Titres dans Afrique

From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch, the second part of his epic trilogy on Martin Luther King, Jr. and the American Civil Rights Movement. In the second volume of his three-part history, a monumental trilogy that began with Parting the Waters, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, Taylor Branch portrays the Civil Rights Movement at its zenith, recounting the climactic struggles as they commanded the national stage.

In a sweeping account, Atlantic Wars explores how warfare shaped the experiences of the peoples living in the watershed of the Atlantic Ocean between the late Middle Ages and the Age of Revolution.

Once a Hussar is a vivid account of the wartime experiences of Ray Ellis, a gunner who in later life recorded this well-written, candid, and perceptive memoir of the conflict he knew as a young man seventy years ago. His story is an honest and moving memoir that relays graphic eyewitness accounts of the horrors of warfare, but it also reveals the surprising triumphs of the human spirit in times of great hardship. Ellis's self-deprecating humor skillfully counters the harsh realities related in a personal recollection of a war that claimed so many young lives.

Here, from a brilliant young writer, is a paradigm-shifting history of both a utopian concept and global movement - the idea of the Third World. The Darker Nations traces the intellectual origins and the political history of the 20th century attempt to knit together the world's impoverished countries in opposition to the United States and Soviet spheres of influence in the decades following World War II.

Morocco is a land of spectacular scenery with a rich history and heady with tantalizing scents and colorful sights. The call of the muezzin seems to draw people from every corner of the globe. In 1956, Morocco gained independence from French colonial rule and was jolted into the 20th century. Today, it is a country in transition - a unique blend of Arab, African, and European ways of life. The teeming cities have an air of sophistication and joie de vivre, but life in rural areas has stayed much the same.

Empire of Rubber tells a sweeping story of capitalism, racial exploitation, and environmental devastation, as the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company transformed Liberia into America's rubber empire. Scouring remote archives, historian and filmmaker Gregg Mitman reveals a history of racial segregation and medical experimentation that reflected Jim Crow America—on African soil. As Firestone reaped fortunes, wealth and power concentrated in the hands of a few elites, fostering widespread inequalities that fed unrest, rebellions and, eventually, civil war.

In an age of bolters - women who broke the rules and fled their marriages - Idina Sackville was the most celebrated of them all. Her relentless affairs, wild sex parties, and brazen flaunting of convention shocked high society and inspired countless writers and artists, from Nancy Mitford to Greta Garbo. But Idina’s compelling charm masked the pain of betrayal and heartbreak.

In 1941, with London burning in the Blitz, a group of hedonistic English nobles partied shamelessly in Kenya. Far removed from falling bombs, the wealthy elites of "Happy Valley" indulged in morphine, alcohol, and unrestricted sex, often with their friends' spouses. But the party turned sinister in the early hours of a January morning for Josslyn Hay, Lord Erroll, who had been enjoying the favors of the beautiful young wife of a middle-aged neighbor. Hay was found dead, a bullet in his brain.

An improbable world beckons. We think we know Madagascar, but it's too big, too eccentric and too impenetrable to be truly understood. If it was stretched out across Europe, the islands would reach from London to Algiers, and yet its road network is barely bigger than tiny Jamaica's. There is no evidence of any human life until about 10,000 years ago, and, when eventually people settled, it was migrants from Borneo - 3,700 miles away - who came out on top.

To Westerners, the name Timbuktu long conjured a tantalizing paradise, an African El Dorado where even the slaves wore gold. Beginning in the late 18th century, a series of explorers gripped by the fever for "discovery" tried repeatedly to reach the fabled city. But one expedition after another went disastrously awry, succumbing to attack, the climate, and disease. Timbuktu was rich in another way, too. A medieval center of learning, it was home to tens of thousands of ancient manuscripts.

In January 1879, three columns of British soldiers under the command of Lord Chelmsford, commenced the invasion of the Zulu Kingdom. The southern No. 1 Column led by Colonel Charles Pearson advances on the old mission station at Eshowe. Their intent is to establish a fort and supply depot from which to support the centre No. 3 Column’s advance on the Zulu royal kraal at Ulundi. As the vast column of British soldiers and their African allies slogs its way across the coastal hills, the incessant rain and threat of typhoid promise to be as fearful a nemesis as the lurking armies of Zulu warriors.

Ancient Egypt has mystified and entranced generation after generation. The Egyptians' mastery of architecture, their complex religious ideologies, and their peculiar views on death have given modern-day readers much to ponder. Few, if any, of their remaining relics have produced the awe and spectacular wonder of the Great Pyramids of Giza. These three architectural masterpieces have stood for more than 5,000 years despite looting, exploitation, and the slow erosion of time.

When Alexandra ("Bo") Fuller was home in Zambia a few years ago, visiting her parents for Christmas, she asked her father about a nearby banana farmer who was known for being a "tough bugger". Her father's response was a warning to steer clear of him; he told Bo: "Curiosity scribbled the cat." Nonetheless, Fuller began her strange friendship with the man she calls K, a white African and veteran of the Rhodesian war.

Motherland is a ground-breaking exploration of African culture and identity, told via Luke Pepera's journey through 500,000 years of history to connect with his extraordinary heritage. Pepera tackles the questions many people of African descent ask - Who are we? Where do we come from? What defines us? And how might knowledge of deep history affect our understanding of our identity?

Depuis des siècles, l’Afrique est enchaînée. D’abord physiquement, avec l’esclavage et la colonisation. Ensuite, mentalement, à travers la religion, l’éducation et l’imposition de valeurs étrangères. Mais si les chaînes sont brisées, pourquoi les pensées restent-elles captives ? Cerveau Esclave plonge au cœur des mécanismes de domination mentale qui maintiennent les Africains sous contrôle depuis des générations.

As a young, ambitious soldier, Winston Churchill managed to get himself posted to the 21st Lancers in 1899 as a war correspondent for the Morning Post - and joined them in fighting the rebel Boer settlers in South Africa. In this conflict, rebel forces in the Transvaal and Orange Free State had proclaimed their own statehood, calling it the Boer Republic.

Mastering the West offers a thoroughly engrossing narrative of this century of battle in the western Mediterranean, while treating a full range of themes: the antagonists' military, naval, economic, and demographic resources; the political structures of both republics; and the postwar impact of the conflicts on the participants and victims.

One of Italy’s most revered cultural figures reconstructs the extraordinary life of the legendary Cleopatra at the height of her power in this epic story of passion, intrigue, betrayal, and war.

The Shinkolobwe Mine in the Belgian Congo was described by a 1943 Manhattan Project intelligence report as the "most important deposit of uranium yet discovered in the world". So long as the United States remained in control of this mine and its supply, it had a world monopoly on the primary material needed to build an atomic bomb. The uranium from this mine was used to build the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

John Laband examines the reigns of the eight Zulu kings from 1816 to the present. Starting with King Shaka, the renowned founder of the Zulu kingdom, he charts the lives of the kings Dingane, Mpande, Cetshwayo, Dinuzulu, Solomon and Cyprian, to today’s King Goodwill Zwelithini. In the course of this investigation, Laband places the Zulu monarchy in the context of African kingship and tracks and analyses the trajectory of the Zulu kings from independent and powerful precolonial African rulers to largely powerless traditionalist figures in post-apartheid South Africa.