The Gifts of Africa
How a Continent and Its People Changed the World
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Narrated by:
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JW Hathaway
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By:
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Jeff Pearce
About this listen
"The West will begin to understand Africa when it realizes it’s not talking to a child—it’s talking to its mother.”
So writes Jeff Pearce in the introduction to his fascinating, groundbreaking work, The Gifts of Africa: How a Continent and Its People Changed the World.
We learn early on in school how Europe and Asia gave us important literature, science, and art, and how their nations changed the course of history. But what about Africa? There are plenty of books that detail its colonialism, corruption, famine, and war, but few that discuss the debt owed to African thinkers and innovators.
In The Gifts of Africa, we meet Zera Yacob, an Ethiopian philosopher who developed the same critical approach and several of the same ideas as René Descartes. We consider how Somalis traded with China, and we meet the African warrior queens who still inspire national pride. We explore how Liberia’s Edward Wilmot Blyden deeply influenced Marcus Garvey, and we sneak into the galleries and theaters of 1920s Paris, where African art and dance first began to make huge impacts on the world. Relying on meticulous research, Pearce brings to life a rich intellectual legacy and profiles modern innovators like acclaimed griot Papa Susso and renowned economist George Ayittey from Ghana.
©2022 Jeff Pearce (P)2022 Rowman & LittlefieldListeners also enjoyed...
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In this timely, highly original, and controversial narrative, New York Times best-selling author Mark Kurlansky discusses nonviolence as a distinct entity, a course of action, rather than a mere state of mind. Nonviolence can and should be a technique for overcoming social injustice and ending wars, he asserts, which is why it is the preferred method of those who speak truth to power.
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A brief, necessary account of the history of nonviolence
- By Real Talk on 07-29-20
By: Mark Kurlansky
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Africa Is Not a Country
- Notes on a Bright Continent
- By: Dipo Faloyin
- Narrated by: Dipo Faloyin
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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Brilliant!
- By Jane on 01-26-23
By: Dipo Faloyin
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The Trouble with Islam Today
- A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith
- By: Irshad Manji
- Narrated by: Irshad Manji
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Winner of Oprah's first "Chutzpah Award" for boldness, Irshad Manji is among the world's most visible - and vocal - Muslim reformers. In this audio book, narrated by her, Irshad explains the disturbing attitudes with which too many of her fellow Muslims practice Islam today: Arab cultural tribalism posing as pure faith. An uncritical approach to the Quran as the final and therefore superior word of God. And a rejection of universal human rights as if they are incompatible with the Divine.
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Non-stop rant from an angry l*sb**n
- By J S on 10-14-12
By: Irshad Manji
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Inventing Japan [Modern Library Chronicles]
- By: Ian Buruma
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 6 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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LA Times Book Award winner and expert on the past and present Japan, Ian Buruma examines the transformation of a country. Following Japan's history from its opening to the West in 1853 to its hosting of the 1964 Olympics, Buruma focuses on how figures such as Commodore Matthew Perry, Douglas MacArthur, and Emperor Mitsushito helped shape this complex country.
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Excellent Primer on Modern Japan
- By John Pavliga on 06-13-06
By: Ian Buruma
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There Was a Country
- A Personal History of Biafra
- By: Chinua Achebe
- Narrated by: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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The defining experience of Chinua Achebe's life was the Nigerian civil war, also known as the Biafran War, of 1967-1970. The conflict was infamous for its savage impact on the Biafran people, Chinua Achebe's people, many of whom were starved to death after the Nigerian government blockaded their borders. Immediately after, Achebe took refuge in an academic post in the United States, and for more than 40 years he has maintained a considered silence on the events of those terrible years. Now, decades in the making, comes a towering reckoning with one of modern Africa's most fateful events.
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The Audible Edition Is a Disaster
- By Olu on 11-28-12
By: Chinua Achebe
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Amsterdam
- A History of the World's Most Liberal City
- By: Russell Shorto
- Narrated by: Russell Shorto
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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In this effortlessly erudite account, Russell Shorto traces the idiosyncratic evolution of Amsterdam, showing how such disparate elements as herring anatomy, naked Anabaptists parading through the streets, and an intimate gathering in a 16th-century wine-tasting room had a profound effect on Dutch - and world - history. Weaving in his own experiences of his adopted home, Shorto provides an ever-surprising, intellectually engaging story of Amsterdam from its golden age to the present.
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Worth Reading - Highly Recommended
- By Whit B on 05-12-14
By: Russell Shorto
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A History of the Jews
- By: Paul Johnson
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 28 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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This historical magnum opus covers 4,000 years of the extraordinary history of the Jews as a people, a culture, and a nation. It shows the impact of Jewish character on the world: their genius, imagination, and, most of all, their ability to persevere despite severe persecutions. Compelling insights into events and individuals are chronologically detailed, from Moses and Jesus to Spinoza, Marx, Freud, the Rothschilds, and Golda Meir.
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Excellent History
- By Rilezmom on 06-06-09
By: Paul Johnson
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Great Catastrophe
- Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide
- By: Thomas de Waal
- Narrated by: David Rapkin
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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The destruction of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire in 1915-16 was the greatest atrocity of World War I. Around one million Armenians were killed, and the survivors were scattered across the world. Although it is now a century old, the issue of what most of the world calls the Armenian Genocide of 1915 is still a live and divisive issue that mobilizes Armenians across the world, shapes the identity and politics of modern Turkey, and has consumed the attention of U.S. politicians for years.
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- By shaq on 02-26-19
By: Thomas de Waal
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From the Ruins of Empire
- The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia
- By: Pankaj Mishra
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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A little more than a century ago, as the Japanese navy annihilated the giant Russian one at the Battle of Tsushima, original thinkers across Asia, working independently, sought to frame a distinctly Asian intellectual tradition that would inform and inspire the continent's anticipated rise to dominance.
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Breathtaking Scale, Cohesion and Vision of Asian History
- By Oscar C. Huerta on 03-18-19
By: Pankaj Mishra
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Jews, God, and History
- By: Max I. Dimont
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 17 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Vitality floods its pages. Philosophers and kings, warriors and merchants, poets and financiers come alive as the story ranges across time and the globe. From ancient Palestine through Europe and the Orient, to America and modern Israel, Max Dimont shows how the saga of the Jews is interwoven with the history of virtually every nation on earth.
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Grand in scope and depth
- By Joe on 08-27-12
By: Max I. Dimont
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Fracture
- Life and Culture in the West, 1918-1938
- By: Philipp Blom
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 17 hrs
- Unabridged
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When the Great War ended in 1918, the West was broken. Religious faith, patriotism, and the belief in human progress had all been called into question by the mass carnage experienced by both sides. Shell-shocked and traumatized, the West faced a world it no longer recognized: The old order had collapsed, replaced by an age of machines. The world hurtled forward on gears and crankshafts, and terrifying new ideologies arose from the wreckage of past belief.
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Lots of good trivia information
- By Jean on 07-23-15
By: Philipp Blom
What listeners say about The Gifts of Africa
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- golfer20011
- 10-26-22
An Under Appreciated Great Story!
I really enjoyed this. Anyone who enjoys history and culture will love this book. A fresh take on an old subject.
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