Africa Audiobooks | History

The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty

A powerful portrayal of Jeffrey Sachs's ambitious quest to end global poverty "The poor you will always have with you," to cite the Gospel of Matthew 26:11. Jeffrey Sachs—celebrated economist, special advisor to the Secretary General of the United Nations, and author of the influential bestseller The End of Poverty—disagrees. In his view, poverty is a problem that can be solved. With single-minded determination he has attempted to put into practice his theories about ending extreme poverty, to prove that the world's most destitute people can be lifted onto "the ladder of development." In 2006, Sachs launched the Millennium Villages Project, a daring five-year experiment designed to test his theories in Africa. The first Millennium village was in Sauri, a remote cluster of farming communities in western Kenya. The initial results were encouraging. With his first taste of success, and backed by one hundred twenty million dollars from George Soros and other likeminded donors, Sachs rolled out a dozen model villages in ten sub-Saharan countries. Once his approach was validated it would be scaled up across the entire continent. At least that was the idea. For the past six years, Nina Munk has reported deeply on the Millennium Villages Project, accompanying Sachs on his official trips to Africa and listening in on conversations with heads-of-state, humanitarian organizations, rival economists, and development experts. She has immersed herself in the lives of people in two Millennium villages: Ruhiira, in southwest Uganda, and Dertu, in the arid borderland between Kenya and Somalia. Accepting the hospitality of camel herders and small-hold farmers, and witnessing their struggle to survive, Munk came to understand the real-life issues that challenge Sachs's formula for ending global poverty. THE IDEALIST is the profound and moving story of what happens when the abstract theories of a brilliant, driven man meet the reality of human life.

Nina Munk (Author), Susan Nezami (Narrator)

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Together We Stand

The birth of an alliance that changed the course of history.From the bestselling author of Fortress Malta this is the second book in the Mediterranean war trilogy. This audiobook looks afresh at the conflict in Northern Africa, focusing for the first time on the involvement of the US and the way this early collaboration to defeat Rommel shaped the whole Anglo-American axis for the rest of the war in Europe.By June 1942, Britain had reached her lowest ebb. Her military command was in tatters, her armies beaten, and in the Middle East it seemed all might be lost. Her new ally, America, had only fledgling armed forces and was severely under-trained, yet it was this alliance of the weary combatant and naïve newcomer, coming together for the first time in North Africa, that would eventually bring about the defeat of Nazi Germany.This crucial period - from defeat at Gazala through to the victories of Alamein and ultimately in Tunisia - was a time of learning for the Allies, yet by the end Britain and America had finally gained material and certain tactical advantages over Germany, particularly in the air warfare. As this book shows, the development of a tactical air force - principles that are still used to this day - were founded over the skies of North Africa.When the Axis forces were finally driven from North Africa in May 1943, over 250,000 Axis troops were taken prisoner, more than had surrendered to the Russians at Stalingrad. It was a major victory and a crucial steppingstone to the future invasion of Italy and France.In this new reappraisal, James Holland also interweaves the personal stories of the men - and women - who made up these polyglot Allied forces: British and American, Nepalese and Punjabi, South African and Australian, Maori and Zulu, from all ranks and all services. From the heat and dust of the Western Desert to the mud and mountains of Northern Tunisia, this book charts the extraordinary first days of an Alliance that has worked together ever since.

James Holland (Author), Tim Pigott-Smith (Narrator)

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Ancient Egypt: History in an Hour

Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour.Learn about the Egyptian gods, mummification and how the Egyptians built the only wonder of the ancient world still standing - the Pyramids of Giza.Exploring the historic rise of Egyptian civilizationand its continued influence on the world today, Ancient Egypt in an Hour is an excellent companion to a mysterious and enthralling period of history.Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour...

