{"title":"History--Africa--Central","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"king-leopolds-ghost-a-story-of-greed-terror-and-heroism-in-colonial-africa","title":"King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe 25th Anniversary Edition, with a foreword by Barbara Kingsolver\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e \"An enthralling story . . . A work of history that reads like a novel.\" -- \u003cem\u003eChristian Science Monitor\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e \"As Hochschild's brilliant book demonstrates, the great Congo scandal prefigured our own times . . . This book must be read and reread.\" -- \u003cem\u003eLos Angeles Times Book Review\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist * A \u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e Notable Book\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e In the late nineteenth century, as the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium carried out a brutal plundering of the territory surrounding the Congo River. Ultimately slashing the area's population by ten million, he still managed to shrewdly cultivate his reputation as a great humanitarian. A tale far richer than any novelist could invent\u003cem\u003e, King Leopold's Ghost \u003c\/em\u003eis the horrifying account of a megalomaniac of monstrous proportions. It is also the deeply moving portrait of those who defied Leopold: African rebel leaders who fought against hopeless odds and a brave handful of missionaries, travelers, and young idealists who went to Africa for work or adventure but unexpectedly found themselves witnesses to a holocaust and participants in the twentieth century's first great human rights movement.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"display:none\"\u003eISBN-10: 0358212502\u003cbr\u003eISBN-13: 9780358212508\u003cbr\u003eAuthor: Hochschild, Adam, N\/A, N\/A\u003cbr\u003ePublisher: Mariner Books Classics\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Mariner Books Classics","offers":[{"title":"Paperback (Mar 2020)","offer_id":45660098592965,"sku":"9780358212508","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0708\/6414\/2533\/files\/9780358212508.jpg?v=1768918283"},{"product_id":"the-lumumba-plot-the-secret-history-of-the-cia-and-a-cold-war-assassination","title":"The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e 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 \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker, The Economist, Financial Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \"This is one of the best books I have read in years . . . gripping, full of colorful characters, and strange plot twists.\" --Fareed Zakaria, CNN host \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIt was supposed to be a moment of great optimism, a cause for jubilation. The Congo was at last being set free from Belgium--one of seventeen countries to gain independence in 1960 from ruling European powers. At the helm as prime minister was charismatic nationalist Patrice Lumumba. Just days after the handover, however, the Congo's new army mutinied, Belgian forces intervened, and Lumumba turned to the United Nations for help in saving his newborn nation from what the press was already calling \"the Congo crisis.\" Dag Hammarskjöld, the tidy Swede serving as UN secretary-general, quickly arranged the organization's biggest peacekeeping mission in history. But chaos was still spreading. Frustrated with the fecklessness of the UN and spurned by the United States, Lumumba then approached the Soviets for help--an appeal that set off alarm bells at the CIA. To forestall the spread of Communism in Africa, the CIA sent word to its station chief in the Congo, Larry Devlin: Lumumba had to go. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWithin a year, everything would unravel. The CIA plot to murder Lumumba would fizzle out, but he would be deposed in a CIA-backed coup, transferred to enemy territory in a CIA-approved operation, and shot dead by Congolese assassins. Hammarskjöld, too, would die, in a mysterious plane crash en route to negotiate a cease-fire with the Congo's rebellious southeast. And a young, ambitious military officer named Joseph Mobutu, who had once sworn fealty to Lumumba, would seize power with U.S. help and misrule the country for more than three decades. For the Congolese people, the events of 1960-61 represented the opening chapter of a long horror story. For the U.S. government, however, they provided a playbook for future interventions.\u003cdiv style=\"display:none\"\u003eISBN-10: 1984899147\u003cbr\u003eISBN-13: 9781984899149\u003cbr\u003eAuthor: Reid, Stuart A.