Africa

With decades of research to draw from, Philip Jowett explores this extraordinary David-and-Goliath conflict, where the rag-tag Igbo tribal army of secessionist Biafra faced off against the Nigerian Federal forces. It was an African war that captured the...

Minute-by-minute account of the offensiveCovers both the British attackers and the German defendersExplains how and why the assault failed so badlyIn the late summer of 1942, Rommel's Afrika Korps stood perilously close to breaking through to Cairo and...

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...

"Paul Farmer brings his considerable intellect, empathy, and expertise to bear in this powerful and deeply researched account of the Ebola outbreak that struck West Africa in 2014. It is hard to imagine a more timely or important book." --Bill and...

This dazzling portrait of Johannesburg is one of the most haunting, poetic pieces of reportage about a metropolis since Suketu Mehta's Maximum City. Through precisely crafted snapshots, Ivan Vladislavic observes the unpredictable, day-today...

The violent aftermath of the Civil War comes to dramatic life in this sweeping new collection of firsthand writing Few periods in American history are more consequential but less understood than Reconstruction, the tumultuous twelve years after...

John B. Davis was a classroom teacher and central, district, and local school administrator for thirty years with the Chicago Public Schools from 1958 1988. He served as a visiting professor and part-time instructor at Roosevelt University, Chicago, in...

A journey - both historical and contemporary - among the fantastical landscapes, resourceful inhabitants and isolated tribes of the world's fourth-largest island of enduring fascination for its rich biodiversity: Madagascar.'A beautifully written...

During the 1890s, Ida Wells-Barnett began documenting lynching in the United States. Her findings, which were based on frequent claims that lynchings were reserved for black criminals only, were published in articles and through her pamphlet called...

A bittersweet story about love, community, and family--and the difference they made in the life of one young man.--The New York Times Book Review.

Hundreds of African American soldiers and regimental employees represented Wisconsin in the Civil War, and many of them lived in the state either before or after the conflict. And yet, if these individuals are mentioned at all in histories of the state,...

Rorke's Drift in 1879 is undoubtedly the most famous of Britain's imperial battles. With South Africa becoming a more popular tourist destination, never has there been a better time to visit this iconic battlefield and trace the steps of the red-coated...

A vivid, powerful, and controversial look at how the world gets Africa wrong, and how a resurgent Africa is forcing it to think again. Africa has long been misunderstood -- and abused -- by outsiders. Correspondent Alex Perry traveled the continent for...

Prominent African American scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., traced Oprah's roots and shares the lessons of her ancestors--the legacy one generation bequeaths another, how who we are is influenced by the paths our ancestor have trod, and the extraordinary...

By the end of the nineteenth century the fame of the Zulu was world-wide, and their army was one of the few non-European military organizations to have become the subject of serious historical study. Their very name is still synonymous with bravery,...