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Zambia stands out in Africa as one of the continent's most peaceful countries.In its early years as an independent state, Zambia became a regional bulwark against imperialism and colonial domination and South African apartheid.Today, it stands out as an important example of Africa's recent democratization, experiencing both incredible success as well as some notable setbacks.The country is also one of the most urbanized in Sub-Saharan Africa.As a result of this urban influx, Zambia's diverse ethno-linguistic groups interact regularly.Moreover, many contemporary Zambian households, especially those in cities, are also exposed to the media, technology, and influences of western urbanized cultures, from Internet cafes to hip hop music. The interesting ways that tradition and modernity conflict and combine in contemporary Zambia are prime considerations in this book.

This book explores Zambia's culture, with an eye toward its historical experiences and its particular endowments.It focuses on how traditional and modern interact, and sometimes collide, in the country through topics such as religion, gender roles and family, cuisine, the arts, literature, and more. The major groups are examined to give the reader an idea about how many Zambians live.

Customer Reviews (1)

A perfect choice for reports.
You never hear much about Africa's Zambia because it's one of the continent's most peaceful countries - that alone will attract any high school or college-level student to a research project assigning an African country - making CULTURE AND CUSTOMS OF ZAMBIA a top recommendation despite its quiet appearance. Zambia is home to many diverse cultures and thus holds far more variety than many African nations: CULTURE AND CUSTOMS OF ZAMBIA is the high school or college-level student's key to understanding the complex nation - and it's a perfect choice for reports.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch ... Read more

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Over the course of forty years, Oscar Norwich accumulated the world's greatest private collection of African maps. This catalog comprises a record of foreign knowledge of the continent from the "Age of Exploration" to modern times, and demonstrates how the rest of the world was quick to learn the shape of the African continent but slow to grasp the realities of its interior. From the fabulous creatures depicted on early maps to the blank "regions unknown" of later ones, from those that depicted the kingdom of the legendary Prester John to maps as late as the 19th century that still featured the imaginary Mountains of Kong, this collection documents a long and troubled history of developing knowledge of the continent.

Each map is illustrated and carefully described, including bibliographical citations. Originally published in 1983, the book has been revised and edited by Jeffrey Stone for this second edition. ... Read more

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Sahelian West Africa has recovered from the disastrous droughts of the 1970s and 1980s. People have learned to adapt to risk and uncertainty in fragile dryland environments. They, as well as global change scientists, are worried about the impact of climate change on these West African drylands. What do the experiences of the last thirty years say about the preparedness for higher temperatures, lower rainfall, and even more variability? Detailed studies on Dryland West Africa as a whole, and on Burkina Faso, Mali and Northern Ghana in particular show an advanced coping behaviour and increased adaptation, but also major differences in vulnerability and coping potential. Climate change preparedness programmes have only just started and require more robust support, and more specific social targeting, for a population which is rapidly growing, even more rapidly urbanising, and further integrating in a globalised economy.This book is the first of its kind with a comprehensive analysis of climate change experiences in West African drylands, with attention for pathways of change and the diversity of adaptation options available. This book is of interest to scientists studying global and climate change, especially dealing with issues of adaptation. Social scientists, economists, geographers and policy makers concerned with West Africa should also read this book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An Intriguing Glimpse of Africa
As an old fan of the Tintin adventure series, I was curious to see whether this was another adventure I had never heard of. It is actually part of a new series based on diaries Tintin may have kept during his travels.

The "diary" provides interesting facts and beautiful photographswhich give the reader an intriguing glimpse of a continent which remains amystery to many people. It depicts another world, especially in this age oftechnological advances.

The diary touches on the geography, culture,customs and the heritage of Africa. It also highlights the plight ofAfrica: poverty, famine, drought and political unrest.

I liked this bookbecause any child would find it a fascinating introduction to a greatcontinent.The format is fun and the information concise.Adult readerswill want to add it to their collection of Tintin adventures to pass on totheir kids. ... Read more

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Middle East and North Africa brings together a group of influential analysts to examine a region which has experienced great territorial change from colonial times to the present. ... Read more

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With a population of more than 250 million and a notable strategic position between the North and the South, the Arab region constitutes a distinct region of the developing world. Its future development is a matter of crucial importance to the world. Unfortunately, however, the research environment in the Middle East and North Africa is not conducive to producing, accessing, or using development-related knowledge.

