African Wars

Against the backdrop of bloody battles and political maneuvering, thousands of African Americans spent the Civil War trying to hold their families together. Whether enslaved or free, they strove not only to survive but also to cultivate bonds of family, friendship, and community. This moving book illuminates that struggle through the letters exchanged by African Americans before, during, and just after the war.

The astounding story of one girl's journey from war victim to UNICEF Special Representative. As a child in a small rural village in Sierra Leone, Mariatu Kamara lived peacefully surrounded by family and friends. Rumors of rebel attacks were no more than a distant worry. But when 12-year-old Mariatu set out for a neighboring village, she never arrived. Heavily armed rebel soldiers attacked and tortured Mariatu. During this brutal act of senseless violence they cut off both of her hands.

He saw his father executed in battle. He spent his youth avenging that death. And now Henry "Hal" Courtney is a man with a ship - and a family - of his own. But fate has not finished with Hal. On a voyage along the eastern shore of Africa, a powerful enemy abducts his wife, the fearless warrior Judith...and with her Hal's unborn child.

No one knows where the term Underground Railroad came from - there were no trains or tracks, only "conductors" who helped escaping slaves to freedom. Including real stories about "passengers" on the "railroad", this audiobook chronicles slaves' close calls with bounty hunters, their exhausting struggles on the road, and what they sacrificed for freedom.

A groundbreaking new history, telling the stories of hundreds of African-American activists and officeholders who risked their lives for equality - in the face of murderous violence - in the years after the Civil War. By 1870, just five years after Confederate surrender and 13 years after the Dred Scott decision ruled blacks ineligible for citizenship, Congressional action had ended slavery and given the vote to black men. That same year, Hiram Revels and Joseph Hayne Rainey became the first African-American U.S. senator and congressman respectively.

There have been numerous books about the why, when, and where of slavery in America, but there is a dearth of material exposing what slavery was actually like. In The Great Stain, researcher Noel Rae frames firsthand accounts from former slaves, slave owners, and even African slavers. Rae exposes the commerce and culture of slavery, not only from an economic or moral standpoint but also through multitudinous perspectives within it: a young girl is beaten after being accused of stealing a piece of candy, a slave ship's surgeon recounts brutal treatment and squalid conditions.

This searing story of slavery and freedom in the Chesapeake reveals the pivot in the nation’s path between the founding and civil war. Frederick Douglass recalled that slaves living along Chesapeake Bay longingly viewed sailing ships as "freedom’s swift-winged angels." In 1813 those angels appeared in the bay as British warships coming to punish the Americans for declaring war on the empire. Drawn from new sources, Alan Taylor's riveting narrative re-creates the events that inspired black Virginians, haunted slaveholders, and set the nation on a new and dangerous course.

On the night of September 11, 2012, the American diplomatic mission at Benghazi, Libya, came under ferocious attack by a heavily armed group of Islamic terrorists. The prolonged firefight, and the attack hours later on a nearby CIA outpost, resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including the American ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, the Information Officer, Sean Smith, and two former Navy SEALs, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, working for the Central Intelligence Agency.

Born free in 1821 to two parents who had been enslaved, William Still was drawn to anti-slavery work from a young age. Hired as a clerk at the Anti-Slavery office in Philadelphia after teaching himself to read and write, he began directly assisting enslaved people who were crossing over from the South into freedom. Andrew Diemer captures the full range and accomplishments of Still’s life, from his resistance to Fugitive Slave Laws and his relationship with John Brown before the war, to his long career fighting for citizenship rights and desegregation until the early 20th century.

The stories of 20 combat veterans in this book tell experiences of average Americans that fought enemies of the US in World War II. They relate much previously unavailable information about the military in which they served and the battles they fought, from North Africa to Europe, where the possibility of death and permanent physical and mental injury was their common experience. This book is a "must listen" for those that think they have learned all there is to know about World War II.

