Essential Book list

[jari]

So the other day I was at Barnes and Noble and stumbled upon this book..

www.amazon.com/African-Cosmos-Christine-Mullen-Kreamer/dp/1580933432/ref=reg_hu-rd_dp_img

Its called African Cosmos, you can get a sneak peak on Amazon. It looks like a great book and what I read in the book store was amazing. The good thing is that its cheaper on Amazon than at the book store. I have'nt read it fully but from my brief glance it looks really good.

[anansi]

Apr 11, 2013 11:21:36 GMT -5 jari said:

So the other day I was at Barnes and Noble and stumbled upon this book..

www.amazon.com/African-Cosmos-Christine-Mullen-Kreamer/dp/1580933432/ref=reg_hu-rd_dp_img

Its called African Cosmos, you can get a sneak peak on Amazon. It looks like a great book and what I read in the book store was amazing. The good thing is that its cheaper on Amazon than at the book store. I have'nt read it fully but from my brief glance it looks really good.

Looks like a good read will be making that trip to the book store.

[jari]

Brada try to grab it off Amazon as it is about 20 bucks cheaper. Amazon has good deals another book I wanted(called United by Design Nantuckett) was again about 20 bucks cheaper. Also I think the book is under free Shipping.

Anyway I should have made the point to say this thread is for us to provide a list of books we think every scholar of Africana and or History should read..

so here goes some more..

The Hidden Treasures of Timbuktu: Rediscovering Africa's Literary Culture

www.amazon.com/The-Hidden-Treasures-Timbuktu-Rediscovering/dp/0500514216/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pd_S_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=KXA3KUKT2YL1&coliid=I1JCFIDU72IX5F

Price: $28.42 & FREE Shipping. Details
You Save: $21.58 (43%)

(wow the Price dropped from 50 to 30 bucks..nice)

4.8 out of 5 stars-Review via Amazon Readers..

The extraordinary manuscripts of Timbuktu: invaluable historical documents, objects of tremendous beauty, and a testament to a great center of learning and civilization.

For centuries, trading caravans made epic journeys across the Saharan sands to reach the markets of the legendary city of Timbuktu, where they traded salt, gold, slaves, textiles—and books. By the mid-fifteenth century, Timbuktu had become a major center of Islamic literary culture and scholarship. The city's libraries were repositories of all the world's learning, housing not only works by Arab and Islamic writers but also volumes from the classical Greek and Roman worlds and studies by contemporary scholars.

The astonishing manuscripts of Timbuktu form the lavish visual heart of this book. Beautifully graphic, occasionally decorated, these exquisite artifacts reveal great craftsmanship as well as learning. All were written in the Arabic script, but not all are in Arabic, for they also feature a range of local African languages.

Aside from scholarly works, the surviving manuscripts include a wealth of correspondence between rulers, advisers, and merchants on subjects as various as taxation, commerce, marriage, divorce, adoption, breastfeeding, and prostitution, providing a vivid insight into the ordinary life and values of the day.

[zarahan]

Something by Keita would be good. He appears in several books but
cant remember a stand-alone text with him as main author..

[anansi]

A must read Black Jacobins by CLR James details the overthrow of French rule in Haiti and the aftermath,read this some years ago insightful as well as shocking to my senses at the time.

PREFACE TO THE VINTAGE EDITION
THIS book was written in 1938.
Today, I have little to add
to or subtract from the fundamental ideas which governed
its conception. They are far more common property now
than they were twenty-Bve years ago. Where they fly in
the face of historical events I have omitted or altered themJ
never more than to the extent of a few lines.
I have retained the concluding pages which envisage
and were intended to stimulate the coming emancipation
of Mrica. They are a part of the history of our time. In
1938 only the writer and a handful of close associates
thought, wrote and spoke as if the Mrican events of the
last quarter of a century were imminent.
The Appendix, �'From Toussaint L'Ouverture to Fidel
Castro," attempts for the future of the West Indies, all of
them, what was done for Africa in 1938. Writers on the
West Indies always relate them to their approximation to
Britain, France, Spain and America, that is to say, to
Western civilization. never in relation to their own history.
This is here attempted for the mst time.
C. L

