Selected New Materials: June 2007
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African History A Very Short Introduction. John Parker and Richard Rathbone. Africana Library: DT20 .P37 2007
Until recently, Africa was seen by the outside world as being without history, a continent left behind in the wider story of human progress. But our understanding of the African past is very different today. This very short introduction examines the changing ways in which African history has been understood and represented by historians and by Africans themselves. Examples drawn from across the continent and from the African Diaspora beyond are used to examine key themes, from the diversity of African cultures, religions, and identities, to the slave trade, Africa's place in the world, and the rise and fall of colonial rule. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
African States and Rulers, Third Edition. John Stewart. Africana Library: DT 31.S7859 2006
Now in its third edition, this is a bigger (more than 11,000 entries), updated (through late summer 2005) version of the 1989 original covering the enormous kaleidoscope of changing political boundaries, names, and rulers of Africa. This exhaustive reference allows the user quickly to determine what happened in or to each country and when-changes of names, political systems, rulers, and so on. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years 1965-68. Taylor Branch. Africana Library: E185.615 .B67 2007
At Canaan’s Edge concludes America in the King Years, a three-volume history that will endure as a masterpiece of storytelling on American race, violence, and democracy. Pulitzer Prize-winner and bestselling author Taylor Branch makes clear in this magisterial account of the civil rights movement that Martin Luther King, Jr., earned a place next to James Madison and Abraham Lincoln in the pantheon of American history. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Can We Talk About Race? And Other Conversations in an Era of School Resegregation. Beverly Daniel Tatum, Ph.D. Africana Library: LC212.42 .T38 2007
Ten years ago, Tatum's book asked the question, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? Her latest book follows up with a broader question about the nation's readiness to talk honestly about the forces that continue to make race such a thorny issue. In separate essays, Tatum probes the impact of continued segregation in public schools--mostly the result of segregated neighborhoods--on classroom achievement; the difficulty of developing and sustaining interracial relationships in a society that practices silence on race; and the longer-term implications of continued segregation on a changing democracy with a growing nonwhite population. Tatum blends policy analysis and personal recollections as an educator and self-described "integration baby," born just after the momentous Brown v.Board of Education decision, into a cogent look at the forces that continue to separate the races and the urgent need to begin an honest dialogue. (Amazon.ca)
The Definitive Emmett Till: Passion and Battle of a Woman for Truth and Intellectual Justice. Clenora Hudson-Weems. Africana Library: E185.97 .T57 H89 2006
It has always been said that truth will ultimately prevail. This three part book represents that truism. Part One presents the untainted facts surrounding the story of Till's brutal lynching and the establishment of that incident as the true catalyst of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s. Part Two presents the raison d'être for the book, as it confronts and exposes the abominable acts of plagiarism by several people whose obvious goal is to acquire fame and fortune for themselves. Part Three highlights the continuing commitment to the struggle on the part of the author via demonstrating the Till Continuum, represented by modern day examples of Black victimization. (Amazo.ca)
DUB: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae. Michael E. Veal. Africana Library: ML 3532 .V43 2007
When Jamaican recording engineers Osbourne "King Tubby" Ruddock, Errol Thompson, and Lee "Scratch" Perry began crafting "dub" music in the early 1970s, they were initiating a musical revolution that continues to have worldwide influence. Dub is a sub-genre of Jamaican reggae that flourished during reggae's "golden age" of the late 1960s through the early 1980s. Dub involves remixing existing recordings--electronically improvising sound effects and altering vocal tracks--to create its unique sound. Just as hip-hop turned phonograph turntables into musical instruments, dub turned the mixing and sound processing technologies of the recording studio into instruments of composition and real-time improvisation. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Exhibiting Maori: Story of Colonial Cultures of Display. Conal McCarthy. Africana Library: DU423 .A1 M44 2007
This richly illustrated book presents a comprehensive assessment of the display of Maori culture from the 19th Century to today. In doing so, Exhibiting Maori traces the long journey from curio, to specimen, artifact, art and taonga (treasure).Drawing on extensive and groundbreaking research, Exhibiting Maori reveals for the first time the remarkable story of Maori resistance to, involvement in, and eventual capture of the display of their culture. Ranging across museums, world fairs, fine art, and tourism, Exhibiting Maori fuses museum studies, anthropology, and visual and material culture to uncover a history of active Maori engagement with the colonial culture of display. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Gender and Sexuality in African Literature and Film. Ada Uzoamaka Azodo and Maureen Ngozi Eke. Africana Library: PN849 .A35 G46 2007
