Best west african history books according to redditors

We found 40 Reddit comments discussing the best west african history books. We ranked the 20 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.

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Top Reddit comments about West African History:

u/Prettygame4Ausername · 792 pointsr/ChapoTrapHouse
  1. He vaccinated 2.5 million children against meningitis, yellow fever and measles in a matter of weeks

  2. He initiated a nation-wide literacy campaign, increasing the literacy rate from 13% in 1983 to 73% in 1987.

  3. He planted over 10 million trees to prevent desertification
  4. He built roads and a railway to tie the nation together, without foreign aid

  5. He appointed females to high governmental positions, encouraged them to work, recruited them into the military, and granted pregnancy leave during education

  6. He outlawed female genital mutilation, forced marriages and polygamy in support of Women’s rights

  7. He sold off the government fleet of Mercedes cars and made the Renault 5 (the cheapest car sold in Burkina Faso at that time) the official service car of the ministers.

  8. He reduced the salaries of all public servants, including his own, and forbade the use of government chauffeurs and 1st class airline tickets.

  9. He redistributed land from the feudal landlords and gave it directly to the peasants. Wheat production rose in three years from 1700 kg per hectare to 3800 kg per hectare, making the country food self-sufficient

    And again

  10. He opposed foreign aid, saying that “he who feeds you, controls you.”

  11. He spoke in forums like the Organization of African Unity against continued neo-colonialist penetration of Africa through Western trade and finance.

  12. He called for a united front of African nations to repudiate their foreign debt. He argued that the poor and exploited did not have an obligation to repay money to the rich and exploiting In Ouagadougou, Sankara converted the army’s provisioning store into a state-owned supermarket open to everyone (the first supermarket in the country).

  13. H[e forced civil servants to pay one month’s salary to public projects](In Ouagadougou, Sankara converted the army's provisioning store into a state-owned supermarket open to everyone (the first supermarket in the country).)

  14. He refused to use the air conditioning in his office on the grounds that such luxury was not available to anyone but a handful of Burkinabes

  15. As President, he lowered his salary to $450 a month and limited his possessions to a car, four bikes, three guitars, a fridge and a broken freezer

  16. A motorcyclist himself, he formed an all-women motorcycle personal guard.

  17. He required public servants to wear a traditional tunic, woven from Burkinabe cotton and sewn by Burkinabe craftsmen. (The reason being to rely upon local industry and identity rather than foreign industry and identity)

  18. When asked why he didn’t want his portrait hung in public places, as was the norm for other African leaders, Sankara replied “There are seven million Thomas Sankaras.”

  19. An accomplished guitarist, he wrote the new national anthem himself

  20. He renamed his country from the derogatory " Upper volta " to " Burkina Faso, The Land Of Upright Man"

  21. His foreign policies were centred on anti-imperialism, with his government eschewing all foreign aid, pushing for odious debt reduction, nationalising all land and mineral wealth and averting the power and influence of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.

  22. Sankara's administration was the first African government to publicly recognize the AIDS epidemic as a major threat to Africa

  23. Large-scale housing and infrastructure projects were also undertaken. Brick factories were created to help build houses in effort to end urban slums

  24. In Ouagadougou, Sankara converted the army's provisioning store into a state-owned supermarket open to everyone (the first supermarket in the country)



    He led one of the most ambitious programs of sweeping reforms ever seen in Africa It sought to fundamentally reverse the structural social inequities inherited from the French colonial order.

    These inequities left a majority of marginalized, mostly rural, poor and women, at the bottom of society, often under the exploitation of a minority of bureaucrats, businessmen, military officers and traditional chiefs. Sankara focused the state’s limited resources on the marginalized majority in the countryside. When most African countries depended on imported food and external assistance for development, Sankara championed local production and the consumption of locally-made goods. He firmly believed that it was possible for the Burkinabè, with hard work and collective social mobilization, to solve their problems: chiefly scarce food and drinking water.
    In Sankara’s Burkina, no one was above farm work, or graveling roads–not even the president, government ministers or army officers. Intellectual and civic education were systematically integrated with military training and soldiers were required to work in local community development projects.

