Thomas Sankara, often called the African Che Guevara, was president of Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries in Africa, until his assassination during the military coup that brought down his government. Although his tenure in office was relatively short, Sankara left an indelible mark on his country's history and development. An avowed ......
In Queens of Afrobeat, the women of Afrobeat music--a unique blend of jazz, soul, highlife, and West African rhythms--are finally given the recognition they deserve. This extensive study takes a multifaceted view of the storied lives of the women behind Fela Kuti's activist music. Dotun Ayobade's wide-ranging research pulls from interviews with ......
Contesting Knowledge and Practice in West African Sufi Texts
Examines the works of two Sufi Muslim scholars, Sidi al-Mukhtar al-Kunti (d. 1811) and his son Sidi Muhammad (d. 1826), focusing on their cosmology and metaphysics of the realm of the unseen, in relation to the history of magical discourses within the Hellenistic and Arabo-Islamic worlds.
This 15th anniversary edition has been updated to include new materials and analysis, a review of developments in the field, prospects for new research, and new illustrations.
The island of Mauritius lies in the middle of the Indian Ocean, about 550 miles east of Madagascar. Uninhabited until the arrival of colonists in the late sixteenth century, Mauritius was subsequently populated by many different peoples as successive waves of colonizers and slaves arrived at its shores. The French ruled the island from the early ......
Ifayemi Elebuibon and Yoruba Ancestral Knowledge Systems
Born in 1947, Ifa?y?mi? ???u?nda?gbonu? ?l??bui?b?n descends from a long line of Yoruba healers, philosophers, and priests. A fervent disciple of Ifa from age four, Elebuibon grew to become both a living moral exemplar and an internationally recognized face of his religion. The first scholarly work to connect the biography of a devout Ifa ......
Flexible States and Porous Boundaries in the History of Coastal West Africa
Beginning in the late fifteenth century, more than two million people were taken from areas that lay behind the Bight of Benin, enslaved, and forced into the perilous Middle Passage bound for the New World. While a vast swath of scholarly work on this region has explored the relationships among the ruling elites and overseas traders that ......
French Colonialism and African Children in Senegal, 1848-1940
A groundbreaking study of the meaning of childhood in French colonial Senegal Negotiating Childhood explores how colonial child protection policies and African children's responses to them produced new ways of defining, measuring, documenting, and experiencing childhood in the French colony of Senegal from 1848 to 1940. In this ......
French Colonialism and African Children in Senegal, 1848-1940
A groundbreaking study of the meaning of childhood in French colonial Senegal Negotiating Childhood explores how colonial child protection policies and African children's responses to them produced new ways of defining, measuring, documenting, and experiencing childhood in the French colony of Senegal from 1848 to 1940. In this ......
