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Sudan has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. After decades of civil war, rebel uprisings and power struggles, in 2011 it gave birth to the world’s newest country – South Sudan. But it’s not been an easy transition, and the secession that was meant to pave the path to peace, has plunged the region into further chaos. In this updated edition of his ground-breaking investigation, Jok Madut Jok delves deep into Sudan’s culture and history, isolating the factors that continue to cause its fractured national identity. With moving first-hand testimonies, Jok provides a decisive critique of a region in turmoil, and addresses what must be done to break the tragic cycle of racism, poverty and brutality that grips Sudan and South Sudan.
This authoritative overview serves as a comprehensive resource on Eritrea's history, politics, economy, society, and culture. Located in eastern Africa, bordering the Red Sea between Djibouti and Sudan, Eritrea is a poor but developing East African country, the capital of which is Asmara. Formerly a province of Ethiopia, Eritrea became independent on May 24, 1993, following a 30-year struggle that culminated in a referendum vote for independence. Written materials on most aspects of Eritrean history and culture are quite scarce. Eritrea fills that gap with an exhaustive, thematically organized overview. It examines Eritrean geography, the history of Eritrea since the ancient period, and the government, politics, economy, society, cultures, and people of the modern nation. Though based largely on the documentary record, the book also recognizes the value of oral history among the people of Eritrea and incorporates that history as well. Leading sources are quoted at length to provide analysis and perspective.
In this book Charles Mwalimu explores viable grassroots representation mechanisms in African constitutions in order to positively integrate indigenous and modern systems in Sub-Saharan Africa. A comparative study method is used to examine the constitutional principles of chieftaincy and local government and their impact on human rights. To establish and prove lack of positive integration Mwalimu connects this failure to poor constitutionalism, development and stultified growth and human rights violations. This book proposes remedial actions to build nondiscriminatory constitutional regimes eradicating violations of human rights.
This book is the most complete, accessible, and up-to-date resource for Ethiopian geography, history, politics, economics, society, culture, and education, with coverage from ancient times to the present. Ethiopia is a comprehensive treatment of this ancient country's history coupled with an exploration of the nation today. Arranged by broad topics, the book provides an overview of Ethiopia's physical and human geography, its history, its system of government, and the present economic situation. But the book also presents a picture of contemporary society and culture and of the Ethiopian people. It also discusses art, music, and cinema; class; gender; ethnicity; and education, as well as the language, food, and etiquette of the country. Readers will learn such fascinating details as the fact that coffee was first domesticated in Ethiopia more than 10,000 years ago and that modern Ethiopia comprises 77 different ethnic groups with their own distinct languages.
An historical overview of Ethiopia's transformation from a multicultural empire into a modern nation state. Provides the gist of one scholar's knowledge of this country acquired over several decades. The author of numerous works on Ethiopia, Markakis presents here an overarching, concise historical profile of a momentous effort to integrate a multicultural empire into a modern nation state. The concept of nation state formation provides the analytical framework within which this process unfolds and the changes of direction it takes under different regimes, as well as a standard for assessing its progress and shortcomings at each stage. Over a century old, the process is still far from comple...
This collection explores, from a variety of angles, the beliefs of citizens and noncitizens about the impact that contemporary migration to the USA is having on American culture and on national solidarity. As in other liberal democracies that have experienced mass migration during the past several decades, there is considerable fear and anxiety in the USA about what newcomers are doing to the nation—economically, politically, and (especially) culturally. At the symbolic level, Americans largely embrace the idea that theirs is a nation composed of people from many different origins, but recent arrivals put to the test the extent to which the nation is actually prepared to embrace diversity. The six empirical studies in this volume are divided between those examining how citizens respond to immigrants—including right-wing populists, pragmatic multiculturalists, and immigrant advocates—and how immigrants in turn attempt to integrate into the receiving society. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Intercultural Studies.
The XVth International Conference of Ethiopian Studies took place in Hamburg in July 2003. More than 400 scientists from over 25 countries participated. 130 contributions from the program were selected for this volume. They are mostly written in English and deal on the regions of Ethiopia and Eritrea and cover the span from the 4th Century to the present. The volume is divided into the following chapters: Anthropology (20 Articles), History (25), Arts (10), Literature and Philology (10), Religion (5), Languages and Linguistics (25), Law and Politics (10), Environmental, Economic and Educational Issues (10).
This book analyses the historical sociology of state formation in the Horn of Africa. It examines the genesis, trajectories, processes, routes and consequences of the evolution of state formation. Three analytical and explanatory models explain the process of state formation in the HOA: proto-state, colonial and national liberation. The models, heuristically and innovatively, provide understanding, interpretation and analysis of state formation. While the proto-state model explicates an indigenous historical process of state formation, the colonial model refers to an externally designed and imposed process of state formation. The national liberation model concern state formation conducted under liberation movement and ideology. The distinct significance of these models is that collectively they generate sufficient analysis of state formation. They are also unique in that they have never been employed as aggregate analytical and explicative instruments to address the predicament of state formation in the Horn of Africa.
The enormous success of writers such as Teju Cole and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie demonstrates that African literatures are now an international phenomenon. But the apparent global legibility of a small number of (mostly Anglophone) writers in the diaspora raises the question of how literary producers from the continent, both past and present, have situated their work in relation to the world and the kinds of material networks to which this corresponds. This collection shows how literatures from across the African continent engage with conceptualizations of 'the world' in relation to local social and political issues. Focusing on a wide variety of geographic, historical and linguistic contexts,...