    According to Ernest Harsch, author of a recent biography of Sankara, Burkinabe built for the first time scores of schools, health centers, water reservoirs, and nearly 100 km of rail, with little or no external assistance. Total cereal production rose by 75% between 1983 and 1986. In 1984, his government, defying skepticism from the donor agencies, organized the vaccination of 2 million children in a little over two weeks. He also championed environmental conservation with tree-planting campaigns and greening projects.

    His informal style of leadership was in a league of its own. Harsch quotes a former aide describing Sankara as “an idealist, demanding, rigorous, an organizer.” This discipline and seriousness started with himself. He had been first among top leadership to voluntary declare his modest assets and hand over to the treasury cash and gifts received during trips. Harsch quotes family members as saying that Sankara told them not to expect any benefits from him because he is president. In fact, by the time of his death, his kids attended the same public school, his wife was reporting to the same civil servant job, and his parents lived in the same house.

    Sankara disdained formal pomp and banned any cult of his personality. He could be seen casually walking the streets, jogging or conspicuously slipping into the crowd at a public event. He was a rousing orator who spoke with uncommon candor and clarity and did not hesitate to publicly admit mistakes, chastise comrades or express moral objections to heads of powerful nations, even if it imperiled him. For example, he famously criticized French president François Mitterand during a state dinner for hosting the leader of Apartheid South Africa.


    Books by Sankara:

    We are the heirs of the world's revolution

    Women's liberation and the African freedom struggle

    Thomas Sankara Speaks

    A quote from the book - " Our country produces enough to feed us all. Alas, for lack of organization, we are forced to beg for food aid. It’s this aid that instills in our spirits the attitude of beggars. " -Thomas Sankara

    " The revolution and women’s liberation go together. We do not talk of women’s emancipation as an act of charity or because of a surge of human compassion. It is a basic necessity for the triumph of the revolution. Women hold up the other half of the sky. " - Thomas Sankara.

    Sankara is often referred to as "Africa's Che Guevara." Sankara gave a speech marking and honoring the 20th anniversary of Che Guevara's 9 October 1967 execution, one week before his own assassination on 15 October 1987
u/5_Frog_Margin · 104 pointsr/PropagandaPosters

Any country that produces 'General Butt Naked' is bound to have an interesting history. i was there not long after the end of their last Civil War, when many of the atrocities were fresh in people minds. I devoured every book i could find on the subject, and General Butt Naked (who i was acquainted with) gave me a copy of his own (self-published) auto-biography.

I can guarantee, you will find no country on earth with a weirder history than Liberia. If you're truly interested, I'd recommend Another America for the history and The Mask Of Anarchy for a full on treatment of the craziness that was Liberia's civil War.

u/Rimbosity · 24 pointsr/AskHistorians

I garnered some insight into this from the book Twelve Desperate Miles, about the SS Contessa, a banana boat that was drafted into the USA's initial charge into North Africa, author Tim Brady spends some time discussing why the USA was going into North Africa in the first place, rather than a direct charge into Europe, and disagreement with Britain about how the war would be waged was a big part of that reason.

On top of that, the book describes in detail the initial Vichy France military members who were defeated. There was some doubt as to whether or not the military would remain loyal to Vichy France, or if they would choose to fight. It seems there was good reason for doubt, as the captured military forces themselves were split; some choosing to continue to fight, others choosing to switch sides.

The phrase "unnecessary costs" that you use assumes a certain point of view, that all of the Allies had the exact same goals when, as always has been and always shall be, they each had different goals, things they wanted from the defeat of Germany, and old rivalries to boot. Prior to WW2, Americans saw the English as stuffy and foppish; however, during the war, American correspondents reporting from England as the Blitz happened (see also Cronkite's War exposed Americans to an entirely different side of the English, the stout-hearted, "stiff-upper-lip during rough times" image.

u/Orgy_In_The_Moonbase · 20 pointsr/MapPorn

Piggybacking to link these.

