Book Description
In Lose Your Mother, Saidiya Hartman journeys along a slave route in Ghana, following the trail of captives from the hinterland to the Atlantic coast. She retraces the history of the Atlantic slave trade from the fifteenth to the twentieth century and reckons with the blank slate of her own genealogy.
There were no survivors of Hartman’s lineage, nor far-flung relatives in Ghana of whom she had come in search. She traveled to Ghana in search of strangers. The most universal definition of the slave is a stranger—torn from kin and country. To lose your mother is to suffer the loss of kin, to forget your past, and to inhabit the world as a stranger. As both the offspring of slaves and an American in Africa, Hartman, too, was a stranger. Her reflections on history and memory unfold as an intimate encounter with places—a holding cell, a slave market, a walled town built
to repel slave raiders—and with people: an Akan prince who granted the Portuguese permission to build the first permanent trading fort in West Africa; an adolescent boy who was kidnapped while playing; a fourteen-year-old girl who was murdered aboard a slave ship.
Eloquent, thoughtful, and deeply affecting, Lose Your Mother is a powerful meditation on history, memory, and the Atlantic slave trade.
Customer Reviews:
Extraordinarily Insightful and Eloquent.......2007-07-22
A deeply moving combination of history, personal memoir and deep reflection,particularly on the heroic and aspirational legacy of slavery as seen by this wonderful writer.
Spectacular.......2007-03-26
Saidiya Hartman takes us on a journey that is intense, tough and thoroughly rewarding. Impressively, she learned as much about herself as she did about the past she sought, even more.
The beauty of going with her on this journey is that the reader has the same magnificent opportunity, hypnotically led by the author, to ponder and to gain personal insight perhaps too long submerged.
Brilliant!.......2007-01-18
Lose Your Mother is a story that weaves geneology with African American history. It's intimate and powerful, touching and complex. Universally connecting, it is a story of alienation and hope.
Roots 2.0.......2007-01-17
What "Roots" was to the Boomer Generation, "Lose Your Mother" could and should be to the Generation Next. Saidiay Hartman's writing styles fits perfectly for a generation that longs for and loves narrative, story, and first-hand journal accounts.
However, no one should thus assume that Hartman's writing lacks research credibility for she brilliantly weaves both rousing narrative and copious research to portray a powerful picture of one of history's ugliest stories: Middle Passage. She provides a fresh account of ancient wounds.
Hartman's book can and should make a renewed contribution to the healing of past hurts which still linger deep. Her passionate style and scholarly depth can help a nation move beyond suffering to healing hope.
Reviewer: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., is the author of Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction, Soul Physicians, and Spiritual Friends.
Book Description
There is little written by Ghanaians to help foreigners understand their culturally prescribed rules of behaviour. This fascinating book offers an introduction to the Ghanaian people and is of use to visitors to Ghana, and those interested in the country and its culture. It covers geography and demography; political history; the economy; religions and customs; institutions and ceremonies that take place at different stages in life; underlying values and rules of behaviour; amusements and festivals; places of interest and guidelines for the good traveller.
Customer Reviews:
Printed in someone's garage!.......2007-05-14
This is a very low quality printed book. I do not recommend it for the price they are charging. I would pay something less then $10 but nothing more then that. I talked to one of the individuals who is reading it and he says it is o.k. I am just saying that it is very low quality and I will look for something else for this premium price.
Average customer rating:
- Funhouse mirror of American culture
- The Most Unusual Coffee Table Book You'll Ever See
|
Extreme Canvas: Movie Poster Paintings from Ghana
Ernie Wolfe ,
Ernie Wolfe III ,
John Yau , and
Roy Sieber
Manufacturer: Dilettante Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 096642722X |
Book Description
CONTRIBUTIONS BY
Clive Barker
LeVar Burton
Deirdre Evans-Pritchard
Walter Hill
Angelica Huston
John Milius
Roy Sieber
Paul Hayes Tucker
Gus Van Sant
John Yau
Customer Reviews:
Funhouse mirror of American culture.......2002-12-09
In Ghana, paying cinema customer line up around a glorified TV set and watch the dross of American cinema, striaght-to-video stuff starring Jan Michael Vincent or Chuck Norris. And to publicize these films, artists paint posters in raging, primitive style with images not usually found in the films. The art is just incredible and horrendous (in the best meanings of the term) and one can only speculate on what cultural filters go into their making. THE coffee table book of the year.