PREP ACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
Toussaint L'Ouverture one of the most remarkable men of
a period rich in remarkable men. He dominated from his
entry until circumstances removed him from the scene.
The history of the San Domingo revolution will therefore
largely be a record of his achievements and his political
personality. The writer believes, and is confident the nar­
rative will prove, that between 1789 and 1815. with the
single exception of Bonaparte himself, no single figure
appeared on the historical stage more greatly gifted than
this Negro. a slave till he was 45. Yet Toussaint did not
make the revolution. It was the revolution that made
Toussaint. And even that is not the whole truth.
The writing of history becomes ever more difficult. The
power of God or the weakness of man, Christianity or the
divine right of kings to govern wrong. can easily be made
responsible for the downfall of states and the birth of new
societies. Such elementary conceptions lend themselves
willingly to narrative treatment and from Tacitus to Ma­
caulay, from Thucydides to Green, the traditionally famous
historians have been more artist than scientist: they wrote
so �ell because they saw so little. To-day by a natural re­
action we tend to a personification of the social forces,
great men being merely or nearly instruments in the hands
of economic destiny. As so often the truth does not lie in
between. Great men make history. but only such history
as it is possible for them to make. Their freedom of achieve­
ment is limited by the necessities of their environment. To
portray the limits of those necessities and the realisation,
complete or partial, of all possibilities, that is the true busi­
ness of the historian.
In a revolution, when the ceaseless slow accumulation
of centuries bmsts into volcanic eruption, the meteoric Hares
and flights above are a meaningless chaos and lend them­
selves to infinite caprice and romanticism unless the ob­
server sees them always as projections of the sub-soil from
which they came. The writer has sought nOt only to analyse,
but to demonstrate in their movement, the economic forces
of the age; their moulding of society and politics, of men
in the mass and individual men; the powerful reaction of

these on their environment at one of those rare moments
when society is at boiling point and therefore fluid.
The analysis is the science and the demonstration the
art which is history. The violent conflicts of our age enable
our practised vision to see 'into the very bones of previous
revolutions more easily than heretofore. Yet for that very
reason it is impOSSible to recollect historical emotions in
that tranquillity which a great English writer, too narrowly,
associated with poetry alone.
Tranquillity to-day is either innate (the philistine)
or to be acquired only by a deliberate doping of the personality.
It was in the stillness of a seaside suburb that could
be heard most clearly and insistently the booming of
Franco's heavy artillery, the rattle of Stalin's firing squads
and the fierce shrill turmoil of the revolutionary movement
striving for clarity and influence. Such is om age and this
book is of it, with something of the fever and the fret. Nor
does the writer regret it. The book is the history of a revo­
lution and written under different circumstances it would
have been a different but not necessarily a better book.

ouleft.org/wp-content/uploads/CLR_James_The_Black_Jacobins.pdf
Klik here for a more reading.

[djoser-xyyman]

I will include on the list:

1. Black Skin White Mask – Fanon
2. The West And the Rest of Us. – Chenweizu

I especially like No. 2 – Both were eye openers to me . The world politics is NOT dominated by Race or Racism. Racism is the end product of Economics ie Wealth. Bottomline. There is no democracy, socialism, Islam, Christian etc. only economics. If Africa becomes the greatest economic power today everyone will want to be black and African. Just as the Greeks 2000 years ago!!


There are others, if anyone needs more information and insight let me know.

Black Skin White mask – is great on a personal level.

[zarahan]

Thanks for that great link Anansi- great to have it on PDF-
a classic work I think I read bout 30 years ago by CLR James.
Great find.


2. The West And the Rest of Us. – Chenweizu
Never saw this one before. I'll check it out xyz
|

[anastasiaescrava]

Has anyone read the "Encyclopedia of African religions" by molefi Asante?
I really want that book but it's 300-400 bucks!

[anansi]

May 11, 2014 17:30:30 GMT -5 anastasiaescrava said:

Has anyone read the "Encyclopedia of African religions" by molefi Asante?
I really want that book but it's 300-400 bucks!

Is that Ebay's price??

[anastasiaescrava]

May 12, 2014 19:56:29 GMT -5 anansi said:

May 11, 2014 17:30:30 GMT -5 anastasiaescrava said:

Has anyone read the "Encyclopedia of African religions" by molefi Asante?
I really want that book but it's 300-400 bucks!

Is that Ebay's price??

The person who is selling it is charging that much.
Same for Amazon.com.

[nebsen]

www.amazon.com/Ancient-Nubia-African-Kingdoms-Nile/dp/9774164784/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406756589&sr=1-1&keywords=nubia

I got this beautiful book" Ancient Nubia: African kingdom On The Nile" with Photographs by noted African American photographer Chester Higgins & forward by Zahi Hawass,( which I could stomach ) last year. This book won best winner Archaeology & Anthropology 2012. What I really like about this book is that it gives one all the up to date excavations & archaeology findings that has & still taking place in the Sudan concerning ancient Nubia, by some well know Nubiologist like David O' Connor & Robert G. Morkot; to those less well known at least to myself, such as Susan K. Doll who wrote on " Text & Writing" in Ancient Nubia, which I found thrilling to read esp. about the deciphering of the Meroitic Script ( she give me HOPE for the near future) . Every aspect of Nubian life is covered in this wonderful book. I highly recommend this coffee table book on Ancient Nubia, it would be a great gift to family, & friend as well as ones self !

