Africa

Born in Blackness reframes the story of medieval and emerging Africa, demonstrating how the economic ascendancy of Europe, anchoring of democracy in the West, and fulfillment of so-called Enlightenment ideals grew out of Europe's dehumanizing engagement with the "dark" continent....

The New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice A spellbinding work of history that reads like a Cold War spy thriller—about the U.S.-sanctioned plot to assassinate the democratically elected leader of the newly independent Congo A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, The Economist...

In The Cold War, Odd Arne Westad offers a new perspective on a century when a superpower rivalry and an ideological war transformed every corner of our globe....

In the 1980s, countries across Asia stunned the world with meteoric economic growth—but when eyes turn to Africa today, it is often to lament corruption, violence, and poverty rather than to scout the next developmental frontrunners.

Martin Meredith has revised this classic history to incorporate important recent developments....

A “meticulously researched and comprehensive” (Financial Times) history of the devastating war in the heart of Africa’s Congo At the heart of Africa is the Congo, a country the size of western Europe. It borders nine other nations, and since 1996 it has been racked by a brutal war in which...

Destructive forces have been eroding the University of Cape Town, Africa’s leading university. This audiobook tells the sad, true tale of what has been transpiring....

In spite of Cyril Ramaphosa’s ‘new dawn’, there are powerful forces in the ruling party that risk losing everything if corruption and state capture finally do come to an end....

A "gripping" (Booklist) and "richly detailed" (Kirkus Reviews) history of the fortune seekers, adventurers, despots, and thieves who have ruthlessly endeavored to extract gold, diamonds, and other treasures from Africa and its people. Africa has been coveted for its rich natural resources ever...

The dictator who grew so rich on his country's cocoa crop that he built a 35-storey-high basilica in the jungles of the Ivory Coast. The austere, incorruptible leader who has shut Eritrea off from the world in a permanent state of war and conscripted every adult into the armed forces....

Winner of the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction This “elegant” and “unfailingly empathetic” narrative (The New York Times) follows three ordinary South Africans living through the most extraordinary reckoning with race and power any modern country has ever faced. Dipuo, who...

“Randy Shilts and Laurie Garrett told the story of the HIV/AIDS epidemic through the late 1980s and the early 1990s, respectively. Now journalist-historian-activist Emily Bass tells the story of US engagement in HIV/AIDS control in sub-Saharan Africa. There is far to go on the path, but Bass...

In "Black Africa: The Economic and Cultural Basis for a Federated State," Senegalese scholar Cheikh Anta Diop boldly calls for the unification of Black African nations.....

A glorious new voice on Africa, Robyn Scott's adventures growing up in Botswana in a loving but eccentric family will be one of the season's most talked-about memoirs...

In 1957, Ryszard Kapuscinski arrived in Africa to witness the beginning of the end of colonial rule as the first African correspondent of Poland’s state newspaper.

A bold, concise history of Western economic interventions in Africa, by the former director of the Centre of African Studies at the University of Cambridge.

Bigger than Watergate! Bigger than Iran-Contra! Ten times bigger than both, said one representative. The Bengahzi scandal may have been covered up by the White House, but the truth is about to come out....

From one of Africa’s most influential and eloquent essayists, a posthumous collection that highlights his biting satire and subversive wisdom on topics from travel to cultural identity to sexuality “A fierce literary talent . . . [Wainaina] shines a light on his continent without cliché...

Situated hundreds of miles from any other settlement, deep within the inhospitable desert of Northern Kenya, Dadaab is a city like no other. Its buildings are made from mud, sticks, or plastic....

They killed her father for speaking out. For decades, the oil-rich Niger Delta—an important wetland and farming area—has seen its natural environment devastated as a result of oil extraction that has brought little economic benefit to its people. Following a nonviolent campaign for...

In a career that has seen him face coup leaders in his native Ivory Coast and lead some of the most prestigious Western financial institutions, Tidjane Thiam has blazed a trail through African and European politics and business. After a childhood in tumultuous west and north Africa, Thiam broke...

Written in 1983, The Africans is a remarkable and very personal commentary on the people of this vast continent....

Why is Africa still perceived as a country when there are around 2,000 languages spoken on the continent alone? It's a Continent aims to counter the misconception that Africa is a country by breaking down this vast, beautiful and complex continent into regions and countries. Each of the 54...

The long-awaited second volume of Nelson Mandela’s memoirs, left unfinished at his death and never before available, are here completed and expanded with notes and speeches written by Mandela during his historic presidency, making for a moving sequel to his worldwide bestseller Long Walk to...

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER “This work is important and astonishing, but it is also a riveting read.” —Louise Penny, author of A World of Curiosities and the Inspector Gamache novels Behind the Beautiful Forevers meets Under an Afghan Sky in this mesmerizing true story of the Nigerian girls...