Selected New Materials: February 2007
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The African Predicament and the American Experience: A Tale of Two Edens. Ali A. Mazrui. Africana Library: DT 38 .1 .M37 2004
Mazrui examines the importance of Africa--historically, culturally, and economically--in the development of the West, particularly the United States. He contrasts this demonstrable importance with the combination of neglect and malice directed at Africa and those of African descent by the West and by the United States in particular. (Amazon.com)
A Commonwealth of Knowledge: Science, Sensibility, and White South Africa 1820-2000. Saul Dubow. Africana Library: DT1756.D83 2006
This is the first full study of the relationship of knowledge to national identity formation in modern South Africa. It explores how the cultivation of knowledge served to support white political ascendancy and claims to nationhood. Elegantly written and wide ranging, the book addresses major themes in both South African and comparative imperial historiography. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Civil Wars and Coups d’Etat in West Africa: An Attempt to Understand the Roots and Prescribe Possible Solutions. Issaka K. Souare. Africana Library: DT471 .S72 2006
Working from a thematic, empirical-analytical approach, this work surveys the root causes of civil wars and military coups d'etat in West Africa, analyzes the implications for the region as a whole, and identifies possible solutions to these armed conflicts. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Creating Black Americans: African-America History and its Meanings, 1619 to the Present. Nell Irvin Painter. Africana Library: E 185 P85 2006
Here is a magnificent account of a past rich in beauty and creativity, but also in tragedy and trauma. Eminent historian Nell Irvin Painter blends a vivid narrative based on the latest research with a wonderful array of artwork by African American artists, works which add a new depth to our understanding of black history. Painter offers a history written for a new generation of African Americans, stretching from life in Africa before slavery to today's hip-hop culture. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Darfur Diaries: Stories of Survival. Jen Marlowe, et’al . Africana Library: DT 159 .6 .D27 M37 2006
In February, 2003, the Sudanese Liberation Army in Darfur (the western region of Sudan) after years of oppression took up arms against the Sudanese government. The government and allied militias answered the rebellion with mass murder, rape and the wholesale destruction of villages and livelihood, resulting in one of the world's largest humanitarian and political crises. (Amazon .com)
Emancipation Betrayed: The Hidden History of Black Organizing and White Violence in Florida from Reconstruction to the Bloody Election of 1920. Paul Ortiz . Africana Library: E185.93 .F5 O78 2005
A history of African American organizing in Jim Crow Florida, centrally a powerful voter registration drive that culminated in the bloody election of 1920.
In this penetrating examination of African American politics and culture, Paul Ortiz throws a powerful light on the struggle of black Floridians to create the first statewide civil rights movement against Jim Crow. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Einstein on Race and Racism. Fred Jerome and Rodger Taylor. Africana Library: QC16.E5 J466, 2005
This volume brings together writings by Einstein on the topic of race. Although his activism in this area is less well known than his efforts on behalf of international peace and scientific cooperation, Einstein spoke out vigorously against racism both in the US and around the world. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Equiano The African: Biography of a Self Made Man. Vincent Carretta. Africana Library: HT869 .E6 C37 2005
Olaudah Equiano's (c. 1745–1797) much anthologized autobiography is one of the earliest by an English-speaking person of African descent. But was it wholly truthful in its self-portrayal? Carretta, a senior fellow at Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research, provides a masterful, lively and scrupulously researched account that questions central parts of the ex-slave's narrative, but upholds his view of himself as a self-made man. (Amazon.com)
The Forgotten Fifth: African Americans in the Age of Revolution. Gary B. Nash. Africana Library: E 269 .N3 N36 2006
As the United States gained independence, a full fifth of the country's population was African American. The experiences of these men and women have been largely ignored in the accounts of the colonies' glorious quest for freedom. In this compact volume, Gary B. Nash reorients our understanding of early America, and reveals the perilous choices of the founding fathers that shaped the nation's future. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Finding Martha’s Vineyard: An African American at Home on an Island. Jill Nelson. African Library: F72 .M5 N45 2005
