Read Books Online and Download eBooks, EPub, PDF, Mobi, Kindle, Text Full Free.
The Shackled Continent
Download The Shackled Continent full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online The Shackled Continent ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!
Book Synopsis The Shackled Continent by : Robert Guest
Download or read book The Shackled Continent written by Robert Guest and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-03-28 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Africa is the only continent to have grown poorer over the past three decades. Why? Robert Guest's fascinating book seeks to diagnose the sickness that continues to hobble Africa's development. Using reportage, first-hand experience and economic insight, Robert Guest takes us to the roots of the problems. Two fifths of African nations are at war, AIDS has lowered life expectancy to as young as forty and investment is almost impossible as houses that could be used as collateral do not formally belong to their owners. Most shocking of all is the evidence that the billions of dollars of aid, given to Africa has had little perceptible effect on the poor. The Shackled Continent offers insightful, and occassionally controversial, explanations for this state of affairs. In this magnificent and engaging book, Robert Guest provides an invigorating history and an inspired commentary on the enigma of modern Africa and this paperback edition includes a new chapter. 'I doubt whether there is a better brief introduction to the travails of modern Africa and their causes' Anthony Daniels, Sunday Telegraph 'He is a lively and observant reporter who can describe, in a breezy no-nonsense style, the horrors and miseries of Africans in the interior. . .The reader can learn much from this lively and outspoken book' Anthony Sampson, Guardian
Book Synopsis The Shackled Continent by : Robert Guest
Download or read book The Shackled Continent written by Robert Guest and published by Smithsonian Institution. This book was released on 2010-09-14 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A former Africa editor for The Economist, Robert Guest addresses the troubled continent's thorniest problems: war, AIDS, and above all, poverty. Newly updated with a preface that considers political and economic developments of the past six years, The Shackled Continent is engrossing, highly readable, and as entertaining as it is tragic. Guest pulls the veil off the corruption and intrigue that cripple so many African nations, posing a provocative theory that Africans have been impoverished largely by their own leaders' abuses of power. From the minefields of Angola to the barren wheat fields of Zimbabwe, Guest gathers startling evidence of the misery African leaders have inflicted on their people. But he finds elusive success stories and examples of the resilience and resourcefulness of individual Africans, too; from these, he draws hope that the continent will eventually prosper. Guest offers choices both commonsense and controversial for Africans and for those in the West who wish Africa well.
Book Synopsis The Shackled Continent by : Robert Guest
Download or read book The Shackled Continent written by Robert Guest and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of modern Africa, mixing careful analysis with racy first-hand reportage. Why is Africa so poor? Why are so many of its nations at war? Why is AIDS devastating Africa like nowhere else? And why do African entrepreneurs find it so hard to borrow money? In this provocative book, Robert Guest argues that the continent's problems stem largely from bad government. Guest has reported from some 25 African countries for The Economist, but wears his expertise lightly. His subject is serious, but he writes with irresistible colour and wit.
Book Synopsis The Shackled Continent by : Robert Guest
Download or read book The Shackled Continent written by Robert Guest and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Poisoned Wells by : Nicholas Shaxson
Download or read book Poisoned Wells written by Nicholas Shaxson and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2007-03-20 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each week the oil and gas fields of sub-Saharan Africa produce well over a billion dollars' worth of oil, an amount that far exceeds development aid to the entire African continent. Yet the rising tide of oil money is not promoting stability and development, but is instead causing violence, poverty, and stagnation. It is also generating vast corruption that reaches deep into American and European economies. In Poisoned Wells, Nicholas Shaxson exposes the root causes of this paradox of poverty from plenty, and explores the mechanisms by which oil causes grave instabilities and corruption around the globe. Shaxson is the only journalist who has had access to the key players in African oil, and is willing to make the connections between the problems of the developing world and the involvement of leading global corporations and governments.
