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MALI
More Books
The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, A Muslim Traveler of the 14th Century
• Ross E. Dunn
TRAVEL NARRATIVE •
2004 •
PAPER
• 359 PAGES
A modern historian's account of Ibn Battuta's travels in the medieval Islamic world. When Battuta left his native Morocco in 1325, he intended a pilgrimage to Mecca; however his travels ultimately took him as far as Mali in the west and Malaysia in the east, stopping in China, the Middle East, and much of Africa along the way. With Battuta's peregrinations as a framework, Dunn embarks on a scholarly exploration of the medieval Muslim world. He includes lengthy excerpts from Battuta's writing (Battuta's own account is also currently in print, Item AFR106) . With excellent maps.
(AFR103, $25.95) |
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Africa
• Phyllis Martin
• Patrick O'Meara
CULTURAL PORTRAIT •
1995 •
PAPER
• 400 PAGES
African history and prehistory, popular culture, art and economics with dozens of maps, photographs and drawings. We especially liked the chapter on the contemporary map of Africa. It's all here. Pick and choose those areas that interest you. It's the most popular introductory text for undergraduate African studies courses in North America -- refreshingly free of cant and completely revised in 1995 to reflect changes in African politics.
(AFR07, $26.00) |
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Africa North and West Map
• Michelin
2011 •
MAP
A fine map of the north and parts of western Africa, covering Senegal, The Gambia, Ghana, Mali, Mauritania and their neighbors as well as all the Mediterranean-bordering countries (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya) at a scale of 1:4,000,000. One Side. 40x57 inches.
(AFR34, $11.95) |
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The Africans
• David Lamb
CULTURAL PORTRAIT •
1987 •
PAPER
• 371 PAGES
In these 17 well written essays, news correspondent Lamb ranges throughout Africa, creating an insightful portrait of the land and especially its people. This now-classic book is a wide-ranging political and social survey of the continent, banned in a number of countries -- and as interesting today as when it was first published in 1984.
(AFR22, $19.95) |
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Angry Wind: Through Muslim Black Africa by Truck, Bus, Boat and Camel
• Jeffrey Tayler
TRAVEL NARRATIVE •
2005 •
HARD COVER
• 256 PAGES
The eye-opening account of an American journalist's trek across the Sahel, the southern region of the Sahara Desert. On his travels through mostly Islamic Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Mali, Cameroon and Senegal, Tayler witnessed poverty, the influence of harsh regimes, and both hostility and a willingness to discuss the relationship of the United States to the Islamic world. An Arabic speaker, Tayler (Glory in a Camel's Eye) writes candidly about what he discovers in this complex part of the world.
(WAF83, $25.00) |
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The Camel and the Wheel
• Richard Bulliet
HISTORY •
1990 •
PAPER
• 352 PAGES
Bulliet draws on archaeology, art, anthropology and camel husbandry to explore the implications -- from the Middle Ages to the present -- of the dependence on the camel for transport from Morocco to Afghanistan. Originally published in 1975, The Camel and The Wheel won the Dexter Prize of the Society of the History of Technology. Bulliet is a professor of history at Columbia University.
(MDE96, $30.00) |
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Conversations with Ogotemmeli, An Introduction to Dogon Religious Ideas
• Marcel Griaule
CULTURAL PORTRAIT •
1977 •
PAPER
• 248 PAGES
An account of the complex metaphysical beliefs and cosmology of the Dogon people of the upper Volta region. French anthropologist Griaule spent 16 years with his African hosts before they revealed their philosophy to him in these "conversations," originally published in 1948 as "Dieu d'Eau." It also contains interesting material on the drum and its symbolism.
(WAF44, $44.95) |
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The Cruelest Journey, Six Hundred Miles to Timbuktu
• Kira Salak
TRAVEL NARRATIVE •
2004 •
HARD COVER
• 320 PAGES
Adventurer Kira Salak's account of her journeys on the Niger River and her record-breaking 600-mile solo kayaking trip to Timbuktu.
(WAF75, $26.00) |
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Empires of Medieval West Africa: Ghana, Mali, and Songhay
• David C. Conrad
HISTORY •
2009 •
HARD COVER
• 128 PAGES
An authoritative survey of the history, traditions and cultures of the Mali, Songhay, and Ghana empires and the western horn of Africa. A volume in the eight-volume series on Great Empires of the Past, geared for middle schoolers, the book is a good overview for anyone with an interest in the history of the region.
(WAF82, $35.00) |
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For the Beauty of the Earth: Birding, Opera, and Other Journeys
• Thomas Urquhart
BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR •
2006 •
PAPER
• 320 PAGES
Urquhart chronicles a lifelong affair with nature, combined with a passion for music, as he travels-- and bird watches-- through pastoral England, Italy, the Camargue in Provence, and the villages of Mali.