The Most Unusual Coffee Table Book You'll Ever See.......2001-03-30
If you're going to insist on having coffee-table books lying around your house, you might as well have one filled with lurid, hand-painted posters for movies like "Hell Comes to Frogtown," "The Fatal Flying Guillotines," or "Confessions of a Window Cleaner," right? Well, you've come to the right place, 'cause here is just such a book-filled with beautiful color reproductions of posters for these, and many other fine movies, straight outta... Ghana. For a period of about ten years, from the mid-'80s to the mid '90s, entrepreneurs in Ghana ran traveling movie screenings, featuring the latest (or not so latest) videos from America and elsewhere. Their agents would pull into town, rent a public viewing space, set up a TV and VCR running off a little generator, unfurl a poster, and voila-instant movie house. Here, presented for the first time in the West are several hundred of the posters, divided into sections with little one-page celebrity introductions, along with a few art expert essays. It depressingly comes as no surprise that of the 230 pages devoted to the posters, 200 are in the "action/adventure," "war and urban commando," "horror," "science fiction and fantasy," and "martial arts" sections, with only 30 pages on "comedy and drama." Interestingly, this last section is largely filled with homegrown films from Ghana and Nigeria, with very few American entries. Clearly, this is because American humor and drama don't export as well as guns, blood, and sex, which are universal-although this is left unstated.
What is stated in most of the section introductions is fairly bland praise to the tune of "look how movies can cross cultures and have meaning even in Africa" and "see how these movies fit into the rich tradition of storytelling." Screenwriter Walter Hill at least has the honesty to say "many of these posters are more interesting than the films." The essays by the art experts attempting to place these posters in a larger historical context of African art manage to utterly fail. Particularly egregious is Deidre Evans-Pritchard's inane assertion that "Just as British television dramas are culturally repackaged for American audiences, so the hand-painted movie posters serve to claim the movies for the people of West Africa." The notion that one businessman paying an semiprofessional artist to paint an advertising poster for "Leprechaun 2" (page 199) so that other people will pay money to watch it somehow "claims" it, is patently silly. The critical difference with her analogy is that the advertising is slightly repackaged, the content certainly isn't. As I leafed through the book, seeing endless images of guns, bare breasts, blood, Rambo, Van Damme, Delta Force, and the like, I was vaguely unsettled. If, through cultural globalization, this is all they're getting from the U.S., what effect will it have on their cultural production, or on their perception of America? Whatever the answer-this is a great book to leave lying around your coffee table. A great companion to this is What It Is... What It Was, which is a slightly less lavish book on blaxploitation poster art.
Book Description
For more than a thousand years, from A.D. 500 to 1700, the medieval kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay grew rich on the gold, salt, and slave trade that stretched across Africa. Scraping away hundreds of years of ignorance, prejudice, and mythology, award-winnnig authors Patricia and Fredrick McKissack reveal the glory of these forgotten empires while inviting us to share in the inspiring process of historical recovery that is taking place today.
Customer Reviews:
Ghana, Mali, and Songhay: Medieval Africa.......2007-07-17
This is an awesome book. I had purchased this book many years ago at a homeschool curriculum fair because I have a friend who is from Ghana. I did not know, at the time, that medieval Ghana is not the same as present day Ghana.
I student taught 7th grade social studies and science this past fall semester and I relied on this book quite a bit to teach the origins of sub-Saharan trading. The few textbooks we had in class gave very little detail about this critical time in Africa's history and I wanted to expand the students' knowledge about Africa's trading routes and slave trading.
I would highly recommend this book as a classroom reference or as an informative book on the kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Sonhay.
Good introduction to West African history.......2007-02-02
I find that the book is a good introduction to the study of the history of the West African kingdoms. However, it does not give much more than that; little is told about the daily lives of the people, which is what really interests me about any period in history. In addition, I found that the book focuses a bit too much on the mythology, which, let's face it, sounds strange to modern American children, reinforcing the notion that Africans are primitive. The book also does not give enough pictures of what anything or anyone from the kingdoms looked like, forcing the reader to imagine the visuals, which are bound to look more like modern cartoon depictions of Africa than the actual kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay.