Book Synopsis A Continent for the Taking by : Howard W. French
Download or read book A Continent for the Taking written by Howard W. French and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Book Synopsis Africa's Odious Debts by : Léonce Ndikumana
Download or read book Africa's Odious Debts written by Léonce Ndikumana and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2011-10-13 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Africa's Odious Debts, Boyce and Ndikumana reveal the shocking fact that, contrary to the popular perception of Africa being a drain on the financial resources of the West, the continent is actually a net creditor to the rest of the world. The extent of capital flight from sub-Saharan Africa is remarkable: more than $700 billion in the past four decades. But Africa's foreign assets remain private and hidden, while its foreign debts are public, owed by the people of Africa through their governments. Léonce Ndikumana and James K. Boyce reveal the intimate links between foreign loans and capital flight. Of the money borrowed by African governments in recent decades, more than half departed in the same year, with a significant portion of it winding up in private accounts at the very banks that provided the loans in the first place. Meanwhile, debt-service payments continue to drain scarce resources from Africa, cutting into funds available for public health and other needs. Controversially, the authors argue that African governments should repudiate these 'odious debts' from which their people derived no benefit, and that the international community should assist in this effort. A vital book for anyone interested in Africa, its future and its relationship with the West.
Book Synopsis The Face of Africa by : Stan Chu Ilo
Download or read book The Face of Africa written by Stan Chu Ilo and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2012-12-01 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a call on Africans and non-Africans to once more believe in the possibility of a better future for Africa. In these pages, Stan Chu Ilo writes of his experience and the experiences of many young Africans like himself who are disturbed by the present condition of Africa. He writes about the challenges facing most Africans who are growing up in the African continent without any hope of quality education, without any guarantee of adequate food, water, housing, and clothing; without any hope of getting a job, and without any prospect of living in peace with their neighbors. He writes of the sad situation of millions of young Africans who are dying of malaria and HIV/AIDS, and the African women whose fate and fortune have been shackled by a male-dominated society. He questions the bases of the existence of the failed states of Africa, who are caught up in a cycle of violence and disorder and who are not asking the right questions about the future of their nations. He argues that corruption, excessive authoritarianism, a stubborn hold on power, and lack of openness to consensus-building among some African leaders insult the cultural value of Africans with regard to a sense of community, love and solidarity. He also writes of the pain of globalization, the debt burden, immigration and trade restrictions on Africans and African countries, exploitation of ordinary Africans by fellow Africans and Western governments and business conglomerates. He wonders why many Western nations should turn their backs on Africa, when they all share some responsibility in bringing Africa to her knees. However, even though many Africans have become exhausted in the battle for national survival and fora living space to pursue their ordered ends, this book proposes that Africans should not claim perpetual victimhood, rather they should stand up once more and work for a better tomorrow, which is possible, and within their reach. Ilo insists that the imposing mountains of economic and social ruin; the rising moans and groans of numberless Africans, should not weaken the inner energy and ardent hopes of millions of Africans struggling against the untested assumption, that the cracking social, political, and economic foundations of present day Africa, are incapable of supporting the structures of a new Africa. The face of Africa today is ugly, but behind the ugly face is the beauty that has been distorted by historical and cultural factors. The present condition of Africa is only the sign of the urgent need for the peoples of Africa to brace up for the long and hard journey to reclaim their future. Ilo outlines how non-Africans who are interested in the African condition can be involved with the peoples of Africa. A proper understanding of the African continent and her peoples, her history and cultural evolution is a necessary first step for those who wish to be engaged with the Africans. His total picture approach model as the key to interpreting the African condition and in comprehensively addressing the challenges facing Africa, offers a helpful and original tool in understanding Africa. It helps to overcome the stereotypes, prejudices and paternalism which non-Africans apply in their reading of African history and their relation with the African reality. With masterly skills, a keen sense of history, a balanced perspective and objectivity, Ilo identifies the constraints to growth andinnovation in Africa in terms of the low stocks in the human-capital and cultural development. He introduces a new concept in the interpretation of the African condition: homelessness in terms of cultural and existential crises that confront Africans today. His conclusion is that cultural and human development is the irreducible decimal in any proposal for the transformation of the continent; that grassroots village-based action should be preferred over bogus and unworkable national approaches to African development.