Thomas Sankara's speech before the UN General Assembly Link to text

------

Good books by Sankara or containing speeches/essays by him:

Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle Amazon link

Thomas Sankara Speaks: The Burkina Faso Revolution 1983-1987 Amazon link

We Are Heirs of the World's Revolutions Amazon link

Essential additions to any Marxist-Leninist's library, or in general the library of any lover of freedom and humanity.

u/Swordsmanus · 9 pointsr/slatestarcodex

Aside from the potential for sampling bias and a Simpson's Paradox with immigrants from a given country vs. the average of their native country (like, say Indian immigrants to the US), the Igbo, Lemba, and a few other tribes are Jewish, culturally and/or genetically to some extent. See Y Chromosomes Traveling South: The Cohen Modal Haplotype and the Origins of the Lemba—the “Black Jews of Southern Africa” (2000)

>A previous study using Y-chromosome markers suggested both a Bantu and a Semitic contribution to the Lemba gene pool, a suggestion that is not inconsistent with Lemba oral tradition. To provide a more detailed picture of the Lemba paternal genetic heritage, we analyzed 399 Y chromosomes for six microsatellites and six biallelic markers in six populations (Lemba, Bantu, Yemeni-Hadramaut, Yemeni-Sena, Sephardic Jews, and Ashkenazic Jews). The high resolution afforded by the markers shows that Lemba Y chromosomes are clearly divided into Semitic and Bantu clades.
>
>Interestingly, one of the Lemba clans carries, at a very high frequency, a particular Y-chromosome type termed the “Cohen modal haplotype,” which is known to be characteristic of the paternally inherited Jewish priesthood and is thought, more generally, to be a potential signature haplotype of Judaic origin.

Genetics has advanced quite a bit since 2000, but I couldn't find any more recent studies on the matter.

Also see The Igbos and Israel: An Inter-Cultural Study of the Largest Jewish Diaspora.

u/MadMudkip14 · 8 pointsr/AskHistorians

Just two cents from a history master's student. Reddit is great, but not nearly as rewarding as reading books, journals, articles, and actually supporting the historians who make kickass discoveries. Unfortunately, many of these people are slow to come to the online world and on the other end, people on this subreddit don't always realize history can be dynamic.
For example, for centuries Catarina Corner the last queen of the Isle of Cyprus was depicted as an atractive humble quiet woman, who out of love and patriotic duty to her home Venice, happily turned control of the isle over. Dr. Holy Hurlburt of NC State published a book recently with substantial evidence that Corner was not super attractive, and may have nearly betrayed Venice by marrying Spaniards to hold onto her throne, and even after used her former position for political favors for her friends.
Or Dr. Micheal Gomez recent work on Medieval West Africa, which challenges the historiography of what agency and how much power African civilizations of Mali and Songhai had. In it, Gomez argues Mali was not just a regional, but global power looking to participate in global political religous and economic spheres.
History is factual, but that doesn't mean its simply a collection of truths. Historians could certainly improve their mediums and online presence, but we should meet them halfway too. Reach out to your local universities to see if there is any expertise, most are happy to help and their email is often published online.
Daughter of Venice by Holly Hurlburt
https://www.amazon.com/Daughter-Venice-Caterina-Corner-Renaissance/dp/030020972X
African Dominion by Micheal Gomez
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073RSVFYF/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

u/CommunismOrBarbarism · 7 pointsr/DebateCommunism

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_09_21.htm

https://www.amazon.com/Womens-Liberation-African-Freedom-Struggle/dp/0873489888

https://www.marxists.org/subject/china/peking-review/1974/PR1974-10b.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Leftrgpz9Jw

