
Africa Is Not a Country
Notes on a Bright Continent
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Narrated by:
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Dipo Faloyin
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By:
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Dipo Faloyin
About this listen
So often, Africa has been depicted simplistically as a uniform land of famines and safaris, poverty and strife, stripped of all nuance. In this bold and insightful book, Dipo Faloyin offers a much-needed corrective, weaving a vibrant tapestry of stories that bring to life Africa's rich diversity, communities, and histories.
Starting with an immersive description of the lively and complex urban life of Lagos, Faloyin unearths surprising truths about many African countries' colonial heritage and tells the story of the continent's struggles with democracy through seven dictatorships. With biting wit, he takes on the phenomenon of the white savior complex and brings to light the damage caused by charity campaigns of the past decades. Entering into the rivalries that energize the continent, Faloyin engages in the heated debate over which West African country makes the best jollof rice and describes the strange, incongruent beauty of the African Cup of Nations. With an eye toward the future promise of the continent, he explores the youth-led cultural and political movements that are defining and reimagining Africa on their own terms.
Africa Is Not a Country celebrates the energy and particularity of the continent's different cultures and communities, treating Africa with the respect it deserves.
©2022 Dipo Faloyin (P)2022 HighBridge, a division of Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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A deep dive into some really sinister history
- By Alan D. on 05-03-24
By: Paul Kenyon
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Facing the Lion
- Growing Up Maasai on the African Savanna
- By: Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton, Herman Viola
- Narrated by: Kevin R. Free
- Length: 2 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton is a Maasai tribesman of Kenya. In this fascinating autobiography, he shares stories about growing up in his nomadic tribe - from licking sweat off cows’ noses to survive a drought, to facing down a lion at age 14, to playing soccer for the president of Kenya. The only member of his family to receive a formal education, Joseph sometimes lived as much as 40 miles away from school. While at school, he learned about Western culture and traditions.
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Good
- By Kelley on 03-27-25
By: Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton, and others
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Mukiwa
- A White Boy in Africa
- By: Peter Godwin
- Narrated by: Peter Godwin
- Length: 14 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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In unforgettable tales of innocence lost under African skies, we follow Godwin's awakening to the often savage struggle between Whites and Blacks, his horror when he is forced to fight in a civil war he detests, and his experiences as a journalist covering the country's violent transition to Black rule as Rhodesia's colonial era comes to an end and the new state of Zimbabwe is born from its bloody ashes. Mukiwa is a poignant, compelling memoir and an invaluable addition to the literature of southern Africa.
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Captivating, poignant memoir.
- By Nakaale on 10-04-20
By: Peter Godwin
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African Dominion
- A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa
- By: Michael Gomez
- Narrated by: David Sadzin
- Length: 19 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Pick up almost any book on early and medieval world history and empire, and where do you find West Africa? On the periphery. This pioneering book tells a different story. Interweaving political and social history and drawing on a rich array of sources, Michael Gomez unveils a new vision of how categories of ethnicity, race, gender, and caste emerged in Africa and in global history.
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excellent
- By Kindle Customer on 06-06-21
By: Michael Gomez
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The Golden Rhinoceros
- Histories of the African Middle Ages
- By: François-Xavier Fauvelle, Troy Tice - translator
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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From the birth of Islam in the seventh century to the voyages of European exploration in the 15th, Africa was at the center of a vibrant exchange of goods and ideas. It was an African golden age in which places like Ghana, Nubia, and Zimbabwe became the crossroads of civilizations, and where African royals, thinkers, and artists played celebrated roles in the globalized world of the Middle Ages. The Golden Rhinoceros brings this unsung era marvelously to life, taking listeners from the Sahara and the Nile River Valley to the Ethiopian highlands and Southern Africa.
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Excellent scholarly intro to a medieval Africa
- By jlwrvw on 04-27-21
By: François-Xavier Fauvelle, and others
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Atlantic Wars
- From the Fifteenth Century to the Age of Revolution
- By: Geoffrey Plank
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 12 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In a sweeping account, Atlantic Wars explores how warfare shaped the experiences of the peoples living in the watershed of the Atlantic Ocean between the late Middle Ages and the Age of Revolution.
