Africa Audiobooks | Travel

This is an English audio version of the history of Busoga book originally published by Y. K. Lubogo in luganda and later translated to English and published by his grandson Isaac Christopher Lubogo. It provides a detailed analysis of the roots, aspirations and traditions of the people of Busoga since their birth to date.

Isaac Christopher Lubogo, Y K Lubogo (Author), Emmy Akello, Kissubo Mwajuma, Lydia Kisakye, Moses Kansiime (Narrator)

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The Golden Rhinoceros: Histories of the African Middle Ages

A leading historian reconstructs the forgotten history of medieval Africa. From the birth of Islam in the seventh century to the voyages of European exploration in the fifteenth, 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. Drawing on fragmented written sources as well as his many years of experience as an archaeologist, François-Xavier Fauvelle painstakingly reconstructs an African past that is too often denied its place in history-but no longer. He looks at ruined cities found in the mangrove, exquisite pieces of art, rare artifacts like the golden rhinoceros of Mapungubwe, ancient maps, and accounts left by geographers and travelers-remarkable discoveries that shed critical light on political and architectural achievements, trade, religious beliefs, diplomatic episodes, and individual lives.

François-Xavier Fauvelle (Author), Michael Page (Narrator)

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Sicily '43: The First Assault on Fortress Europe

Brought to you by Penguin. From the bestselling author of Normandy '44 comes a major new history of one of World War II's most crucial campaigns. Codenamed Operation HUSKY, the Allied assault on Sicily on 10 July 1943 remains the largest amphibious invasion ever mounted in world history, landing more men in a single day than at any other time. That day, over 160,000 British, American and Canadian troops were dropped from the sky or came ashore, more than on D-Day just under a year later. It was also preceded by an air campaign that marked a new direction and dominance of the skies by Allies. The subsequent thirty-eight-day Battle for Sicily was one of the most dramatic of the entire Second World War, involving daring raids by special forces, deals with the Mafia, attacks across mosquito-infested plains and perilous assaults up almost sheer faces of rock and scree. It was a brutal campaign - the violence was extreme, the heat unbearable, the stench of rotting corpses intense and all-pervasive, the problems of malaria, dysentery and other diseases a constant plague. And all while trying to fight a way across an island of limited infrastructure and unforgiving landscape, and against a German foe who would not give up. It also signalled the beginning of the end of the War in the West. From here on, Italy ceased to participate in the war, the noose began to close around the neck of Nazi Germany, and the coalition between the United States and Britain came of age. Most crucially, it would be a critical learning exercise before Operation OVERLORD, the Allied invasion of Normandy, in June 1944. Based on his own battlefield studies in Sicily and on much new research over the past thirty years, James Holland's SICILY '43 offers a vital new perspective on a major turning point in World War II. It is a timely, powerful and dramatic account by a master military historian and will fill a major gap in the narrative history of the Second World War. © James Holland 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

James Holland (Author), Al Murray (Narrator)

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Liberia & the Quest for Freedom: The Half That’s Never Been Told

Africa’s past and present are deeply influence by the capture and selling of millions of its people over several centuries. To a greater extent, that is true for Liberia, a country to which blacks from the Americas returned. Like Liberia’s recent civil war, the trans-Atlantic slave trade inflicted pains, traumas and losses that cannot be ignored out of existence. Driven beneath the surface, they corrode our conscience and erode our humanity. By pretending they did not happen, we destroy our ability to tell right from wrong, victims from villains. Echoes of the slavery era can be heard in the derogatory names we call each other like “Gio,” “Belle,” and “ex-slaves.” Liberians living today are called upon to build peace by doing away with relations of great inequality. They have no better examples than the first generation of Liberians, both repatriates and indigenous, who worked together to do just that.

C. Patrick Burrowes (Author), C. Patrick Burrowes (Narrator)

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African Mythology: Culture, History, and Mythological Folklore

The Africans have a long history, although not everything has been preserved in writing. And many folklore stories have been passed on through generations. The African tribes vary as much as the colors of the rainbow. It is for these reasons, and entertainment as well, that this book has been put together. It entails several mythological tales that refer to African gods, creatures, and entities. Some of these have morals. Others are symbolic of one thing or another. All in all, this is a short but fun and intriguing book about African culture and ancient religions from that region.