This book explores the current challenges and opportunities of research for development in the Arab countries of the Middle East and North Africa. Experts from the region and development professionals from around the world provide a detailed portrait of the research environment and explore the relationship between science and policy. They also present and discuss new research initiatives in the areas of social and economic development, natural resource management, and information and communication technologies.

Research for Development in the Middle East and North Africa will be of interest to development researchers and practitioners, policymakers in science and technology, and students and academics in development studies, Arab studies, and policy studies. ... Read more

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Urban issues are amongst the most pressing problems confronting the post-apartheid government in South Africa. This book brings together a collection of new studies by practising geographers. These examine the legacy of apartheid in all South Africa’s major cities, the factors that have influenced their distinctive development, and the possible direction and patterns of urban change in a post-apartheid society.

An introductory chapter discusses the influence of custom and legislation on the evolving form of ‘colonial’, segregated and ‘apartheid’ cities, together with recent pressures for change and the Government’s response. Succeeding chapters consider growth patterns, current pressures and changes, and post-apartheid scenarios in nine major South African cities. Within the overall apartheid framework, contrasts arising from differences in historical development, scale, location, and ethnic composition of population are highlighted.

Three further chapters examine the experience of partial desegregation in the capital cities of Bophuthatswana bantustan (Mmabatho), the newly independent nation of Namibia (Windhoek) and Zimbabwe (Harare). The final chapter draws on this experience and the situation in South Africa’s own cities to discuss likely and desirable directions of change in post-apartheid cities. ... Read more

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This book debates the emergent proprieties of rural and peri-urban South Africa since land and agrarian reforms were initiated after the transition to democracy in 1994. It explores how these reforms have broadened options for the use of land and natural resources. Reform-minded policies in South Africa have assumed that if access to land and other natural resources is less problematic, the use of these resources would be intensified which in turn would alter the structure and dynamic of rural and urban poverty. Reforming Land and Resource Use in South Africa examines in detail, and from several disciplinary perspectives, whether and how this has occurred, and if not, why not.

A key argument that this collection pursues is whether land reform has resulted in transformed use of natural (i.e. land, crops, cattle, rangeland, wild products etc.) and other strategic resources (labour, knowledge, institutions, networks etc.), and the value communities and household place on them. The contributions explore a combination of new or alternative meanings of land, including a look beyond crops and cattle per se to include the collection and selling of wild products, as well as a discussion of how land for agriculture has become redefined by land reform beneficiaries as urban land, for settlement and urban employment opportunities, in addition to urban-based agricultural activities.

Unlike most analyses and commentaries on land reform, this book pursues an analysis of land reform dynamics at various levels of aggregation. National and regional level analyses of poverty and the ramifications of the property clause are combined with analyses at disaggregate levels such as the land reform project or village. The book will be of interest to both researchers and policy makers with an interest in rural development and social change.

Customer Reviews (1)

Good primer on the country
Keeping in mind that this book was written for the youth market it still makes a valuable book for learning about this African country. Understandably, the book gives only the briefest description of the issues involved in the recent civil war but I accept that as I feel that this should be dealt with as a seperate book. I didn't care much for the actual layout of the book, which I felt was trying to emulate internet style. A book should be a book. ... Read more

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Entertaining, authoritative, overflowingwith gorgeous graphics and cutting-edge maps, this innovative series brings history to life through word and imageand tells each continents story from the perspective of its peopleThe Macmillan Continental History Atlases form a major series of five distinguished illustrated history books for the popular and student audiences.Each book stands on its own to present a clear, visually exciting, and comprehensive history of a continent through colorful maps, lively text, and illustrations prepared by leading cartographers and specialists in its history.As a group, the five volumes convey a unique and innovative understanding of world history.The series provides the first truly focused continental perspective on history.The books have been created to give popular history readers and students alike accurate and unbiased information written from the point of view of each continent (rather than from an exclusively Western European or colonial perspective).Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America are each described in 80,000 words of text, 50 color maps, and 70 illustrations and photographs.Each spread within a volume covers in detail a single topic in the historical development of that continent.Together, the spreads make up a complete historical background of the major events that shaped the continents past and present.Readers interested in a specific continent will find in each book an authoritative, absorbing, beautifully illustrated overview of that continents history.For readers interested in world history, the five volumes make up an invaluable resource for a full understanding of how the worlds jigsaw fits together.Africa is the continent from which humanity emerged a million or more years ago and which may yet teach today-s diverse humans the art of living together in tolerance.Dr. Samuel Kasule of Makere University, Kampala, Uganda, and Leeds University, UK, now teaches post-colonial literature and is a principal researcher for the Center for Study of State and Identity at the University of Derby. Amazon.com Review
Samuel Kasule, a professor of African literature, offers awide-ranging view of African history in this heavily illustrated yetslender atlas. Proceeding chronologically, he covers topics such asthe origins of humankind, the development of settled agriculture inthe valley of the Nile, and the arrival of the first Europeancolonists. Although the atlas covers African history after World WarII rather too lightly, it is a useful student reference, nonetheless. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Not as good as I hoped
I needed a good African reference and picked this one up when I saw it. I am sorry I did. The maps are not as good as I thought. One map was marked "European Reconnaisance" when it should have been titled "European EXPLORATION." It only discussed post-colonial conflicts in other, later chapters which made it sound as if these had to do with ousting the Europeans (one map regarding this is particularly deceptive) but worst of all it jumps from decolonization to the end of Apartheid with nothing in between. No maps showing coups or the length of dictatorships within Africa. No maps showing post-colonial civil wars. And no maps showing famine and disease as a result of post-colonial policies.