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A scattered selection of micro-theses
- By Dylan Becker on 11-01-21
By: Geoffrey Plank
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African Origin of Civilization - The Myth or Reality
- By: Cheikh Anta Diop
- Narrated by: Frank Block
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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This classic presents historical, archaeological, and anthropological evidence to support the theory that ancient Egypt was a black civilization.
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History told from an honest point
- By Lee on 12-19-21
By: Cheikh Anta Diop
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Eyes on the Prize
- America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965
- By: Juan Williams, Julian Bond - introduction
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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From leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr., to lesser-known figures such as Barbara Rose Johns and Jim Zwerg, each man and woman made the decision that something had to be done to stop discrimination. These moving accounts of the first decade of the civil rights movement are a tribute to the people, black and white, who took part in the fight for justice and the struggle they endured.
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This is a must in every household.
- By victor mercer on 07-12-19
By: Juan Williams, and others
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The Dawning of the Apocalypse
- The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Capitalism in the Long Sixteenth Century
- By: Gerald Horne
- Narrated by: Bill Andrew Quinn
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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August 2019 saw numerous commemorations of the year 1619, when what was said to be the first arrival of enslaved Africans occurred in North America. Yet in the 1520s, the Spanish, from their imperial perch in Santo Domingo, had already brought enslaved Africans to what was to become South Carolina. The enslaved people here quickly defected to local Indigenous populations, and compelled their captors to flee. Deploying such illuminating research, The Dawning of the Apocalypse is a riveting revision of the "creation myth" of settler colonialism and how the US was formed.
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Horrible narration
- By William Harrington on 06-05-22
By: Gerald Horne
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An African History of Africa
- From the Dawn of Humanity to Independence
- By: Zeinab Badawi
- Narrated by: Zeinab Badawi
- Length: 15 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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For too long, Africa’s history has been dominated by western narratives of slavery and colonialism, or simply ignored. Now, Zeinab Badawi sets the record straight. In this fascinating book, Badawi guides us through Africa’s spectacular history—from the very origins of our species, through ancient civilizations and medieval empires with remarkable queens and kings, to the miseries of conquest and the elation of independence.
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Strap in. One of my toughest listens yet.
- By Kindle Customer on 01-31-25
By: Zeinab Badawi
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Be Free or Die
- The Amazing Story of Robert Smalls' Escape from Slavery to Union Hero
- By: Cate Lineberry
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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It was a mild May morning in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1862, the second year of the Civil War, when a 23-year-old slave named Robert Smalls did the unthinkable and boldly seized a Confederate steamer. With his wife and two young children hidden on board, Smalls and a small crew ran a gauntlet of heavily armed fortifications in Charleston Harbor and delivered the valuable vessel and the massive guns it carried to nearby Union forces.
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Great Book about a Great man
- By Evan on 02-19-18
By: Cate Lineberry
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The Boer War
- By: Martin Bossenbroek
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 19 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Boer War, winner of the Netherland's 2013 Libris History Prize and shortlisted for the 2013 AKO Literature Prize, the author brings a completely new perspective to this chapter of South African history, critically examining the involvement of the Netherlands in the war. Furthermore, unlike other accounts, Martin Bossenbroek explores the war primarily through the experiences of three men uniquely active during the bloody conflict.
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Interesting and engaging view of the War
- By Douglas on 04-17-18
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A Splendid Exchange
- How Trade Shaped the World
- By: William J. Bernstein
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 17 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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In A Splendid Exchange, William J. Bernstein tells the extraordinary story of global commerce from its prehistoric origins to the myriad controversies surrounding it today. He transports listeners from ancient sailing ships that brought the silk trade from China to Rome in the second century to the rise and fall of the Portuguese monopoly in spices in the 16th.
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Very interesting and Germane to Today's World
- By Mark on 07-18-08
I will share this book with my children
a breath of fresh air
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The narration and history
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Sorely needed
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A pity that the West still holds on to African art as theirs to show.
Now I also wanna taste the different jollof rice to see which is the best.
A different view of the world
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Excellent book
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Insightful & Illuminating
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Vibrant Unfiltered Truths
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A MUST READ
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The title was simple but yet captivating!
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Amazing
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