James Rooks (Author), Brandon Sukhu (Narrator)

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Kingdom of Kush: The Civilization of Ancient Nubia

The Kingdom of Kush and the ancient Nubian civilization, in general, are important not only for their achievements but also for what these achievements represent in the abstract. The existence of such civilizations challenges many traditional, Eurocentric views of the world and its history. Of course, ancient Egypt is impressive enough on its own, but Nubia is even further south and further away from European influence and, in that sense, more African. Neighboring Ethiopia and numerous other locales in Africa were home to other civilizations that have seen their share of success too, so Nubia and its Kingdom of Kush are not alone in that sense. Overall, Africa is a fascinating place to study from the standpoint of scholars from all sorts of backgrounds and sciences. After all, Africa is where mankind originates, so its heritage is something that's important for all of humanity to study.

History Titans (Author), Doug Mcdonald (Narrator)

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African Mythology: Folklore, Creatures, and Myths from Africa

The extensive history of Africa provides us with a topic of curiosity and novelty. For this reason, this guide has been composed to help you understand some of the cultural anecdotes as well as the religious and traditional tales that have been told to previous generations. When we dive into some background information, you will have a better grasp of the context of the four intense stories that follow. Enjoy this short, simple yet profound compilation of African myths.

James Rooks (Author), Brandon Sukhu (Narrator)

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Dictatorland

A vivid, heartbreaking portrait of the fate that so many African countries suffered after independence. The dictator who grew so rich on his country's cocoa crop that he built a 35-storey-high basilica in the jungles of the Ivory Coast. The austere, incorruptible leader who has shut Eritrea off from the world in a permanent state of war and conscripted every adult into the armed forces. In Equatorial Guinea, the paranoid despot who thought Hitler was the saviour of Africa and waged a relentless campaign of terror against his own people. The Libyan army officer who authored a new work of political philosophy, The Green Book, and lived in a tent with a harem of female soldiers, running his country like a mafia family business. And behind these almost incredible stories of fantastic violence and excess lie the dark secrets of Western greed and complicity, the insatiable taste for chocolate, oil, diamonds and gold that has encouraged dictators to rule with an iron hand, siphoning off their share of the action into mansions in Paris and banks in Zurich and keeping their people in dire poverty. "A breathtaking account ... Paul Kenyon is a brilliant writer who's been there and tells a story of unparalleled greed and western complicity in vivid detail" MICHAEL BUERK "It is [the] minute observations that make Mr Kenyon's book so hard to put down" ECONOMIST "Highly readable ... A chapter on the rise of Félix Houphouët-Boigny is especially vivid" THE TIMES "Well written and sensibly structured ... Some of the most revealing passages are based on interviews with retired expatriate executives and diplomats who were witness to the excesses of the early post-colonial years" THE SUNDAY TIMES "Kenyon's stories of corruption and excess are truly compelling, while his analysis of the West's motivations is astute and illuminating" CULTURE TRIP "A jaw-dropping tale of greed, corruption and brutality" DAILY EXPRESS "A heart-breaking and stomach-churning history but also an utterly absorbing one ... Kenyon blends in gripping, authenticating first-hand testimonies from those who were behind the carnage and corruption ... This book shines a vital light on how Africa was robbed 'in broad daylight'" --UAE NATIONAL "A humane, timely, accessible and well-researched book that shines a light on urgent African issues [...] that, when we consider the state of our own societies, can no longer be dismissed as merely somewhere else's problem" IRISH TIMES "The stories it tells of dictators such as Robert Mugabe and Muammer Gaddafi are grimly fascinating and leave the reader to ponder why so many of Africa's liberation heroes turned into villains" FINANCIAL TIMES

Paul Kenyon (Author), Hamilton Mcleod (Narrator)

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Bush War Operator: Memoirs of the Rhodesian Light Infantry, Selous Scouts and beyond

Anyone living in Rhodesia during the 1960s and 1970s would have had a father, husband, brother or son called up in the defense of the war-torn, landlocked little country. A few of these brave men would have been members of the elite and secretive unit that struck terror into the hearts of the ZANLA and ZIPRA guerrillas infiltrating the country at that time-the Selous Scouts. Twice decorated-with the Member of the Legion of Merit (MLM) and the Military Forces' Commendation (MFC)-Andrew Balaam was a member of the Rhodesian Light Infantry and later the Selous Scouts, for a period spanning twelve years. This is his honest and insightful account of his time as a pseudo operator. In later years, after Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, he was involved with a number of other former Selous Scouts in the attempted coups in the Ciskei, a South African homeland, and Lesotho, an independent nation, whose only crimes were supporting the African National Congress. Training terrorists, or as they preferred to be called, 'liberation armies', to conduct a war of terror on innocent civilians, was the very thing he had spent the last ten years in Rhodesia fighting against. This is the true, untold story of these failed attempts at governmental overthrows.