In this elegant book of photographs, personal narrative, memories, and fascinating historical detail, bestselling author Jill Nelson conveys the special magic of Martha’s Vineyard and the African Americans who have summered or lived there for generations. Jill Nelson has been a summer and occasional year-round resident of Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard for nearly fifty years. It was where she learned to swim and ride a bike, first kissed a boy, became a writer, and, during twenty-eight summers, raised her own daughter. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Hoodlums: Black Villains and Social Bandits in American Life. William L. van Deburg. Africana Library: HV 6791 .V36 2004
Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X., and Muhammad Ali. When you think of African American history, you think of its heroes--individuals endowed with courage and strength who are celebrated for their bold exploits and nobility of purpose. But what of black villains? Villains, just as much as heroes, have helped define the black experience. Ranging from black slaveholders and frontier outlaws to serial killers and gangsta rapper, Hoodlums examines the pivotal role of black villains in American society and popular culture. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Freedom Riders 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice. Raymond Arsenault. Africana Library: E185.61 .A69 2006
Here is the definitive account of a dramatic and indeed pivotal moment in American history, a critical episode that transformed the civil rights movement in the early 1960s. Raymond Arsenault offers a meticulously researched and grippingly written account of the Freedom Rides, one of the most compelling chapters in the history of civil rights. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
1996. Gloria Naylor. Africana Library: PS3564 .A895 A15, 2004
This fictionalized memoir of the award-winning author, Gloria Naylor, tells a story of a massive covert surveillance operation perpetrated against her by an official of the U.S. government. This domestic spying both destroys the peace and tranquility of the writer’s home and raises serious questions about the use of surveillance and technology by the government. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Huey: Spirit of the Panther. David Hilliard et’al. Africana Library: E 185.97 .N48 H55 2006
Huey P. Newton remains one of the most misunderstood political figures of the twentieth century. As cofounder and leader of the Black Panther Party for more than twenty years, Newton (1942-1989) was at the forefront of the radical political activism of the 1960s and '70s. In this first authorized biography, Newton's former chief of staff David Hilliard and best-selling authors Keith and Kent Zimmerman team up to tell the WHOLE story of the man behind the organization that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover infamously dubbed "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country." (Bowker’s Books in Print)
In Search of the Promised Land: A Slave Family in the Old South. John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger. Africana Library: E 444 .F825 2006
The matriarch of a remarkable African American family, Sally Thomas went from being a slave on a tobacco plantation to a "virtually free" slave who ran her own business and purchased one of her sons out of bondage. In Search of the Promised Land offers a vivid portrait of the extended Thomas-Rapier family and of slave life before the Civil War. Based on personal letters and an autobiography by one of Thomas' sons, this remarkable piece of detective work follows the family as they walk the boundary between slave and free, traveling across the country in search of a "promised land" where African Americans would be treated with respect. Their record of these journeys provides a vibrant picture of antebellum America, ranging from New Orleans to St. Louis to the Overland Trail. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Karnak: Evolution of a Temple. Elizabeth Blyth. Africana Library: DT 73 .K4 B59 2006
This is an in-depth examination of the important temple site at Karnak. Supported by comprehensive maps, plans, illustrations and photographs, 'Karnak' will be a crucial guide for Egyptologists, students and those people interested in the architectural and political development of this complex. This first publication in English provides an in-depth examination including illustrations of the historical developments of the famous temple site Karnak, from its early shrine to the greatest state temple of Ancient Eygpt's mighty empire. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Lost Battalions: The Great War and the Crisis of American Nationality. Richard Slotkin.
