of ‘late colonial shift’ after 1945. Rather than view decolonization as an inevitable process, the contributors together explore the crucial historical moments in which change was negotiated, compromises were made, and debates were staged. Three core themes guide the analysis: development, contingency and entanglement. The chapters consider the ways in which decolonization was governed and moderated by concerns about development and profit. A complementary focus on contingency allows deeper consideration of how colonial powers planned for ‘colonial futures’, and how divergent voices greeted the end of empire. Thinking about entanglements likewise stresses both the connections that existed between the British and French empires in Africa, and those that endured beyond the formal transfer of power.

Sub-Saharan Africa is no longer a troubled ‘dark continent.’ Most of its constituent countries are now enjoying significant economic growth and political progress. The new Africa has begun to banish the miseries of the past, and appears ready to play an important role in world affairs. Thanks to shifts in leadership and governance, an African renaissance could be at hand. Yet the road ahead is not without obstacles. As world renowned expert on African affairs, Robert Rotberg, expertly shows, Africa today maybe poised to deliver real rewards to its long suffering citizens but it faces critical new crises as well as abundant new opportunities. Africa Emerges draws on a wealth of empirical data to explore the key challenges Africa must overcome in the coming decades. From peacekeeping to health and disease, from energy needs to education, this illuminating analysis diagnoses the remaining impediments Africa will need to surmount if it is to emerge in 2050 as a prosperous, peaceful, dynamic collection of robust large and small nations. Africa Emerges offers an unparalleled guide for all those interested in the dynamics of modern Africa’s political, economic, and social development.

Set in Africa, it is the story of Dinesen's years in Africa--together with Shadows on the Grass. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

From one of Africa’s most influential and eloquent essayists, a posthumous collection that highlights his biting satire and subversive wisdom on topics from travel to cultural identity to sexuality “A fierce literary talent . . . [Wainaina] shines a light on his continent without cliché.”—The Guardian “Africa is the only continent you can love—take advantage of this. . . . Africa is to be pitied, worshipped, or dominated. Whichever angle you take, be sure to leave the strong impression that without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed.” Binyavanga Wainaina was a pioneering voice in African literature, an award-winning memoirist and essayist remembered as one of the greatest chroniclers of contemporary African life. This groundbreaking collection brings together, for the first time, Wainaina’s pioneering writing on the African continent, including many of his most critically acclaimed pieces, such as the viral satirical sensation “How to Write About Africa.” Working fearlessly across a range of topics—from politics to international aid, cultural heritage, and redefined sexuality—he describes the modern world with sensual, emotional, and psychological detail, giving us a full-color view of his home country and continent. These works present the portrait of a giant in African literature who left a tremendous legacy.

“A page-turner. The portrait of Africa that emerges is disturbing, tender, and harsh. . . . A tremendous read. I couldn’t put it down.” —Abraham Verghese, New York Times–bestselling author of The Covenant of Water A seasoned war correspondent, Jeffrey Gettleman has covered every major conflict over the past twenty years, from Afghanistan to Iraq to the Congo. For the past decade, he has served as the East Africa bureau chief for the New York Times, fulfilling a teenage dream. At nineteen, Gettleman fell in love, twice. On a do-it-yourself community service trip in college, he went to East Africa—a terrifying, exciting, dreamlike part of the world in the throes of change that imprinted itself on his imagination and on his heart. But around that same time he also fell in love with a fellow Cornell student—the brightest, classiest, most principled woman he’d ever met. To say they were opposites was an understatement. She became a criminal lawyer in America; he hungered to return to Africa. For the next decade he would be torn between these two abiding passions. A sensually rendered coming-of-age story, Love, Africa is a tale of passion, violence, far-flung adventure, tortuous long-distance relationships, screwing up, forgiveness, parenthood, and happiness that explores the power of finding yourself in the most unexpected of places. “Aptly displays why [Gettleman's] a Pulitzer Prize winner and a New York Times bureau chief . . . there's a thrilling immediacy and attention to detail in Gettleman's writing that puts the reader right beside him. . . . An absolute must-read.” —Booklist, starred review “Love, Africa offers a key to understanding humankind’s past and future and a key to understanding our hearts.” —Sheryl Sandberg