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/goldman/works/1906/tragedy-women.htm

"The revolution and women’s liberation go together. We do not talk of women’s emancipation as an act of charity or out of a surge of human compassion. It is a basic necessity for the revolution to triumph" - Sankara

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/nov/19.htm

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/apr/27.htm

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/nov/06.htm - "Down with this fraud! Down with the liars who are talking of freedom and equality for all, while there is an oppressed sex, while there are oppressor classes"

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/

literally what.

u/Luv-Bugg · 4 pointsr/gatekeeping

Communists are good. Exhibit A. Thomas Sankara

  1. He vaccinated 2.5 million children against meningitis, yellow fever and measles in a matter of weeks

  2. He initiated a nation-wide literacy campaign, increasing the literacy rate from 13% in 1983 to 73% in 1987.

  3. He planted over 10 million trees to prevent desertification
  4. He built roads and a railway to tie the nation together, without foreign aid

  5. He appointed females to high governmental positions, encouraged them to work, recruited them into the military, and granted pregnancy leave during education

  6. He outlawed female genital mutilation, forced marriages and polygamy in support of Women’s rights

  7. He sold off the government fleet of Mercedes cars and made the Renault 5 (the cheapest car sold in Burkina Faso at that time) the official service car of the ministers.

  8. He reduced the salaries of all public servants, including his own, and forbade the use of government chauffeurs and 1st class airline tickets.

  9. He redistributed land from the feudal landlords and gave it directly to the peasants. Wheat production rose in three years from 1700 kg per hectare to 3800 kg per hectare, making the country food self-sufficient

    And again

  10. He opposed foreign aid, saying that “he who feeds you, controls you.”

  11. He spoke in forums like the Organization of African Unity against continued neo-colonialist penetration of Africa through Western trade and finance.

  12. He called for a united front of African nations to repudiate their foreign debt. He argued that the poor and exploited did not have an obligation to repay money to the rich and exploiting In Ouagadougou, Sankara converted the army’s provisioning store into a state-owned supermarket open to everyone (the first supermarket in the country).

  13. H[e forced civil servants to pay one month’s salary to public projects](In Ouagadougou, Sankara converted the army's provisioning store into a state-owned supermarket open to everyone (the first supermarket in the country).)

  14. He refused to use the air conditioning in his office on the grounds that such luxury was not available to anyone but a handful of Burkinabes

  15. As President, he lowered his salary to $450 a month and limited his possessions to a car, four bikes, three guitars, a fridge and a broken freezer

  16. A motorcyclist himself, he formed an all-women motorcycle personal guard.

  17. He required public servants to wear a traditional tunic, woven from Burkinabe cotton and sewn by Burkinabe craftsmen. (The reason being to rely upon local industry and identity rather than foreign industry and identity)

  18. When asked why he didn’t want his portrait hung in public places, as was the norm for other African leaders, Sankara replied “There are seven million Thomas Sankaras.”

  19. An accomplished guitarist, he wrote the new national anthem himself

  20. He renamed his country from the derogatory " Upper volta " to " Burkina Faso, The Land Of Upright Man"

  21. His foreign policies were centred on anti-imperialism, with his government eschewing all foreign aid, pushing for odious debt reduction, nationalising all land and mineral wealth and averting the power and influence of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.

  22. Sankara's administration was the first African government to publicly recognize the AIDS epidemic as a major threat to Africa

  23. Large-scale housing and infrastructure projects were also undertaken. Brick factories were created to help build houses in effort to end urban slums

  24. In Ouagadougou, Sankara converted the army's provisioning store into a state-owned supermarket open to everyone (the first supermarket in the country)



    He led one of the most ambitious programs of sweeping reforms ever seen in Africa It sought to fundamentally reverse the structural social inequities inherited from the French colonial order.

