This book is about Fourah Bay College (FBC) and its role as an institution of higher learning in both its African and international context. The study traces the College's development through periods of missionary education (1816-1876), colonial education (1876-1938), and development education (1938-2001).

The country owed its name to the Portuguese explorer, Petro da Cintra, who was the first European to sight and map the Freetown Habour. The original Portuguese name, Sierra Lyoa (Lion Mountains) describes the range of hills that surrounds the habour. The capital Freetown commands one of the world’s largest natural habours. The country is located on the coast of West Africa, bounded on the North and East by Guinea, on the East by Liberia, and on the West by the Atlantic Ocean. It has many miles of beautiful sandy beaches. The backbone of the economy is agriculture, but it is rich in minerals – diamonds, gold, bauxite, and rutile. The book traces the rich pre-colonial history of a people whose main occupations then were agriculture and trade. Communal life was highly regulated by chiefs, who presided over their subjects. These societies were governed by what is now called “customary laws”. The book also debunks the thinking that Pedro da Cintra discovered Sierra Leone; he was not even the first European to set foot in Sierra Leone. It traces exhaustively the exploitative rule of the British Colonial Administration until its independence on 27th April 1961. Sierra Leone is credited as being, the “Athens of West Africa”. How this came about is explained at length. How can a small country so far removed from Athens be credited as such? The primary reason was for its learning. The first University in sub-Saharan Africa was established in Sierra Leone, and it attracted students from all over the continent. Woven into this academic fabric, is the politico-socio-economic development from the founding of the state up to the present. It traces the turbulent times the country has been through: coups and countercoups, declaration of a one party state, a brutal 11-year civil war, and the bastardisation of the constitution by various regimes, since independence up to the present.

Introduction -- The Age of revolutions and the Atlantic World -- The origins of jihād in West Africa -- The jihād of Ô̂uthman dan Fodio in the central Bilād al-Sūdān -- The economic impact of jihād in West Africa -- Jihād and the slave trade -- The repercussions of jihād in the Americas -- Sokoto, the jihād states, and the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade -- Empowering history : trajectories across the cultural and religious divide -- Appendix: Population estimates for the Sokoto caliphate, ca. 1905/15

Against All Odds is the incredible true story of that escape-and of the heart-pounding courage of Major Phil Ashby who defeated the rebel forces of Sierra Leone and became a living testament to the power of the human spirit and the sheer determination to survive. In West Africa's war-ravaged Sierra Leone no one was getting out alive. It took the courage of one man to change the odds. By 1990, Sierra Leone, once hailed as the 'Athens of West Africa', had degenerated into a savage battlefield, overtaken by rebel forces in a devastating civil war. Assigned to spearhead the mission as UN peacekeeper was Major Phil Ashby. But by 2000, the rebel occupation he had worked so diligently to disarm rose again to control an astounding two-thirds of the country. The enemy's mission: get rid of the outside opposition first. A number of Ashby's colleagues were tortured and finally butchered, and more than 500 were taken as hostages. Among the hostages was Phil Ashby. Miles from civilization, with no rescue in sight, Ashby and three of his men knew that their fate was up to them alone. Lost deep inside the rebels' heartland, unarmed, and outnumbered 20-to-1, Ashby devised a plan to escape from the hostile jungles that would test fate and challenge all reason.

Since 1991, this West African nation has been brought to its knees by a series of coups, violent conflicts, and finally, outright war. The war has ended today, but it is clear that things are hardly settled. Focusing on the group spearheading the violence, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), journalist Lansana Gberie exposes the corruption and appalling use of rape and mutilation as tactics to overthrow the former government. Gberie looks closely at the rise of the RUF and its ruthless leader, Foday Sankoh, as he seeks to understand the personalities and parties involved in the war.

The trickster appears in the myths and folktales of nearly every traditional society. Robert Pelton examines Ashanti, Fon, Yoruba, and Dogon trickster-figures in their social and mythical contexts and in light of contemporary thought, exploring the way the trickster links animality and ritual transformation; culture, sex, and laughter; cosmic process and personal history; divination and social change.

No detailed description available for "The Abutia Ewe of West Africa".

The ex-slave, Krio population of Freetown, Sierra Leone - an amalgam of ethnicities drawn from several parts of the African continent - is a fascinating study in hybridity, creolization, European cultural penetration, the retention of African cultural values, and the interface between New World returnees and autochthonous populations of West Africa. Although its Nigerian connections are often acknowledged, insufficient attention has been paid to the indigenous Sierra Leonean roots of this community. This anthology addresses this problem, while celebrating the complexities of Krio identity and Krio interaction with other ethnic groups and nationalities in the British colonial experience.

There has long been a need for a new textbook on West Africa’s history. In Themes in West Africa’s History, editor Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong and his contributors meet this need, examining key themes in West Africa’s prehistory to the present through the lenses of their different disciplines. The contents of the book comprise an introduction and thirteen chapters divided into three parts. Each chapter provides an overview of existing literature on major topics, as well as a short list of recommended reading, and breaks new ground through the incorporation of original research. The first part of the book examines paths to a West African past, including perspectives from archaeology, ecology and culture, linguistics, and oral traditions. Part two probes environment, society, and agency and historical change through essays on the slave trade, social inequality, religious interaction, poverty, disease, and urbanization. Part three sheds light on contemporary West Africa in exploring how economic and political developments have shaped religious expression and identity in significant ways. Themes in West Africa’s History represents a range of intellectual views and interpretations from leading scholars on West Africa’s history. It will appeal to college undergraduates, graduate students, and scholars in the way it draws on different disciplines and expertise to bring together key themes in West Africa’s history, from prehistory to the present.