A.J. Balaam (Author), Dennis Kleinman (Narrator)

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Our Gigantic Zoo: A German Quest to Save the Serengeti

How did the Seregenti become an internationally renowned African conservation site and one of the most iconic destinations for a safari? In this book, Thomas M. Lekan illuminates the controversial origins of this national park by examining how Europe's greatest wildlife conservationist, Bernhard Grzimek, popularized it as a global destination. In the 1950s, Grimzek and his son Michael began a quest to save the Serengeti from modernization by remaking an imperial game reserve into a gigantic zoo for the earth's last great mammals. Grzimek, well-known to German audiences through his long-running television program, A Place for Animals, used the film Seregenti Shall Not Die to convince ordinary Europeans that they could save nature. Yet their message sidestepped the uncomfortable legacies of German colonial exploitation in the region that had endangered animals and excluded local people. After independence, Grzimek raised funds, brokered diplomatic favors, and convinced German tourists to book travel packages-all to persuade Tanzanian leader Julius Nyerere that wildlife would fuel the young nation's economic development. Grzimek helped Tanzania to create almost a dozen new national parks by 1975, but wooing tourists conflicted with rights of the Maasai and other African communities to inhabit the landscape on their own terms.

Thomas M. Lekan (Author), Michael Page (Narrator)

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The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World – and Globalization Began

Brought to you by Penguin. When did globalization begin? Most observers have settled on 1492, the year Columbus discovered America. But as celebrated Yale professor Valerie Hansen shows, it was the year 1000, when for the first time new trade routes linked the entire globe, so an object could in theory circumnavigate the world. This was the 'big bang' of globalization, which ushered in a new era of exploration and trade, and which paved the way for Europeans to dominate after Columbus reached America. Drawing on a wide range of new historical sources and cutting-edge archaeology, Hansen shows, for example, that the Maya began to trade with the native peoples of modern New Mexico from traces of theobromine - the chemical signature of chocolate - and that frozen textiles found in Greenland contain hairs from animals that could only have come from North America. Introducing players from Europe, the Islamic world, Asia, the Indian Ocean maritime world, the Pacific and the Mayan world who were connecting the major landmasses for the first time, this compelling revisionist argument shows how these encounters set the stage for the globalization that would dominate the world for centuries to come. ©Valerie Hansen 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Valerie Hansen (Author), Cynthia Farrell (Narrator)

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Battle of Zama, The: The History of the Battle Between Rome and Carthage that Decided the Second Pun

It is rare to find a single battle that is truly decisive in shaping the course of subsequent history, but occasionally a battle becomes pivotal in retrospect, defining and shaping what comes after it. The Battle of Zama, which pitted the army of the Roman Republic against the forces of Carthage on the plains of North Africa, was one such battle, and it featured two of history’s greatest generals on opposing sides. Fought between two empires fighting for hegemony in the Mediterranean and beyond, the victor would become the most important power in the region and dominate the civilized world for centuries, while the loser would decline in power and vanish almost completely in less than 100 years. Carthage was one of the great ancient civilizations, and at its peak, the wealthy Carthaginian empire dominated the Mediterranean against the likes of Greece and Rome, with commercial enterprises and influence stretching from Spain to Turkey. In fact, at several points in history it had a very real chance of replacing the fledgling Roman empire or the failing Greek poleis (city-states) altogether as master of the Mediterranean. Although Carthage by far preferred to exert economic pressure and influence before resorting to direct military power (and even went so far as to rely primarily on mercenary armies paid with its vast wealth for much of its history, it nonetheless produced a number of outstanding generals, from the likes of Hanno Magnus to, of course, the great bogeyman of Roman nightmares himself: Hannibal.

Charles River Editors (Author), Daniel Houle (Narrator)

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Africa Audiobooks in Travel