A shocking investigative journey into the way the resource trade wreaks havoc on Africa, The Looting Machine explores the dark underbelly of the global economy. Africa: the world's poorest continent and arguably its richest. While accounting for just 2 percent of global GDP, it is home to 15 percent of the planet's crude oil, 40 percent of its gold, and 80 percent of its platinum. A third of the Earth's mineral deposits lie beneath its soil. But far from being a salvation, this buried treasure has been a curse.

By the mid-19th century, other European powers became interested not only in the exploration of Africa, but the exploitation of it, especially once the German Empire unified after the Franco-Prussian War. This began a rush, spearheaded mainly by European commercial interests in the form of chartered companies, to penetrate the African interior and woo its leadership with guns, trinkets, and alcohol, and having thus obtained their marks or seals upon spurious treaties, begin establishing boundaries of future European colonies.

In A Moonless, Starless Sky Okeowo weaves together four narratives that form a powerful tapestry of modern Africa: a young couple, kidnap victims of Joseph Kony's LRA; a Mauritanian waging a lonely campaign against modern-day slavery; a women's basketball team flourishing amid war-torn Somalia; and a vigilante who takes up arms against the extremist group Boko Haram.

When W. E. B. Du Bois, believing in the possibility of full citizenship and democratic change, encouraged African Americans to “close ranks” and support the Allied cause in World War I, he made a decision that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Seeking both intellectual clarity and personal atonement, for more than two decades Du Bois attempted to write the definitive history of Black participation in World War I. His book, however, remained unfinished.

La novela que saca a la luz la historia de las mujeres españolas obligadas a prostituirse en los campos de concentración. Yo, Isadora Ramírez García, que perdí mi nombre cuando abandoné España junto a mi madre, Carmen, y a mi tía Teresa en 1939 en busca de mi hermano Ignacio, voy a contarte mi historia, María. Para que sepas quién soy y quién era tu abuela, y todo aquello que reunió a nuestras familias durante la Guerra Civil para separarlas después. Sabrás de sus pérdidas, que fueron las mías, del dolor inhumano y las lágrimas constantes…

Banks Wales can’t catch a break. After losing his son in a failed prison escape scheme, Banks is immediately forced to deal with the stowaways on his plane - Mason and his family. Forced to take them to his private island, he is immediately greeted by Whoyawanmetabe, the mystery man who did odd jobs for him back in America.

A brave, unforgettable first-hand account of the Rwandan genocide by a man almost literally haunted by the dead and by the spectre of his mission's failure. Marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of this horrific event, this edition includes a new note from Roméo Dallaire.

Drawing on a wide range of long-neglected documents, Eric Foner places a new emphasis on the centrality of the Black experience to an understanding of the era. We see African Americans as active agents in overthrowing slavery, in helping win the Civil War, and - even more actively - in shaping Reconstruction and creating a legacy long obscured and misunderstood. Foner makes clear how, by war's end, freed slaves in the South built on networks of church and family in order to exercise their right of suffrage as well as gain access to education, land, and employment.

Cows wandering on roads are an everyday hazard in rural South Africa. They appear suddenly, and their movements are unpredictable. Hitting them can have dire consequences. Dodging Cows is one man's journey from carefree childhood to lazy student to conscripted soldier to passionate farmer, buffeted by the fault lines in South Africa’s history. Gritty and uncompromisingly authentic, this thought provoking novel stirs all the emotions. Part One Follow the adventures of a young boy, Luke Ayres growing up on a farm in southern Natal barely aware of a country divided along racial lines. Part ...

Craving an antidote to the everyday dull? Dive into "50 Funny Stories," a treasure trove of laughter mined from real-life adventures. This laugh-a-minute collection features fifty side-splitting tales guaranteed to tickle your funny bone and leave you with a grin stretched from ear to ear. Prepare to chuckle, chortle, and maybe even guffaw: From fish-out-of-water moments: Witness the hilarious culture clash when someone encounters a mobile phone for the first time, their "telephone" confusion bringing the house down. To everyday mishaps: Relish in relatable pratfalls and blunders that ...