A day-by-day photographic journal of the annual migration path taken by the animals of the Serengeti Plain as they follow the cycle of the rains.

The flora and fauna of one of Africa's most spectacular regions is documented in 202 photographs, from snow-topped mountains to heat-blasted salt flats.

The Great Rift Valley, which runs some three thousand miles from Syria to Mozambique, is one of the earth's most extraordinary geological features. The result of Syria's split from the African continent fifteen million years ago, this great "crack in the earth" crosses Jordan, Syria, Israel, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Kenya. In 2004, Israeli journalist Haim Watzman set out to explore the northern part of the Rift Valley, where he had lived for nearly two and a half decades. He interviewed a number of scientific experts: a zoologist fascinated by the behavioral patterns of indigenous birds; an archaeologist trying to re-create the standing stone formations left to us by ancient cultures; a geologist speculating on the valley's origins. Watzman raises provocative questions about the nature of this massive feature in the earth's crust: where it comes from, how it has developed, and how human civilization has fared on its shores. "Humankind has overlaid the geology not just with cities, dams, fields, and roads," he writes, "but also with history and biography and meanings."

This book looks at several African tribes today and their respective cultures, which have evolved over centuries. It presents an intriguing look at the beliefs and practices that have shaped their world from earliest times. This book also addresses the challenges, both historical and current, which have had a serious impact on their lives. Genetic tests suggest that members of the San Tribe, also known as the Bushmen Tribe, are the closest living descendants of the first man on earth. Africas rich legacy was also the subject of research by anthropologists Mary and Louis Leakey. They believed that the skeletal remains they unearthed at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzanias Great Rift Valley in 1959 belonged to ancestors of the earliest human beings. There is a variety and richness in the tribal cultures of Africa. Rarely is a culture able to hold on to the cherished past while dealing with a chaotic modern world. The tribes in this book are motivated by their pure roots and a respect for the ancient ways that define them.

Once again, the Horn of Africa has been in the headlines. And once again the news has been bad: drought, famine, conflict, hunger, suffering and death. The finger of blame has been pointed in numerous directions: to the changing climate, to environmental degradation, to overpopulation, to geopolitics and conflict, to aid agency failures, and more. But it is not all disaster and catastrophe. Many successful development efforts at ‘the margins’ often remain hidden, informal, sometimes illegal; and rarely in line with standard development prescriptions. If we shift our gaze from the capital cities to the regional centres and their hinterlands, then a very different perspective emerges. These are the places where pastoralists live. They have for centuries struggled with drought, conflict and famine. They are resourceful, entrepreneurial and innovative peoples. Yet they have been ignored and marginalised by the states that control their territory and the development agencies who are supposed to help them. This book argues that, while we should not ignore the profound difficulties of creating secure livelihoods in the Greater Horn of Africa, there is much to be learned from development successes, large and small. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars with an interest in development studies and human geography, with a particular emphasis on Africa. It will also appeal to development policy-makers and practitioners.

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