That being said, if you have children who are interested in learning a little bit about African history, this book is a good start. It gives bits of information that you don't get in your history classes, even those that teach world history. I learned about these kingdoms way back in the 7th grade, but even then I did not learn that there were Europeans who went to African universities in the Middle Ages, which is quite a switch from today's world. That little fact is powerful, because it forces the question of what happened to Africa that resulted in the widespread poverty, disease, malnutrition, and war we hear about so much in the news today.
Since I am not African-American and do not know many people who are, I am unable to judge with any certainty whether the book is good for enhancing the self-esteem of African-American children (which seems to be one of the purposes of this book). However, I can say that the book is a good introduction to West African history for anyone, regardless of race or age.
Great place to start ..........2003-04-26
This book is short and relatively simplistic in its explanations. You would not want to use it as the pillar to your dissertation on Malian history. Nevertheless, it does give a good general introduction to West African history and the great kingdoms that once flourished by the Niger River.
It starts with the creation myths, and then chronologically, explains very simply the beginnings and endings of the kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhaim. It addresses the mingling of the native religion with Islam, and ends with the downfall of the kingdoms. It also briefly addresses the issue of slavery.
I bought this about a month before visiting a friend who is doing research in Bamako (the Capital of Mali). I vaguely recollected learning about a chapter's worth in seventh grade about the Saharan trade routes and something about Ghana and Songhai and Timbuktu, but could not remember much more than the names of the kingdoms.
This book was excellent, in giving me enough background to be able to appreciate the depth of the history and the people when I visited. That being said, this is an excellent place to START learning about West African history - but hopefully, it is not where you will end your learning, as there are other resources out there that give much deeper and more thorough information about this great region.
Mali and Soghani Timbooktu was real.......2001-06-29
OK I am sick and tired of europeans thinking Africans never had a rich culture of their own. The mali dynasty was a great one that grew out of trade with saharan tribes and over the course of history grew into a sucessful and prosperous kingdom. When Europe was in the dark ages scholars like Ahmed baba was writting books,in fact over 3500 of them. I dsiagree with the contact of the meso american cultures,but there is proof in arabic manuscrips that africans was able to sail to the new word. The evidence shows that their is a genous of plantains that grow in brazil called musa x. The name of a king in Mali was musa,and ibn battua an norther african scholar traveled all around the islamic worls and told about the wealth of the african people here. By the way my friend from australia have you been to mali i have I am also white by the way
A Sad Disappointment.......2000-08-08
If you're after a balanced, scholarly history of these fascinating kingdoms, regrettably this is not it.
This authors intent appears principally to raise the esteem and consciousness of pubescent Afro-Americans
Despite falling well outside the scope indicated by the title, the book includes sections on the European Atlantic slave trade as well as wild speculation that fleets of explorers from Mali may have been in contact with Meso-America.
The book is nearly saved from total uselessness by the inclusion of a bibliography, though Time-Life picture book publications feature heavily, so even this fails to do much other than disappoint.
Average customer rating:
- Close Your Eyes and Open Your Mind - As you read this book!
- Magical children's book
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Kofi and His Magic
Maya Angelou
Manufacturer: Knopf Books for Young Readers
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My Painted House, My Friendly Chicken, and Me
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ASIN: 0517704536
Release Date: 1996-11-05 |
Book Description
With full-color photographs. Now in paperback, My Painted House, My Friendly Chicken, and Me is the enchanting story of an eight-year-old girl named Thandi, her village, her mischievous brother, her best friend--a chicken--and the remarkable mural art that is produced by the Ndebele women. With over seventy photographs of the reclusive Ndebele women and their breathtaking paintings, My Painted House, My Friendly Chicken, and Me documents the passing of traditions from parent to child while introducing young readers to a new culture through a new friend. "Angelou's prose, like the art, is unlike what you've seen before" (Chicago Tribune). "Poet Angelou's impish narrative and Margaret Courtney-Clarke's ravishing photos create an entrancing vision...." (Entertainment Weekly). To be published simultaneously with Kofi and His Magic, a new hardcover collaborative effort by Angelou and Courtney-Clarke.