Download or read book Why Africa is Poor written by Greg Mills and published by Penguin Random House South Africa. This book was released on 2012-10-01 with total page 583 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economic growth does not demand a secret formula. Good development examples now abound in East Asia and further afield in others parts of Asia, and in Central America. But why then has Africa failed to realise its potential in half a century of independence? Why Africa is Poor demonstrates that Africa is poor not because the world has denied the continent the market and financial means to compete: far from it. It has not been because of aid per se. Nor is African poverty solely a consequence of poor infrastructure or trade access, or because the necessary development and technical expertise is unavailable internationally. Why then has the continent lagged behind other developing areas when its people work hard and the continent is blessed with abundant natural resources? Stomping across the continent and the developing world in search of the answer, Greg Mills controversially shows that the main reason why Africa's people are poor is because their leaders have made this choice.
Book Synopsis Borderless Economics by : Robert Guest
Download or read book Borderless Economics written by Robert Guest and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2011-11-08 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acentury ago, migrants often crossed an ocean and never saw their homelands again. Today, they call - or Skype - home the moment their flight has landed, and that's just the beginning. Thanks to cheap travel and easy communication, immigrants everywhere stay in intimate contact with their native countries, creating powerful cross-border networks. In Borderless Economics, Robert Guest, The Economist's Business Editor, travels through dozens of countries and 44 American states, observing how these networks create wealth, spread ideas and foster innovation. He shows how: * Brainy Indians in America collaborate with brainy Indians in India to build $70 fridges and $300 houses * Young Chinese study in the West and then return home (where they're known as "sea turtles"), infecting China with ideas that will eventually turn it democratic * The so-called "brain drain" - the flow of educated migrants from poorcountries to rich ones - actually reduces global poverty *America's unique ability to attract and absorb migrants lets it tap into the energy of all the world's diaspora networks. So despite its current woes, if the United States keeps its borders open, it will remain the world's most powerful nation indefinitely. With on-the-ground reporting from Asia, Africa, Europe and even Idaho, this book examines how migration, for the all the disruption it causes, makes the world wealthier and happier.
Book Synopsis Out of the Dark Night by : Achille Mbembe
Download or read book Out of the Dark Night written by Achille Mbembe and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-19 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Achille Mbembe is one of the world’s most profound critics of colonialism and its consequences, a major figure in the emergence of a new wave of French critical theory. His writings examine the complexities of decolonization for African subjectivities and the possibilities emerging in its wake. In Out of the Dark Night, he offers a rich analysis of the paradoxes of the postcolonial moment that points toward new liberatory models of community, humanity, and planetarity. In a nuanced consideration of the African experience, Mbembe makes sweeping interventions into debates about citizenship, identity, democracy, and modernity. He eruditely ranges across European and African thought to provide a powerful assessment of common ways of writing and thinking about the world. Mbembe criticizes the blinders of European intellectuals, analyzing France’s failure to heed postcolonial critiques of ongoing exclusions masked by pretenses of universalism. He develops a new reading of African modernity that further develops the notion of Afropolitanism, a novel way of being in the world that has arisen in decolonized Africa in the midst of both destruction and the birth of new societies. Out of the Dark Night reconstructs critical theory’s historical and philosophical framework for understanding colonial and postcolonial events and expands our sense of the futures made possible by decolonization.
Book Synopsis Framing the Race in South Africa by : Karen E. Ferree
Download or read book Framing the Race in South Africa written by Karen E. Ferree and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-11-15 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Post-apartheid South African elections have borne an unmistakable racial imprint: Africans vote for one set of parties, whites support a different set of parties, and, with few exceptions, there is no crossover voting between groups. These voting tendencies have solidified the dominance of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) over South African politics and turned South African elections into 'racial censuses'. This book explores the political sources of these outcomes. It argues that although the beginnings of these patterns lie in South Africa's past, in the effects apartheid had on voters' beliefs about race and destiny and the reputations parties forged during this period, the endurance of the census reflects the ruling party's ability to use the powers of office to prevent the opposition from evolving away from its apartheid-era party label. By keeping key opposition parties 'white', the ANC has rendered them powerless, solidifying its hold on power in spite of an increasingly restive and dissatisfied electorate.