    These inequities left a majority of marginalized, mostly rural, poor and women, at the bottom of society, often under the exploitation of a minority of bureaucrats, businessmen, military officers and traditional chiefs. Sankara focused the state’s limited resources on the marginalized majority in the countryside. When most African countries depended on imported food and external assistance for development, Sankara championed local production and the consumption of locally-made goods. He firmly believed that it was possible for the Burkinabè, with hard work and collective social mobilization, to solve their problems: chiefly scarce food and drinking water.
    In Sankara’s Burkina, no one was above farm work, or graveling roads–not even the president, government ministers or army officers. Intellectual and civic education were systematically integrated with military training and soldiers were required to work in local community development projects.

    According to Ernest Harsch, author of a recent biography of Sankara, Burkinabe built for the first time scores of schools, health centers, water reservoirs, and nearly 100 km of rail, with little or no external assistance. Total cereal production rose by 75% between 1983 and 1986. In 1984, his government, defying skepticism from the donor agencies, organized the vaccination of 2 million children in a little over two weeks. He also championed environmental conservation with tree-planting campaigns and greening projects.

    His informal style of leadership was in a league of its own. Harsch quotes a former aide describing Sankara as “an idealist, demanding, rigorous, an organizer.” This discipline and seriousness started with himself. He had been first among top leadership to voluntary declare his modest assets and hand over to the treasury cash and gifts received during trips. Harsch quotes family members as saying that Sankara told them not to expect any benefits from him because he is president. In fact, by the time of his death, his kids attended the same public school, his wife was reporting to the same civil servant job, and his parents lived in the same house.

    Sankara disdained formal pomp and banned any cult of his personality. He could be seen casually walking the streets, jogging or conspicuously slipping into the crowd at a public event. He was a rousing orator who spoke with uncommon candor and clarity and did not hesitate to publicly admit mistakes, chastise comrades or express moral objections to heads of powerful nations, even if it imperiled him. For example, he famously criticized French president François Mitterand during a state dinner for hosting the leader of Apartheid South Africa.


    Books by Sankara:

    We are the heirs of the world's revolution

    Women's liberation and the African freedom struggle

    Thomas Sankara Speaks

    A quote from the book - " Our country produces enough to feed us all. Alas, for lack of organization, we are forced to beg for food aid. It’s this aid that instills in our spirits the attitude of beggars. " -Thomas Sankara

    " The revolution and women’s liberation go together. We do not talk of women’s emancipation as an act of charity or because of a surge of human compassion. It is a basic necessity for the triumph of the revolution. Women hold up the other half of the sky. " - Thomas Sankara.

    Sankara is often referred to as "Africa's Che Guevara." Sankara gave a speech marking and honoring the 20th anniversary of Che Guevara's 9 October 1967 execution, one week before his own assassination on 15 October 1987
u/Adahn5 · 4 pointsr/CommunismWorldwide

No one is blasting you my friend x3 Don't worry. You'll never get your head bitten off or your ass chewed out for not knowing something. Especially if it's not your fault for not knowing it. You can read a tiny bit on the wiki article on Thomas Sankara.

But yes, he wrote a great deal on Women's Liberation. Among other things, of course. They called him the Che Guevara of Africa.

Also this YouTube video might help :3

u/SheltererOfCats · 3 pointsr/chomsky

I can't say the following writers are similar to Chomsky but they are a part of the popular dissident movement as I know it. The narrative they write from is what they all have in common. Think colonialism and Euro-centrism (and calling it out.)

The Colonizer's Model of the World by J.M. Blaut changed how I viewed America and Europe's relationship with the "third world" and illustrated the doublethink required to be a consumer.

From Colonizer's you can learn about people like Samir Amin is a vocal opponent of Capitalism and globalism. Here are enough of his books to keep you busy for awhile.