[zarahan]

No doubt Hawass liked to do the foreword as the book was "confined"
to "Nubia". How much does the book talk about Egyptian - Nubian links
given that the 2 peoples are the most closely related in the region?

How much deals with meriotic Nubia?

How do they handle the possibility of the early Nubian culture playing
an integral part in state formation in southern Egypt?

[nebsen]

Jul 30, 2014 20:29:21 GMT -5 zarahan said:

No doubt Hawass liked to do the foreword as the book was "confined"
to "Nubia". How much does the book talk about Egyptian - Nubian links
given that the 2 peoples are the most closely related in the region?

How much deals with meriotic Nubia?

How do they handle the possibility of the early Nubian culture playing
an integral part in state formation in southern Egypt?

Because this book has contributions from many archaeologist, I found the tone overall most " contemporary" in terms that you had writers in this book alluding to a linkage with Egypt in a matter of fact tone. Than you had others that were more Status Quo such as Robert G. Morkot who are going to be very conservative which is, to be some what expected. Than their were others who were very" progressive" in talking about the linkage, in fact some contributors talked about the synergy between the two, in which they both Nubia & Egypt,( with Nubia in the lead more than most know;) helped shape & influence each other . But this book is about Nubia, which needs the attention. In terms of the wealth of knowledge about ancient Nubia, this book is as up to date as we have at the present time. It is a wonderful book by very passionate people who I could tell really love this ancient culture. Yes, they do deal with all stages of Kush- Nubia including Meriotic Nubia. I'm very pleased to add this book to my growing library on ancient Nubia.

[anansi]

An old book now online of which Joel A Rogers drew from
A Tropical Dependency
www.forgottenbooks.com/readbook_text/A_Tropical_Dependency_1000119765/5
CONTENTS
I. Introductory II. Conquest of North Ap^rica and Spain by the III. Arab Civilisation in Spain IV. The Empire of "The Two Shores".

V. African Rule in Spain VI. Decline of Mohammedan Power in Spain VII. Spanish Arabs in Africa .

VIII. The Soudanese States IX. Negroland and the Western Arabs X. Berber and Black XL The Trade of Ghana XII. Morabite Conquest of the Soudan .

XIII. Ghana and Timbuctoo

XIV. The Mellestine

XV. Mansa Musa

XVI. Ibn Batuta in Melle XVII. Administration of the Mellestine .

XVIII. Meeting of Eastern and Western Influence upon the Niger XIX. Rise of the Songhay Empire .

XX. Military Conquests of Sonni Ali . XXI. AsKiA Mohammed Abou Bekr .

XXII. Songhay under Askia the Great XXIII. Songhay under Askia the Great {conti7iued)

XXIV. The Later Askias

XXV. Ancient Connection of Haussaland with Valley of the Nile .

XXVI. The Pharaohs in Haussaland .

XXVII. The Haussa States .

XXVIII. The Domination of Kano

50 58 67 73 78 83 90

T42

153 163

174 181
The book includes this gem

Rameses the Great, who is usually assumed to have been the Pharaoh of Moses, made extensive conquests to the south. This was the Pharaoh whose conquest of Ethiopia is shown upon the monuments, and on those monuments is also indicated the conquest of tributary nations to the West. In connection with these conquests we must not forget the statement of the Tarikh-es-Soudan that it was the Pharaoh of Moses who drew his magicians from Gao.

[nebsen]

Apr 11, 2013 23:35:52 GMT -5 anansi said:

Apr 11, 2013 11:21:36 GMT -5 jari said:

So the other day I was at Barnes and Noble and stumbled upon this book..

www.amazon.com/African-Cosmos-Christine-Mullen-Kreamer/dp/1580933432/ref=reg_hu-rd_dp_img

Its called African Cosmos, you can get a sneak peak on Amazon. It looks like a great book and what I read in the book store was amazing. The good thing is that its cheaper on Amazon than at the book store. I have'nt read it fully but from my brief glance it looks really good.

Looks like a good read will be making that trip to the book store.

It is a fantastic book ! I posted about it in the spring, because I got it as a birthday gift. So much excellent information on how Africans viewed the cosmos, starting with ancient Egypt going into West, East, South Africa. I'm still reading it, for it is a feast for the mind as well as the soul , so many wonderful color pictures . What I really love about this book is learning about the different myths that different cultural groups in Africa had about the cosmos & there Gods. I highly recommend this book as I did in April.