Showing titles in Africa

In the aftermath of the Battles of Khambula and Gingindlovu, a lull fell over the war-torn Zulu Kingdom. Though British forces under Lord Chelmsford emerged victorious during both encounters, earlier defeats, casualties, and supply shortages required them to withdraw back into Natal. Now with waves of long-awaited reinforcements arriving, Chelmsford prepares to launch a second invasion of Zululand. Death and destruction have taken their toll on the Zulu people. Thousands of families mourn for their loved ones, while refugees flee from the devastation of the border regions.

Psychiatrist, humanist, revolutionary, Frantz Fanon was one of the great political analysts of our time. He has had a profound impact on civil rights, anticolonialism, and black consciousness movements around the world. A Dying Colonialism is Fanon’s incisive and illuminating account of how, during the Algerian Revolution, the people of Algeria changed centuries-old cultural patterns and embraced certain ancient cultural practices long derided by their colonialist oppressors as “primitive,” in order to destroy those oppressors.

This is the true story of the greatest special forces operation of the 20th century and the first shot in the West's long war against international terrorism. It is a tale of human drama and unbearable tension in which courage, comradeship, fanaticism, incompetence and luck all play their parts. On 3 July 1976, Israeli Special Forces carried out a daring raid to free more than 100 Israeli, French and US hostages held by German and Palestinian terrorists at Entebbe Airport, Uganda.

In the summer of 1716, a Cornish cabin boy named Thomas Pellow and 52 of his comrades were captured at sea by the Barbary corsairs. Their captors, fanatical Islamic slave traders, had declared war on the whole of Christendom. Thousands of Europeans had been snatched from their homes and taken in chains to the great slave markets of Algiers, Tunis and Sale in Morocco to be sold to the highest bidder.

An epic history of a doomed civilization and a lost empire. The devastating struggle to the death between the Carthaginians and the Romans was one of the defining dramas of the ancient world. In an epic series of land and sea battles, both sides came close to victory before the Carthaginians finally succumbed and their capital city, history, and culture were almost utterly erased.

CAPE TOWN’S POPULAR high-end night spots attract an array of clientele, from young partygoers to politicians, models to moguls. In parallel with this is a sleazy underworld where control of the lucrative nightclub-security scene is the ultimate prize, for which some are prepared to pay using extortion and murder as the main currencies. South Africa’s private-security sector is massive, an informal police force increasingly relied on as confidence in traditional policing wanes. But it’s an industry tainted by ties to underworld figures and events.

Africa is the continent where the first humans were born. They explored the vast land and produced the first tools. And although we migrated from that continent, we never completely abandoned it. From the beginning of time, humans lived and worked in Africa, leaving evidence of their existence in the sands of the Sahara Desert and the valleys of the great rivers such as the Nile and the Niger.

Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution. In 1980, shortly after founding of the Working People's Alliance in Guyana, the 38-year-old Rodney would be assassinated. In his magnum opus, Rodney incisively argues that grasping "the great divergence" between the West and the rest can only be explained as the exploitation of the latter by the former. This meticulously researched analysis of the repercussions of European colonialism in Africa remains an indispensable study for grasping global inequality today.

The Kebra Nagast stands as one of the most revered and spiritually potent works in the Christian world—a foundational text of Ethiopian identity and a testament to a lineage believed to descend from the union of King Solomon of Israel and Makeda, the Queen of Sheba. More than a historical chronicle, it is a sacred epic, preserved through centuries by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, weaving together divine providence, royal authority, and the unfolding destiny of a nation chosen to safeguard one of the holiest treasures of antiquity.

The story of the world's second-largest continent is as intricate as it is vast. Starting with prehistory and the fossils left behind in Ethiopia by the earliest humans, this book captures a narrative that traverses great ancient civilizations, from the Kingdom of Aksum to the empires of West Africa and sultanates of the East, and explores history-defining events such as the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the liberation of Nelson Mandela.

With an introduction by Rory Stewart Winner of the Guardian First Book award, a first-hand account one of the defining outrages of modern history. All at once, as it seemed, something we could have only imagined was upon us - and we could still only imagine it. This is what fascinates me most in...

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2023 'A beautiful, compelling memoir . . . Father and Son is an exquisite, sometimes lunatic tension between powerful emotions and carnage on one side, and on the other, the conventional codes of what must remain unsaid. This, Raban's final work, is a gorgeous...

In just over a hundred years - from the death of Muhammad in 632 to the beginning of the Abbasid Caliphate in 750 - the followers of the Prophet swept across the whole of the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain. Their armies threatened states as far flung as the Franks in Western Europe and the Tang Empire in China. The conquered territory was larger than the Roman Empire at its greatest expansion, and it was claimed for the Arabs in roughly half the time.

In captivating detail, Stevenson provides a fast-paced, hour-by-hour narration from the hijacking of Air France Flight 139 to the final 90-minute mission. In addition to discussing the incredible rescue itself, Stevenson also covers the political backdrop behind the hijacking, especially Ugandan President Idi Amin's support for the hijackers, which marked one of the first times a leader of a nation had backed terrorist activities.

One man's untold story of Special Forces, including clandestine operations during the Rhodesian war. A third-generation Rhodesian tells the story of his upbringing on a farm and his days learning to track and survive in the bush. There are historical facts with covert and overt operations which have never been made public. It is a story of trial, battle, friendships, and extraordinary life experiences during the bloody Rhodesian war.

CUNDILL PRIZE 2018 WINNER SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES TAIT BLACK BIOGRAPHY PRIZE 2018 ‘Enlightening, compassionate, superb’ John le Carré A visionary life and times of Joseph Conrad, and of our global world, from one of the best historians writing today. Migration, terrorism, the tensions...

Nelson Mandela is one of the most inspiring and iconic figures of our age. Now, after a lifetime of taking pen to paper to record thoughts and events, hardships and victories, he has opened his personal archive, which offers an unprecedented insight into his remarkable life. Conversations With...

‘An exemplary work of investigative journalism that is also a wonderfully colourful book of history and travel’ Observer, Books of the Year ‘A piece of postmodern historiography of quite extraordinary sophistication and ingenuity… [written with] exceptional delicacy and restraint’ TLS...

Brought to you by Penguin. **SHORTLISTED FOR 2025 THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION** A startling exploration of slavery in the Islamic world from the 7th century to the present Slavery in the Islamic world has a long, diverse and controversial history. Captives and Companions is a...

Livingstone's first book revolutionized the way European readers saw Africa and made him a hero in England. He returned again to the Zambesi with his brother Charles and others, this time with more equipment and funds. Again he faced hippopotami, crocodiles, impossible terrain, and disease, but his greatest enemies on this trip prove to be human. The British eventually lost faith in the expedition, but Livingstone proved in the end to have had tremendous foresight.