This ground-breaking volume provides scholars with a sustained exploration of human sexuality as an integral part of gender studies. The book’s theoretical, interpretative, and analytical approaches document the state of present knowledge on homoeroticism in African literature and film. The contributors raise major questions and also provide background information on the prevailing views on gender and sexuality, differences of viewpoint between literature and film, men and women, males and females, the evolution of human sexuality throughout African history, and what genre and race have got to do with it. This book, therefore, urges the reader to explore how literature and film interact with political, economic, and social life in Africa, and to challenge cultural biases that predominate about Africa and its Diaspora the world over. (Amazon.ca)
The History of Africa: The Quest for Eternal Harmony. Molefi Kete Asante. Africana Library: DT 20 .A83 2007
This book provides a wide-ranging history of Africa from earliest prehistory to the present day “using the cultural, social, political, and economic lenses of Africa as instruments to illuminate the ordinary lives of Africans. The result is a fresh new survey that includes a wealth of indigenous ideas, African concepts, and traditional outlooks that have escaped the writing of African history in the West. This straight forward, illustrated and factual text allows the reader to access the major developments, personalities and events on the African continent. Written by a world expert in African history, this ground breaking survey is an indispensable guide to African history. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Muhammad Ali: Hand Book. Dave Zirin. Africana Library: GV 1132 .A44 Z57 2007
Dave Zirin provides a knowledgeable, analytic, sports-aficionado's journey through the starry trajectory of Ali's boxing career. Included are informative insights into Ali's relationship with Malcolm X, his personal journey within the Nation of Islam, and the moral crisis that brought him face to face with losing his boxing career (and millions of dollars) for his religious principles. Zirin offers intelligent, accurate assessment of Ali's extraordinary political involvement in the anti-Vietnam war protest and the Civil Rights movement in the USA. Includes unique interviews with famous sportswriters who followed Muhammad Ali from his early days, including Robert Lipsyte; Dave Kindred; Mike Marqusee; veteran journalist Lester Rodney; Ali's biographer, Thomas Hauser. (Amazon.ca)
Walter White: Mr. NAACP. Kenneth Robert Janken. Africana Library: E185.97 .W6 J36 2006
In this major political biography of one of America's most important civil rights figures, Kenneth Robert Janken breaks important new ground in the history of the struggle for racial justice in the United States. Deeply researched and richly documented, White's biography provides a revealing perspective on the leading political and cultural figures of his time - including W.E.B. Du Bois, Eleanor Roosevelt, and James Weldon Johnson - and an unrivalled glimpse into the contentious world of civil rights politics and activism in the pre-civil rights era. (Bowker’s Books in Print)
Brown V.Board of Education: Race & Education 50 Years Later. Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University. 2005. 4 videodiscs (243 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 295
Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the desegregation of public education in the United States, Cornell University’s Africana Studies professor Robert L. Harris delivers in Disc One an introduction providing a synopsis and offering a historical perspective of the five court cases called Belton v. Gephart, Bolling v. Sharpe, Briggs v. Elliot, Davis v. County Board of Prince County, and Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas that were combined for the momentous United States Supreme Court decision of May 17, 1954. In Disc Two Derrick A. Bell argues that schools today remain separate and unequal in funding. As in Disc Three Charles Ogletree addresses the plight of our current system of education. And in Disc Four Kimberley Crenshaw addresses the relationship between critical race theory and economics, as well as postmodernist perceptions on race. Participants, Speakers, Robert L. Harris, Derrick A. Bell, Charles Ogletree, Kimberley Crenshaw.
Aristide and the Endless Revolution. New York, N.Y.: First Run/Icarus Films, 2005.
1 videodisc (83 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 314
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the former president of Haiti, was twice removed from office with the complicity of the international community. An investigation into the events that led to his most recent ouster, ’Aristide and the endless revolution’ exposes the geopolitical intrigue, the economic alliances between the Haitian and U.S. elite, the armed criminals posing as freedom fighters and other factors that have consistently threatened this young democracy.
Favela Rising. New York? Think film: HBO Documentary Films, 2006.
1 Videodisc (82 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 298
Documents how former drug-trafficker, Anderson Sá and the Grupo Cultural Afro Reggae are working to unite a Rio slum, or Favela, against a violent drug industry and police oppression.
From Florida to Coahuila. México: Afroméxico, 2002. 1 videodisc. Africana Library: Videodisc 299
Tells the story of the Mascogos, known in the United States as the Black Seminoles. They went to Mexico in 1850 escaping from the harsh living conditions of the North. They made the long journey from the peninsula of Florida to the northern state of Coahuila, Mexico. Participants, Narrator, Humberto Solórzano.
A Huey P. Newton Story. Thousand Oaks, CA: Urban Works Entertainment, 2004.
1 videodisc (90 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 300
A dramatization of the life of Huey P. Newton, late co-founder of the Black Panther Party. Includes archival footage.
ZULU DAWN. Santa Monica, CA: Tango Entertainment, Inc., 2005.
1 videodisc (113 min.). Africana Library: Videodisc 303
This story recounts the defeat of the British forces at the hands of a 25,000 strong and relentlessly determined Zulu army. Participants, Burt Lancaster, Peter O’Toole, Sir John Mills, Simon Ward, Denholm Elliott, Anna Calder-Marshall, Ronald Pickup, Bob Hoskins.
