Best african literature history books according to redditors

And they weren't the first scholars of Islam. That's a terrible point.

Again, read up.

https://www.amazon.com/Written-Routledge-Studies-Eastern-Literatures/dp/0415394953

Palestine's Children

It helped me build empathy and shape the way I've viewed the conflict since. I highly recommend it.

I offer this text as a productive counter example of the OP's claim

Modernist studies has had a fair amount to say about boredom, the mundane, the everyday, etc. I'm not well-versed in this literature, but it's out there. One text that does come to mind, though, is Prose of the World: Modernism and the Banality of Empire, by Saikat Majumdar. It's maybe a little more niche than you're looking for, but you might browse its bibliography or read its introduction to get a feel for what's out there. Or you might just find it interesting in itself -- it does cover some heavy hitters like Joyce and Mansfield.

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.co.uk

amazon.ca

amazon.com.au

amazon.in

amazon.com.mx

amazon.de

amazon.it

amazon.es

amazon.com.br

amazon.nl

amazon.co.jp

amazon.fr

Beep bloop. I'm a bot to convert Amazon ebook links to local Amazon sites.
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http://www.amazon.co.uk/Development-as-Freedom-Amartya-Sen/dp/0192893300/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421402550&sr=1-1&keywords=development+as+freedom

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Globalization-Its-Discontents-Joseph-Stiglitz/dp/014101038X/ref=pd_sim_b_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=1ZRWJ8XME98XZNBDWXKF

http://www.amazon.co.uk/White-Mans-Burden-Efforts-Little/dp/0199226113/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421402498&sr=1-1&keywords=the+white+mans+burden

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Global-Economic-History-Introduction-Introductions/dp/0199596654/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421402576&sr=1-5&keywords=why+africa+is+poor

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Bottom-Billion-Poorest-Countries/dp/0195374630/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_y

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Tyranny-Experts-Economists-Dictators/dp/0465031250/ref=pd_sim_b_5?ie=UTF8&refRID=17T4V9R8T66RAVY46VXY

http://www.amazon.co.uk/AFRICA-Africa-developing-needs-develop-ebook/dp/B00NF29XD0/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421402576&sr=1-3&keywords=why+africa+is+poor

To build on that, the Epic of Askia Muhammad (the great king of Songhay, a couple centuries later) is now published in translation as well and is worth a read. If you have a chance to read one edition of Sundiata go for Son-Jara which has different tellings and annotations than Niane's now-half-century-old version. The djelis who convey the story change and highlight different elements depending on the audience, the intended lesson of the telling, and other issues that make it into a useable history. When we teach it, we also view Dani Kouyaté's Keita: L'Heritage du Griot and have the relevant sections of Ibn Battuta's visit to Suleiman ca. 1350 to talk about what the Epic says to us, what it means in the context of an eclectically Islamic society, why it's told and when--basically what the "reality" of the myth really entails. I'd second also the recommendation to explore folklore courses generally--even beyond Africa--but of course that is where my heart is as well.

Everything you describe are the modern political movements of Wahhabism and Salfism, funded almost entirely by Saudi Arabia in an attempt to spread their influence throughout the Islamic world. The ideology they espouse is fascistic and repulsive, but it has very little connection to the actual history of Islam. In fact, they were founded on the premise of sweeping away Islam's history and starting over. One of the first things the Wahhabis did when they took Mecca: destroy the actual tomb of the Prophet.


The people burning people alive count for less than 1 percent of the 1.5 billion Muslims in the world. You cannot use the present to make assumptions about history, that's absurd. If you focus on the current state of Baghdad, and make the assumption that it's always been like that, you never learn about the fact that, for a few centuries, it was the richest city in the world and home to a flourishing intellectual culture that hosted people from as far away as China. You never learn about the Islamic golden age, or the libraries of Muslim Spain which collectively held millions of books while the royal library of Paris contained a grand total of 92.

You never learn a damn thing.

And as far as what it does that makes people's lives better? Including producing some of the best poetry ever, written, by humans, Islam has a long tradition of feeding and caring for the poor by paying out Zakat. The real world examples of this far outweigh any violence done in the name of religion.

People misquote Marx on this all the time when they say "religion is the opium of the masses." The full quote is: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people"

Yup.

Try these for some info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C7%80Xam_language

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6WO5XabD-s

The amazon gives a very brief overview that the introduction of Song of the Broken String explains in greater detail, heres the amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Song-Broken-String-Bushmen-Poems-Tradition/dp/1878818430/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1501005356&sr=8-1&keywords=song+of+the+broken+string

Here is Watson's poem, Song of the Broken String, so you can get a feel for his repetition. The "/" is a line break.

Because/of a people,/because of others,/other people/who came/breaking/the string for me,/the earth/is not earth,/this place is/a place now/changed for me.

Because/the string is that which/has broken for me,/this earth/is no longer/the earth to me,/this place/seems no longer/a place to me.

Because/the string is broken,/the country feels/as if it lay/empty before me,/our country seems/as if it lay/both empty before me,/and dead before me.

This link tells a bit about Watson and the project too, for the reprinting of a poem in a book with art.

http://library.si.edu/exhibition/artists-books-and-africa/sound-thinking-strings-full

Watson died in 2011.

After Al Kitaab 1 we worked through the second Al Kitaab. Now I'm conversationally fluent, meet with a language partner once a week for an hour, and take a class about the media and news, all spoken in Arabic.

I also read Sayyidi wa Habibi by Hoda Barakat, which was a great level-appropriate novel after Al Kitaab 2.

I didn't forget about you and sorry it has taken me so long. All of my books turned out to be at my parents house... which I still havne't gotten over there to look. There was one in particular that I was trying to remember the name of.

I did however find two real base level introduction to new religious movements in America. It is like some others I read while studying religion awhile back.

• New Religious Movements: A Documentary Reader
  
• Cults and New Religions: A Brief History
  
  The second one seems to be more up your alley. I will also get you a list another list once I get to my parents house and look through all the old school books.
  
  Also, there are books that deal with some of the cult scares of the late 80s and early 90s. I can't remember the one I read and really enjoyed. But I do remember hearing this one was good- so I can't say from personal experience. However, despite it's title it is supposed to take a look at how satanist view themselves and debunk a few of the rumors on them.
  
  
• Satan Wants You: The Cult of Devil Worship in America
  
  Given the nature of what you are interested it may not be bad to go back to the beginnings of mystery cults(if only to give some perspective of how mystery cults began and how the psychology has changed):
  
  
• Greek Mysteries: The Archaeology of Ancient Greek Secret Cults
  
  I know it's not the list you were looking for, or the list I wanted to give, but maybe it will help. Again, I'll eventually get to look through my books and give you a more in-depth list.