Customer Reviews:
Close Your Eyes and Open Your Mind - As you read this book!.......2007-03-08
This is an excellent book to read to children at bedtime or during storytime at school or church. It's a short, easy read and it's full of excellent information about the history and culture of Western Africa. Don't be fooled by the title. This book has nothing to do with black magic; and everything to do with using ones own imagination. The storyline is rooted in reality as the main character enjoys his "travels" to other places; however he always wants to return home to the people he loves. The beautiful photographs in this book make it a great coffee table book as well. I encourage you to introduce the children in your family or neighborhood to Kofi and His Magic.
Magical children's book.......1998-04-05
This book provides readers of all ages with a wonderful look into the life of Kofi, a "magician" from Bonwire. The children I have shared it with love it, and Kofi's magic serves as a reminder for all of us of the power of imagination. The photographs are rich, and the text is soothing. Look no further for a book that will put you in the mood to daydream.
Book Description
The grim history of the slave trade from Africa is one that has had an impact on generations of people all over the world. While much of the initial voyage and inhumane treatment of slavery has been historically analyzed, there has been little written on the several forts and castles along the coast of Ghana that were used as slave holding facilities. This book focuses primarily on Cape Coast Castle, the African headquarters of the British slave trade from 1664 to 1807, through which countless men, women, and children were sold as slaves and carried away on slave ships, often to North America. It tells the story of the people who lived, worked, or were imprisoned within its walls, as well as the construction and upkeep of the building, the arrivals and departures of ships, the negotiations with local African leaders, and the deadly diseases inside.
Customer Reviews:
The Business of Slavery .......2007-08-19
Written with the Gold Coast of Africa as its center, this remarkable book is an amazing piece of work. The author uses records recovered from Britain's slave forts to recreate the business life of the trade. We learn how and why people were bartered for manufactured goods and the process of assembly and shipping of human cargo. The recovered douments also provide the personal side never meant to be viewed by others. I found this book to be excellent and recommend it thoroughly.
The Door of No Return is a welcome addition to public and college library history shelves........2007-06-10
Written by William St Claire (former Senior Research Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge University), The Door of No Return: The History of Cape Coast Castle and the Atlantic Slave Trade is an in-depth history of the Cape Coast Castle in Ghana, Africa, and its role it served as headquarters for the horrific British slave trade, until the slave trade's abolishment in 1807. Drawing heavily from years of personal research into the Castle's vast archive of public records and ledges - from letters and correspondence to scribbled notes and even the recipes of trafficked slaves - The Door of No Return offers a unique, in-depth scrutiny of this dark place and phase of human history. Written in plain terms and illustrated with a handful of black-and-white photographs, The Door of No Return is a welcome addition to public and college library history shelves.
Average customer rating:
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Coast of Slaves
Thorkild Hansen
Manufacturer: Sub-Saharan Publishers
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ASIN: 9988550316 |
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Going into Darkness: Fantastic Coffins from Africa
Thierry Secretan
Manufacturer: Thames & Hudson
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ASIN: 0500278393 |
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- Wonderful book!
- Kente Cloth
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Kente Colors
Debbi Chocolate
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Moja Means One
ASIN: 0802775284 |
Book Description
A joyful ode to kente celebrates the beauty and tradition of this West African fabric that is now so popular in America. Rhythmic verse shows the special meaning of colors and patterns while glorious paintings show kente as it is used and worn in Ghana, from babies' blankets to dancers' capes. An author's note further explains kente's rich symbolism. Readers young and old will delight in discovering the connections between African culture and the colorful cloth we love to wear.
Customer Reviews:
Wonderful book!.......2001-12-28
It is easy to read with very beautiful colors. I have three Ewe students from Togo and am hard pressed to find books to reflect their culture. I'm sure that the Ewe in Ghana and Togo are related and my students will be able see some of their culture reflected in the book. Thanks Deborah!
Kente Cloth.......2000-07-29
A warm multicultural book, that gives an enlightining look at the traditional hand weaving of the Kente Cloth. The book is an exciting celebration of culture by the Ashante people of Ghana and the Ewe of Ghana and Togo. The steady rhythum of rhyming text along with its bright and colorful illustrations are sure to attract the attention of young readers. As an educator I would use this book to introduce colors and weaving activities to young children. The use of rhyme is a great springboard for strenghthening students phonemic awarness. I would give this book 5 stars.
Customer Reviews:
Overpriced!.......2007-06-13
I am very disappointed with this book. It is juvenile in nature and way overpriced. I expected a book of several hundred pages -- this book is 76 pages. There is little substance to it. I will be returning it.
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