"The Africa House details the life of an English officer and gentleman and his remarkable house and colony in deepest Africa. In the ides of the British Empire, Stewart Gore Browne built himself a feudal paradise in northern Rhodesia, a sprawling country estate modeled on the finest homes in England, complete with uniformed servants, daily muster parades, rose gardens and lavish dinners finished off with vintage port in the library." "He wanted to share it with the love of his life, the beautiful, unconventional Ethel Locke King, one of the first women to drive and to fly. She, however, was nearly twenty years his senior, married and his aunt. Lorna, the only other woman he had ever really cared for, had married another. Then he met Lorna's orphaned daughter, so like her mother that he thought he had seen a ghost. It seemed he had at last found love - but the Africa House was his dream, and it would be a hard one to share." "Christina Lamb's updated account of this complicated man - a colonialist who beat his servants yet supported independence, a stiff Englishman with deep passions - is a masterpiece of biography and storytelling. Set against the backdrop of sweeping change across Africa, this is a tale of fantasies made real, tragedy endured and lifelong love."--BOOK JACKET.

This final report describes the study of an exceptionally well-preserved Iron Age building discovered in northern Burkina Faso, West Africa. The site of Oursi hu-beero, meaning "the big house of Oursi" in the locally spoken Songhay language, was excavated in 2000 and 2001 by a scientific team from the universities of Frankfurt am Main and Ouagadougou. It is situated in the middle of a group of settlement mounds, nearby the modern village of Oursi. In the year 2000, deep erosion gullies were threatening the architectural remains on the surface, which were provisionally dated to the 10th century AD. Scholars from both universities saw the importance of this site and undertook immediate action. But even they were not prepared for what they uncovered under only one metre of destruction debris. The rich diversity of incredible finds in the 25 different rooms rendered their exposure of enormous importance for the archaeology and history of Burkina Faso. Complete storage jars, metal equipment, wooden furniture, rope and textile fragments, grinding stones and charred botanical remains are only a fraction of the total assemblage of finds. Although we are dealing with the results of a single occupation phase and from one building only, the density of finds, the preservation of the architecture and the absence of later disturbances add considerably to our understanding of daily life in this part of West Africa. Up to now the limited contextual information about life in villages and towns prior to the historical periods has promoted divergent and weakly argued interpretations. This volume breaks open new grounds of investigation and calls for further study. Additionally, the editors hope that this report will stimulate and encourage the discussion between historians and archaeologists of the fascinating West African past. The current volume presents an introduction to the expedition, an analysis of the site formation processes, the presentation of the architectural features, in-depth studies of the findings and a lively account of the heritage management project that resulted in an on-site museum. Nine authors contributed to this rich and multifaceted final report. The account of the construction, intensive use, violent destruction and subsequent rediscovery of the building is the enthralling subject of this volume, which is richly illustrated with numerous coloured drawings, photographs, maps and reconstruction drawings. It melds archaeological, historical and environmental data into a thrilling story. A story that reads like a new Crime Scene Investigation episode but happens to have been a real-life tragedy in the African Sahel almost 1,000 years ago.

".... Walter Dixon narrates with clarity....Students will find this audiobook ideal for reports or browsing, and will come away with some mind-boggling numbers." -School Library Journal

In this landmark cookbook, chef Pierre Thiam, a native of Senegal, celebrates fonio, an ancient "miracle grain" of his childhood that he believes could change the world. Grown for centuries in Africa, fonio is not only nutritious and gluten-free, but also as easy to cook as rice and quinoa. The Fonio Cookbook is full of simple recipes for the home cook, with both traditional West African dishes such as Fonio Fritters with Sweet Potato and modern creations like Tamarind Roasted Chicken with Fonio and Fonio Seafood Paella. There are also numerous fonio dishes for breakfast and satisfying your sweet tooth, including Fonio and Plantain Pancakes and Fonio Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Coulis. Among the recipes, you'll find a rich cultural history of fonio that Thiam recounts in fascinating detail. The Fonio Cookbook also takes the reader on a journey to Senegal's fonio-growing region, with evocative photos and stories from harvest season detailing the grain's ease of growth and highlighting the people who transform fonio from crop to edible grain. Come along and discover this nutrient-rich ancient grain that's gaining incredible momentum in the western world and how it can replace any grain in your favorite dishes.

"Overview of property tax systems across Africa. Reviews of salient features for 29 countries and four regions (Anglophone, Francophone, Lusophone, North African countries). Chapters offer in-depth discussion of key policy issues (tax base, exemptions and other relief, and tax rate), administrative issues (valuation and assessment, billing, collection, enforcement), and the future of the property tax in Africa"--Provided by publisher.

The beating of Rodney King and the resulting riots in South Central Los Angeles. The violent clash between Hasidim and African-Americans in Crown Heights. The boats of Haitian refugees being turned away from the Land of Opportunity. These are among the many racially-charged images that have burst across our television screens in the last year alone, images that show that for all our complacent beliefs in a melting-pot society, race is as much of a problem as ever in America. In this vastly important, widely-acclaimed volume, Kwame Anthony Appiah, a Ghanaian philosopher who now teaches at Harvard, explores, in his words, "the possibilities and pitfalls of an African identity in the late twentieth century." In the process he sheds new light on what it means to be an African-American, on the many preconceptions that have muddled discussions of race, Africa, and Afrocentrism since the end of the nineteenth century, and, in the end, to move beyond the idea of race. In My Father's House is especially wide-ranging, covering everything from Pan Africanism, to the works of early African-American intellectuals such as Alexander Crummell and W.E.B. Du Bois, to the ways in which African identity influences African literature. In his discussion of the latter subject, Appiah demonstrates how attempts to construct a uniquely African literature have ignored not only the inescapable influences that centuries of contact with the West have imposed, but also the multicultural nature of Africa itself. Emphasizing this last point is Appiah's eloquent title essay which offers a fitting finale to the volume. In a moving first-person account of his father's death and funeral in Ghana, Appiah offers a brilliant metaphor for the tension between Africa's aspirations to modernity and its desire to draw on its ancient cultural roots. During the Los Angeles riots, Rodney King appeared on television to make his now famous plea: "People, can we all get along?" In this beautiful, elegantly written volume, Appiah steers us along a path toward answering a question of the utmost importance to us all.

In Out of Africa, author Isak Dinesen takes a wistful and nostalgic look back on her years living in Africa on a Kenyan coffee plantation. Recalling the lives of friends and neighbours—both African and European—Dinesen provides a first-hand perspective of colonial Africa. Through her obvious love of both the landscape and her time in Africa, Dinesen’s meditative writing style deeply reflects the themes of loss as her plantation fails and she returns to Europe. HarperTorch brings great works of non-fiction and the dramatic arts to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperTorch collection to build your digital library.