Anthony Holmes (Author), Jonathan Keeble (Narrator)

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The Queen of Katwe: A Story of Life, Chess, and One Extraordinary Girl

Based on a popular ESPN Magazine article-optioned by Disney films, a finalist for a National Magazine Award and chosen by Dave Eggers for inclusion in Best American Nonrequired Reading 2011-the astonishing true story of Phiona Mutesi, a teenager from the slums of Kampala, Uganda, who-inspired by an unlikely mentor, a war refugee turned missionary-becomes an international chess champion. Phiona Mutesi sleeps in a decrepit shack with her mother and four siblings and struggles to find a single meal each day. Phiona has been in and out of school her whole life because her mother cannot afford it, so she is only now learning to read and write. Phiona Mutesi is also one of the best chess players in the world. One day in 2005, while searching for food, nine-year-old Phiona followed her brother to a dusty veranda where she met Robert Katende, another child of the Ugandan slums, who works for an American organization that offers relief and religion through sports. Robert introduced Phiona to the game of chess and soon recognized her immense talent. By the age of eleven Phiona was her country's junior chess champion and at fifteen, her country's national champion. In September of 2010 she traveled to Siberia, just her second time ever on an airplane, to compete in the Chess Olympiad, the world's most prestigious team chess event. Phiona's dream is to one day become a grandmaster, the most elite title in chess, and to blaze a trail out of Katwe that other children in Robert's chess community can follow. But to reach that goal, she must grapple with everyday life in one of the world's most unstable countries, a place where girls are taught to be mothers, not dreamers, and the threats of AIDS, kidnapping, and starvation loom over the people of Katwe. Acclaimed sports journalist Tim Crothers has written a riveting and inspiring account of one girl's improbable journey to becoming a chess champion. The Queen of Katwe will thrill every listener who loves a great underdog story.

Tim Crothers (Author), Robin Miles (Narrator)

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There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra

From the legendary author of Things Fall Apart comes a long-awaited memoir about coming of age with a fragile new nation, then watching it torn asunder in a tragic civil war. 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. By then, Chinua Achebe was already a world-renowned novelist, with a young family to protect. He took the Biafran side in the conflict and served his government as a roving cultural ambassador, from which vantage he absorbed the war's full horror. 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, addressing them only obliquely through his poetry. Now, decades in the making, comes a towering reckoning with one of modern Africa's most fateful events, from a writer whose words and courage have left an enduring stamp on world literature. Achebe masterfully relates his experience, both as he lived it and how he has come to understand it. He begins his story with Nigeria's birth pangs and the story of his own upbringing as a man and as a writer so that we might come to understand the country's promise, which turned to horror when the hot winds of hatred began to stir. To read There Was a Country is to be powerfully reminded that artists have a particular obligation, especially during a time of war. All writers, Achebe argues, should be committed writers - they should speak for their history, their beliefs, and their people. Marrying history and memoir, poetry and prose, There Was a Country is a distillation of vivid firsthand observation and 40 years of research and reflection. Wise, humane, and authoritative, it will stand as definitive and reinforce Achebe's place as one of the most vital literary and moral voices of our age. "1966", "Benin Road", "Penalty of Godhead", "Generation Gap", "Biafra, 1969", "A Mother in a Refugee Camp", "The First Shot", "Air Raid", "Mango Seedling", "We Laughed at Him", "Vultures", and "After a War" from Collected Poems by Chinua Achebe. Copyright 1971, 1973, 2004 by Chinua Achebe. Used by permission of Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc. and The Wylie Agency, LLC.

Chinua Achebe (Author), Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Narrator)

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How I Found Livingstone in Central Africa

This riveting history is a firsthand account of the long and arduous search for one of the greatest explorers of the nineteenth century. Journalist and adventurer Henry M. Stanley was known for his search for the legendary David Livingstone, and their eventual meeting led to the popular quotation "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" A real-life adventure story, How I Found Livingstone in Central Africa tells of the incredible hardships-disease, hostile natives, tribal warfare, impenetrable jungles, and other obstacles-faced by a daring explorer. This must-have account also includes a wealth of information on various African peoples.