Book Synopsis A World Lit Only by Fire by : William Manchester
Download or read book A World Lit Only by Fire written by William Manchester and published by Back Bay Books. This book was released on 2009-09-26 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A "lively and engaging" history of the Middle Ages (Dallas Morning News) from the acclaimed historian William Manchester, author of The Last Lion. From tales of chivalrous knights to the barbarity of trial by ordeal, no era has been a greater source of awe, horror, and wonder than the Middle Ages. In handsomely crafted prose, and with the grace and authority of his extraordinary gift for narrative history, William Manchester leads us from a civilization tottering on the brink of collapse to the grandeur of its rebirth: the dense explosion of energy that spawned some of history's greatest poets, philosophers, painters, adventurers, and reformers, as well as some of its most spectacular villains. "Manchester provides easy access to a fascinating age when our modern mentality was just being born." --Chicago Tribune
Book Synopsis Dancing in the Glory of Monsters by : Jason Stearns
Download or read book Dancing in the Glory of Monsters written by Jason Stearns and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2012-03-27 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A "tremendous," "intrepid" history of the devastating war in the heart of Africa's Congo, with first-hand accounts of the continent's worst conflict in modern times. At the heart of Africa is the Congo, a country the size of Western Europe, bordering nine other nations, that since 1996 has been wracked by a brutal war in which millions have died. In Dancing in the Glory of Monsters, renowned political activist and researcher Jason K. Stearns has written a compelling and deeply-reported narrative of how Congo became a failed state that collapsed into a war of retaliatory massacres. Stearns brilliantly describes the key perpetrators, many of whom he met personally, and highlights the nature of the political system that brought these people to power, as well as the moral decisions with which the war confronted them. Now updated with a new introduction, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters tells the full story of Africa's Great War.
Book Synopsis To Cook a Continent by : Nnimmo Bassey
Download or read book To Cook a Continent written by Nnimmo Bassey and published by Fahamu/Pambazuka. This book was released on 2012 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arguing that the climate crisis confronting the world today is rooted mainly in the wealthy economies’ abuse of fossil fuels, indigenous forests, and global commercial agriculture, this important book investigates how Africa has been exploited and how Africans should respond for the good of all. As it examines the oil industry in Africa and probes the causes of global warming, this record warns of its insidious impacts and explores false solutions. Demonstrating that the issues around natural resource exploitation, corporate profiteering, and climate change must be considered together if the planet is to be saved, the book suggests how Africa can overcome the crises of environment and global warming.
Book Synopsis The Teeth May Smile But the Heart Does Not Forget by : Andrew Rice
Download or read book The Teeth May Smile But the Heart Does Not Forget written by Andrew Rice and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2009-05-26 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Rwanda to Sierra Leone, African countries recovering from tyranny and war are facing an impossible dilemma: to overlook past atrocities for the sake of peace or to seek catharsis through tribunals and truth commissions. In this work, Rice reports on Idi Amin's legacy and the limits of reconciliation.
Book Synopsis The Fortunes of Africa by : Martin Meredith
Download or read book The Fortunes of Africa written by Martin Meredith and published by Public Affairs. This book was released on 2014-10-14 with total page 770 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Africa has been coveted for its riches ever since the era of the Pharaohs. In past centuries, it was the lure of gold, ivory, and slaves that drew fortune-seekers, merchant-adventurers, and conquerors from afar. In modern times, the focus of attention is on oil, diamonds, and other valuable minerals. Land was another prize. The Romans relied on their colonies in northern Africa for vital grain shipments to feed the population of Rome. Arab invaders followed in their wake, eventually colonizing the entire region. More recently, foreign corporations have acquired huge tracts of land to secure food supplies needed abroad, just as the Romans did. In this vast and vivid panorama of history, Martin Meredith follows the fortunes of Africa over a period of 5,000 years. With compelling narrative, he traces the rise and fall of ancient kingdoms and empires; the spread of Christianity and Islam; the enduring quest for gold and other riches; the exploits of explorers and missionaries; and the impact of European colonization. He examines, too, the fate of modern African states and concludes with a glimpse of their future. His cast of characters includes religious leaders, mining magnates, warlords, dictators, and many other legendary figures—among them Mansa Musa, ruler of the medieval Mali empire, said to be the richest man the world has ever known. “I speak of Africa,” Shakespeare wrote, “and of golden joys.” This is history on an epic scale.