(BRD35, $15.00) |
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Lonely Planet West Africa
• Lonely Planet
GUIDEBOOK •
2009 •
PAPER
• 904 PAGES
A comprehensive guide to all West Africa, this is the book to carry for travels from Mauritania to Niger, with both a good overview of culture and history and the usual Lonely Planet attention to practical travel information. The bulk of the book is devoted to individual countries.
(WAF10, $33.99) |
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Mande Music, Traditional and Modern Music of the Maninka and Mandinka of Western Africa
• Eric Charry
MUSIC •
2000 •
PAPER
• 500 PAGES
An in-depth examination of the rich musical traditions of Mali, Guinea, Senegal, and the Gambia, from the 13th century to the present day. Charry focuses on hunter's music, music of the jelis or griots, djembe and other drumming, and guitar-based modern music. Includes maps, illustrations, and musical transcriptions, as well as an exhaustive bibliography, discography, and videography.
(WAF102, $37.50) |
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Of Water and the Spirit, Ritual, Magic and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman
• Malidoma Patrice Some
BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR •
1995 •
PAPER
• 320 PAGES
Malidoma, whose name means "be friends with the stranger/enemy, " was born under the shadow of French colonial rule in Upper Volta, West Africa. When he was four years old, he was taken by a Jesuit priest and imprisoned in a seminary built for training a new generation of "black" Catholic priests. In spite of his isolation from his tribe and his village, Malidoma stubbornly refused to forget where he had come from and who he was. Finally, fifteen years later, Malidoma fled the seminary and walked 125 miles through the dense jungle back to his own people, the Dagara. Once he was home, however, many there regarded him as a "white black, " to be looked on with suspicion because he had been contaminated by the "sickness" of the colonial world. Malidoma was a man of two worlds, at home in neither. His only hope of reconnection with his people was to undergo the harrowing Dagara monthlong initiation in the wilderness, which he describes in fascinating detail. Malidoma emerged from this supernatural ritual a newly integrated individual, rejoined to his ancestral past and his cultural present. For more than a century, anthropologists and ethnologists have attempted to penetrate the worldview of indigenous peoples. Now a true son of Africa has come forth, with the permission of his tribal elders, to tell us with stunning candor about their way of life. Today Malidoma flys the jetways writing on his laptop computer, seeking to share the ancient wisdom of the Dagara with the rest of the world and bring an understanding of another way of life to his village. His book is a courageous testament to the hope that humanity can learn to live in a global village and see the "stranger" as a friend.
(WAF110, $16.00) |
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The Rough Guide to the Music of the Sahara
• Rough Guide World Music
MUSIC •
2005 •
AUDIO CD
A lively and haunting compilation of African music including Algeria, Mali and the Western Sahara. These diverse sounds include everything from desert rock and roll to Moorish melodies.
(NAF45, $14.98) |
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Rough Guide West Africa
• Jim Hudgens
• Richard Trillo
GUIDEBOOK •
2008 •
PAPER
• 1312 PAGES
A comprehensive guide to all West Africa, including its history and culture. With its region-by-region descriptions, 172 maps and 12 pages of color photos, this guide covers everything from the volcanoes on the Cape Verde Islands to Mali's Dogon country to the national parks of Ghana and Nigeria.
(WAF38, $34.99) |
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The Scramble for Africa
• Thomas Pakenham
HISTORY •
1992 •
PAPER
• 738 PAGES
Absorbing and meticulously researched, this in-depth history of the Victorian land grab in Africa includes excellent portraits of the egomaniacal personalities who overran the continent.
(AFR26, $23.99) |
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Wanderings in West Africa
• Richard Francis Burton
TRAVEL NARRATIVE •
1991 •
PAPER
• 624 PAGES
Intrepid explorer, Islamacist and translator of the Kama Sutra, Burton's interests took him throughout Africa and the Arab world. This account, originally published in 1861, results from his three-year stint in the British Foreign office in Fernando Po, an island off the coast of West Africa. It's a valuable first-hand account of short trips around the West African coast and inland, rich in ethnographic and cultural detail. Two volumes, bound as one, this book also includes a detailed, black-and-white line map of West Africa.
(WAF12, $19.95) |
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Waiting for Happiness
• Abderrahmane Sissako
CULTURAL PORTRAIT •
2007 •
DVD
Born in Kiffa, Mauritania and raised in Mali, the accomplished director (Bamako) in this film turns his eye to the life of a young man returned to the coast of Mauritania, where he no longer feels at home.
(WAF122, $29.95) |
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