I would hold out for a better book.

Hoped for more ,got less!
I got this atlas thinking it was going to be like the atlas I got as a gift years ago.I bought it as a gift for my nieces and nephews but It did not even draw a glance from them.For one thing its too small and although the Information Is good, the artwork Is somewhat dry and unatractive to most youngters.I hope that they put more pictures, charts, and sidebar Information, ( although the maps are good)If they decide to revise these books, because they are worth having!

Worth noting, maybe worth having...
Like all other atlases in this series, the African volume is interesting, reasonably comprehensive, but way, WAY, too superficial.

The publishers have the merrit of being the first to attempt a continent-by-continent historical atlas coverage. Problem is, their small books are sometimes as much detailed as the corresponding chapter of a more accomplished, generic, World Atlas, like The Times'.

The quality of the cartography/art is so dishearteningly poor that it is not worth mentioning. Just do not expect anything remotely similar to National Geographic/The Times graphic quality.

All this said, I buy these atlases, in the hope that the publishers will eventualy decide to realy invest in these titles, making a new, wholly improved edition. You can make the same and also get some value for your money. ... Read more

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The Atlas of African Affairs is divided into five sections dealing with environmental, historical, political and economic issues and with Southern Africa. Throughout, the book presents an interdisciplinary, integrated perspective on African affairs. Most of the chapters deal with continent-wide themes and are illustrated by maps of Africa as a whole drawn to a standardised outline of the same map projection and scale. ... Read more

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The study of consumption, including such aspects as social differentiation, communication and the change of needs, has become a major field of study within material culture research. This volume includes ethnographic case studies documenting a wide range of local practices with regard to consumer goods. Each chapter deals with the social dynamics engendered by new modes of consumption in specific areas (Cte dIvoire, Zambia, Tanania, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Niger).

Hans Peter Hahn is professor for social anthropology at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt (Germany).

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This is the first book to combine a discussion of post-apartheid development initiatives with an extended historical analysis of South Africa's dynamic race, class, gender and ethnic identities. Bringing together the research of an historical geographer and two development geographers, the book enables us to locate the post-apartheid transition in a broad historical and spatial perspective. Within this perspective, the limitations as well as the achievements of South Africa's current transformation are highlighted. ... Read more

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This collection reviews the debates and brings together specialist contributions to provide a clear guide to the major complexities of African development. The lay the foundation for designing a range of individual country-specific policy-sets, in which the strategic components are prioritized according to each country's constrains and opportunities. ... Read more

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Transfrontier conservation is a global concept which encompasses the protection of biodiversity spanning the borders of two or more countries in ways that support local economic development, international relations and peace. Nowhere is this more relevant but highly debatable than in Africa, which is home to a third of the world's terrestrial biodiversity, while at the same time hosting its poorest nations. This is one of the first books to account for the emergence of transfrontier conservation in Africa against international experiences in bioregional planning. The roles of the state and local populations are analysed, as well as the ecological, socio-economic and political implications. ... Read more

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Discusses the development of the trade routes known as the Nile Route, Sudan Route, Incense Road, Pilgrimage Road, and Sahara Routes, with an overview of their social and economic history up to the present day. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Ancient incense traderoutes
In doing research on the origins of an ancient artifact made of bronze and used to burn incense I was looking for a map of ancient arabian incense routes....I found it here!Though the text itself was too much for my sixth graders in it's entirety I did use a selection from it and definatley the map! ... Read more