Africana Library: D570.33 369th. S58 2005
During the bloodiest days of World War I, no soldiers served more valiantly than the 369th Infantry—the fabled Harlem Hell fighters—and the legendary “lost battalion” composed of New York City immigrants drawn from the 77th Division. At separate times during the war, both units found themselves cut off behind enemy lines, lost, in fierce battles that claimed the lives of more than half the men from each unit. As Richard Slotkin follows the Negro soldiers of the 369th and the Jewish, Italian, and other immigrants of the 77th into combat, he depicts an America where these soldiers were viewed as lesser citizens. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
My Soul Looks Back in Wonder. Juan Williams. Africana Library: E 184 .A1 W455 2004
One of the most pivotal moments in American history is brought to light through stirring, thought-provoking eyewitness accounts from people who have played active roles in the civil rights movement over the past 50 years. Juan Williams's timely, compelling, and critically acclaimed book about the civil rights movement is now available in paperback, with a special, extended readers' group guide. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
The Politics of ethnic nationalism: Afrikaner unity, the National Party, and the radical right in Stellenbosch, 1934-1948. Joane L. Duffy. Africana Library: DT2405. S74 D84 2006
The Politics of Ethnic Nationalism is the first significant local study of National Party and Afrikaner politics. By focusing on Stellenbosch as a university and a town, the bookextends our understanding of the complex interaction between the GNP/HNP and various organisations of the radical right. The book illustrates, at a local level and using detailed materials, how identity was constructed through a process of excluding some (English, Jew, Coloured) and including others. (powells.com)
Rebecca’s Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World. Jon F. Sensbach. Africana Library: BV3785 .P74 S46 2005
Rebecca's Revival is one of the most daring books ever published on New World slavery, a book of triumphant scholarship with a heart. Sensbach has constructed a unique biography of an enslaved convert to Christianity from startlingly detailed previously unknown sources. Sensbach's unforgettable portrait of Rebecca's circuits through Africa, the Caribbean, and Europe may be the most powerful account of African resilience in the face of New World slavery since Frederick Douglass's My Bondage and My Freedom." (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora. Michael A. Gomez. Africana Library: DT16.5 .G66 2006
The experiences of Africans in the Old World--the Mediterranean and Islamic worlds, is followed by their movement into the New, where their plight in lands claimed by Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French and English colonial powers is analyzed from enslavement through the Cold War. Particular attention is paid to the everyday lives of the working classes and their cultural development. Their exploits, challenges, and struggles are covered over a broad time frame that links as well as differentiates past and present circumstances. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Routes of Passage: Rethinking the African Diaspora V. 1, Part 1. Ruth Simms Hamilton. Africana Library: DT 16.5 .R68 2007, V.1, Pt.1
Routes of Passage provide a conceptual, substantive, and empirical orientation to the study of African people worldwide. The book addresses issues of geographical mobility and geosocial displacement; changing culture, political, and economic relationships between Africa and its diaspora.( msu.edu/bookTemplate.)
Slavery and the Making of America. James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton.
Africana Library: E441 .H73 2005
The history of slavery is central to understanding the history of the United States. Slavery and the Making of America offers a richly illustrated, vividly written history that illuminates the human side of this inhumane institution, presenting it largely through stories of the slaves themselves. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity. Tommie Shelby. Africana Library: E185 .615 .S475 2005
We Who Are Dark provides the first extended philosophical defense of black political solidarity. Tommie Shelby argues that we can reject a biological idea of race and agree with many criticisms of identity politics yet still view black political solidarity as a needed emancipatory tool. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Every Mother’s Son. New York: Anderson Gold Films; Harriman, NY: Transit Media Communications Distributor, 2004. 1 videodisc (53 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 252
Story of three mothers fighting for justice for their sons, Anthony Raymond Baez, Amadou Diallo, and Gary (Gidone) Busch. All three men were killed by police.
Quilombo Country. New York: Moving Eye Productions, 2006. 1 videodisc (73 min.)
Africana Library: Videodisc 250
Provides a portrait of rural communities in Brazil that were either founded by runaway slaves or began from abandoned plantations. This type of community is known as a "Quilombo", from an Angolan word that means "encampment." As many as 2,000 quilombos exist today.
Praise House. New York, NY: Women Make Movies, Inc., 1991. 1 videocassette (25 min.). Africana Library: Video 670
The visual images presented in this film illustrate "spirituality and the gift of artistry in three generations of African-American women"--Prologue.
The Wire (Season One). New York: HBO Video, 2004. Videodiscs (ca. 780 min.)
Africana Library: Videodisc 251
Follows a single sprawling drug and murder investigation in Baltimore. Told from the point of view of both the police and their targets, where easy distinctions between good and evil are challenged at every turn.