\u003cbr\u003ePublisher: Vintage\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Paperback (Nov 2024)","offer_id":46079799754949,"sku":"9781984899149","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0708\/6414\/2533\/files\/9781984899149.jpg?v=1776031891"},{"product_id":"white-malice-the-cia-and-the-covert-recolonization-of-africa","title":"White Malice: The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Africa","description":"\u003cb\u003eFilled with \"fascinating information, original research, and bold ideas\" (NPR), a revelatory account of how African Independence was systematically undermined by the US\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In 1958 in Accra, Ghana, the Hands Off Africa conference brought together the leading figures of African independence in a public show of political strength and purpose. The charismatic Kwame Nkrumah, who had just won Ghana's independence, led a determined appeal for Pan-Africanism. Young, idealistic leaders across the continent, as well as African Americans seeking civil rights at home, heeded his call. Yet, a moment that signified a new era of African freedom simultaneously marked a new era of foreign intervention and control. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In \u003ci\u003eWhite Malice\u003c\/i\u003e, Susan Williams unearths the CIA's covert operations from Ghana to the Congo to the UN, which frustrated the attempts of Africa's new generation of nationalist leaders to establish democratic governance. These revelations dramatically upend the conventional wisdom that African nations failed to establish effective, democratic states on their own accord. As the old European powers moved out, the US moved in. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Drawing on original research and recently declassified documents, Williams introduces readers to idealistic African leaders and to the secret agents, ambassadors, and even presidents who deliberately worked against them, forever altering the future of a continent.\u003cdiv style=\"display:none\"\u003eISBN-10: 1541768302\u003cbr\u003eISBN-13: 9781541768307\u003cbr\u003eAuthor: Williams, Susan\u003cbr\u003ePublisher: PublicAffairs\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"PublicAffairs","offers":[{"title":"Paperback (Sep 2023)","offer_id":46079834521797,"sku":"9781541768307","price":24.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0708\/6414\/2533\/files\/9781541768307.jpg?v=1776032124"},{"product_id":"cobalt-red-how-the-blood-of-the-congo-powers-our-lives","title":"Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eNow in paperback: the powerful, revelatory \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e and\u003ci\u003e Publishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e bestseller, shortlisted for the\u003ci\u003e Financial Times\u003c\/i\u003e Best Business Book of the Year Award.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn unflinching investigation reveals the human rights abuses behind the Congo's cobalt mining operation--and the moral implications that affect us all. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eCobalt Red\u003c\/i\u003e is the searing, first-ever exposé of the immense toll taken on the people and environment of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by cobalt mining, as told through the testimonies of the Congolese people themselves. Activist and researcher Siddharth Kara has traveled deep into cobalt territory to document the testimonies of the people living, working, and dying for cobalt. To uncover the truth about brutal mining practices, Kara investigated militia-controlled mining areas, traced the supply chain of child-mined cobalt from toxic pit to consumer-facing tech giants, and gathered shocking testimonies of people who endure immense suffering and even die mining cobalt. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eCobalt is an essential component to every lithium-ion rechargeable battery made today, the batteries that power our smartphones, tablets, laptops, and electric vehicles. Roughly 75 percent of the world's supply of cobalt is mined in the Congo, often by peasants and children in sub-human conditions. Billions of people in the world cannot conduct their daily lives without participating in a human rights and environmental catastrophe in the Congo. In this stark and crucial book, Kara argues that we must all care about what is happening in the Congo--because we are all implicated.\u003cdiv style=\"display:none\"\u003eISBN-10: 1250322154\u003cbr\u003eISBN-13: 9781250322159\u003cbr\u003eAuthor: Kara, Siddharth\u003cbr\u003ePublisher: St. Martin's Griffin\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"St. Martin's Griffin","offers":[{"title":"Paperback (Jul 2024)","offer_id":46079873941701,"sku":"9781250322159","price":18.05,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0708\/6414\/2533\/files\/9781250322159.jpg?v=1776032360"},{"product_id":"scale-boy-an-african-childhood","title":"Scale Boy: An African Childhood","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn extraordinary chronicle of youth that evokes the paradoxes of modern Africa--complex, contradictory, and full of conflict, tragedy, and joy. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePatrice Nganang, the acclaimed author of \u003ci\u003eDog Days\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eMount Pleasant\u003c\/i\u003e, and, most recently, \u003ci\u003eA Trail of Crab Tracks\u003c\/i\u003e, which was a 2022 \u003ci\u003eNew Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e Book of the Year, writes about his vibrant, animated youth in Cameroon, a period of upheaval and change in the country's history and in his life. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eScale Boy\u003c\/i\u003e is a memoir that brings great brightness and joy to the tumultuous years of discovering oneself and one's community; though there are moments of danger and confusion in his story, Nganang aims to present a new vision of a young Black African man's coming-of-age.\u003cdiv style=\"display:none\"\u003eISBN-10: 0374614512\u003cbr\u003eISBN-13: 9780374614515\u003cbr\u003eAuthor: Nganang, Patrice\u003cbr\u003ePublisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Farrar, Straus and Giroux","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover (Jan 2026)","offer_id":46080971604165,"sku":"9780374614515","price":33.25,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0708\/6414\/2533\/files\/9780374614515.jpg?v=1776042511"},{"product_id":"we-wish-to-inform-you-that-tomorrow-we-will-be-killed-with-our-families-stories-from-rwanda","title":"We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWe Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families\u003c\/i\u003e is the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. \u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e An unforgettable firsthand account of a people's response to genocide and what it tells us about humanity. \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis remarkable debut book from Philip Gourevitch chronicles what has happened in Rwanda and neighboring states since 1994, when the Rwandan government called on everyone in the Hutu majority to murder everyone in the Tutsi minority. Though the killing was low-tech--largely by machete--it was carried out at shocking speed: some 800,000 people were exterminated in a hundred days. A Tutsi pastor, in a letter to his church president, a Hutu, used the chilling phrase that gives Gourevitch his title. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWith keen dramatic intensity, Gourevitch frames the genesis and horror of Rwanda's \"genocidal logic\" in the anguish of its aftermath: the mass displacements, the temptations of revenge and the quest for justice, the impossibly crowded prisons and refugee camps. Through intimate portraits of Rwandans in all walks of life, he focuses on the psychological and political challenges of survival and on how the new leaders of postcolonial Africa went to war in the Congo when resurgent genocidal forces threatened to overrun central Africa. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eCan a country composed largely of perpetrators and victims create a cohesive national society? This moving contribution to the literature of witness tells us much about the struggle everywhere to forge sane, habitable political orders, and about the stubbornness of the human spirit in a world of extremity.\u003cdiv style=\"display:none\"\u003eISBN-10: 0312243359\u003cbr\u003eISBN-13: 9780312243357\u003cbr\u003eAuthor: Gourevitch, Philip\u003cbr\u003ePublisher: Picador USA\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Picador USA","offers":[{"title":"Paperback (Sep 1999)","offer_id":46081210548421,"sku":"9780312243357","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0708\/6414\/2533\/files\/9780312243357.jpg?v=1776043989"},{"product_id":"dancing-in-the-glory-of-monsters-the-collapse-of-the-congo-and-the-great-war-of-africa","title":"Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa","description":"\u003cb\u003eA \"meticulously researched and comprehensive\" \u003ci\u003e(Financial Times)\u003c\/i\u003e history of the devastating war in the heart of Africa's Congo \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e 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 millions have died. In \u003ci\u003eDancing in the Glory of Monsters\u003c\/i\u003e, renowned political activist and researcher Jason K. Stearns has written a compelling and deeply reported narrative of how Congo became a failed state that collapsed into a war of retaliatory massacres. Stearns brilliantly describes the key perpetrators, many of whom he met personally, and highlights the nature of the political system that brought these people to power, as well as the moral decisions with which the war confronted them. Now updated with a new introduction, \u003ci\u003eDancing in the Glory of Monsters\u003c\/i\u003e tells the full story of Africa's great war.\u003cdiv style=\"display:none\"\u003eISBN-10: 1541706064\u003cbr\u003eISBN-13: 9781541706064\u003cbr\u003eAuthor: Stearns, Jason K.\u003cbr\u003ePublisher: PublicAffairs\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"PublicAffairs","offers":[{"title":"Paperback (Nov 2025)","offer_id":46291788792005,"sku":"9781541706064","price":21.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0708\/6414\/2533\/files\/9781541706064.jpg?v=1780113086"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.inveni.store\/collections\/history-africa-central.oembed","provider":"Inveni","version":"1.0","type":"link"}