Henry M. Stanley (Author), James Adams (Narrator)

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South Africa: History in an Hour

Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour.With the passing of Nelson Mandela, 'the father of the nation', comes the end of an era, and the moment to look back on his remarkable saving, and remaking, of South Africa. After years of oppression and racial inequality, concentrated violence and apartheid, Mandela led the country to unite 'for the freedom of us all' as the country's first black President.SOUTH AFRICA: HISTORY IN AN HOUR gives a lively account of the formation of modern South Africa, from the first contact with seventeenth-century European sailors, through the colonial era, the Boer Wars, apartheid and the establishment of a tolerant democracy in the late twentieth century. Here is a clear and fascinating overview of the emergence of the 'Rainbow Nation'.Know your stuff: read about South African history in just one hour.

Anthony Holmes (Author), Jonathan Keeble (Narrator)

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How I Found Livingstone in Central Africa

Henry M. Stanley (Author), James Adams (Narrator)

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Kaffir Boy: The True Story of a Black Youth's Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa

The classic story of life in apartheid South Africa. Mark Mathabane was weaned on devastating poverty and schooled in the cruel streets of South Africa's most desperate ghetto, where bloody gang wars and midnight police raids were his rites of passage. Like every other child born in the hopelessness of apartheid, he learned to measure his life in days, not years. Yet Mark Mathabane, armed only with the courage of his family and a hard-won education, raised himself up from the squalor and humiliation to win a scholarship to an American university. This extraordinary memoir of life under apartheid is a triumph of the human spirit over hatred and unspeakable degradation, for Mark Mathabane did what no physically and psychologically battered "Kaffir" from the rat-infested alleys of Alexandra was supposed to do-he escaped to tell about it. "Like...Claude Brown's Manchild in the Promised Land...In every way as important and exciting."-Washington Post

Mark Mathabane (Author), Mark Mathabane (Narrator)

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King Peggy

The charming real-life fairy tale of an American secretary who discovers she has been chosen king of an impoverished fishing village on the west coast of Africa. King Peggy has the sweetness and quirkiness of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series and the hopeful sense of possibility of Half the Sky. King Peggy chronicles the astonishing journey of an American secretary who suddenly finds herself king to a town of 7,000 souls on Ghana's central coast, half a world away. Upon arriving for her crowning ceremony in beautiful Otuam, she discovers the dire reality: there's no running water, no doctor, and no high school, and many of the village elders are stealing the town's funds. To make matters worse, her uncle (the late king) sits in a morgue awaiting a proper funeral in the royal palace, which is in ruins. The longer she waits to bury him, the more she risks incurring the wrath of her ancestors. Peggy's first two years as king of Otuam unfold in a way that is stranger than fiction. In the end, a deeply traditional African town has been uplifted by the ambitions of its headstrong, decidedly modern female king. And in changing Otuam, Peggy is herself transformed, from an ordinary secretary to the heart and hope of her community.

Eleanor Herman, Peggielene Bartels (Author), Eleanor Herman, J. Karen Thomas (Narrator)

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Explorers of the Nile: The Triumph and Tragedy of a Great Victorian Adventure

Tim Jeal (Author), Clive Chafer (Narrator)

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Mirror to the Church

We learn who we are as we walk together in the way of Jesus. So I want to invite you on a pilgrimage. Rwanda is often held up as a model of evangelization in Africa. Yet in 1994, beginning on the Thursday of Easter week, Christians killed other Christians, often in the same churches where they had worshiped together. The most Christianized country in Africa became the site of its worst genocide. With a mother who was a Hutu and a father who was a Tutsi, author Emmanuel Katongole is uniquely qualified to point out that the tragedy in Rwanda is also a mirror reflecting the deep brokenness of the church in the West. Rwanda brings us to a cry of lament on our knees where together we learn that we must interrupt these patterns of brokenness But Rwanda also brings us to a place of hope. Indeed, the only hope for our world after Rwanda's genocide is a new kind of Christian identity for the global body of Christ---a people on pilgrimage together, a mixed group, bearing witness to a new identity made possible by the Gospel.

Emmanuel M. Katongole, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (Author), Jonathan Petersen, Jonathan Peterson, Zondervan Publishing (Narrator)

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Africa Audiobooks in History