Also from Colonizer's is Amilcar Cabral, an African nationalist that fomented (is that the right word?) an open revolution to get Belgium Portuguese out of Guinea Bissau using only local resources. It took years. He won. He was assassinated shortly after being elected. A necessary evil you could say because we need cheap rubber for our cars. Another example of true democracy being cut short practically the moment it existed by guess who? If you go to a library you can get reviews of his book on JSTOR which can be helpful. He wrote Unity and Struggle and there are PDFs of that work floating around. He showed you can beat imperialism with a coordinated effort, like everyone has to take part and the middle class must commit suicide as a class in order for all to succeed.

If J.M. Blaut, Samir Amin and Amilcar Cabral aren't enough to keep you busy look up Naomi Klein and again, her books and films are available to both purchase and steal on most popula torrent sites.

Also I can't recommend http://historyisaweapon.com/ enough. I'm just finishing the entire site for the first time. There are many typos on the site so the second time I read through it I'm going to compile a list of grammatical and punctuation errors. OCR is like that. "I'm doing my part" (Starship Troopers and irony)

EDIT: Wrong colonizing country. Not Belgium, Portugal.

u/SurroundedByAHoles · 3 pointsr/AskHistory

I'm actually reading this right now: https://www.amazon.com/Fall-Ottomans-Great-Middle-East/dp/046502307X

Basically, as with the rest of the causes of WWI, they had several reasons stemming from their pre-existing relationships with the other major powers of Europe. Essentially, the British treated them poorly in several terrible trade deals, maybe the worst ever. They had border disputes with Russia, and they had just ended a war with Italy. On the other hand, they had a very good relationship with Germany, and Austria agreed to carve up part of the Balkans and assured that Turkey would get back lots of territory they lost there in previous conflicts. That's the very condensed version, but it should be noted that not everyone in the Ottoman Empire liked entering the war, regardless of which side, particularly the Arab provinces in Mesopotamia.

u/I_like_the_word_MUFF · 2 pointsr/PropagandaPosters

I was asked for sources last night I an am returning with some that I hope will get you started on your love of both forensic anthropology (who doesn't love dead bodies and good stories? right?!) and social sciences. I mean, humans--we're crazy, fam!

For u/fireballs619 , u/Jack_Ramsey , u/DawdlingDaily, u/F-this,

Thanks to u/GirlWhoCried_BadWolf and u/fascinatedCat for making me laugh <3

​

To start, the book that sparked a lot of Forensic Osteologist's careers is The Bone Woman, by Clea Koff and unfortunately I haven't been able to find it in straight PDF. It's cheap and a quick but riveting read. A great autobiography of what it's like to be a modern osteologist, why the work is important, what we know, how we know it and how that looks in the modern world. She worked uncovering mass graves from the genocide in Rowanda and Kosovo.

And here is a good paper on Forensic Anthropology (osteology) on how one goes about figuring out the gender, age, stature, geographical lineage and perhaps identifying the remains of a person. As you can see, there are calculations, but also one admits that human variation is often beyond the ability to calculate on a spreadsheet.

​

(late add) I forgot to add something on wear patterns and how we can tell and how we can't tell what a person or group of people's specialized labor was. This paper should break that down as it talks about techniques. Tracing Patterns of Activity in the Human Skeleton: An Overview of Methods, Problems, and Limits (You may need to sign up but the paper itself is free)

​

Next I wanted to take some time and really talk to some of the people who may be confused about why they're positive that there was gender hierarchy in labor (one more important than the other) throughout history with men being more important than women. Listen, everyone, you're not wrong...you're just also not completely right either. You have to look at human culture on more than just a single timeline (x). You also have different geographical/ecological challenges for each culture that effect the way they look (y). You also have economy, be it agricultural, industrial, gather/hunter (note we are now putting gather in front, for those of you who haven't been paying attention because gathering produced more calories per work hour), horticulturalist, nomadic animal husbandry..etc...(z). Actually, I can keep adding axis after axis of important parts of human culture all the way through the alphabet. Now if you visualize in your mind these axis defining each culture you would see, each one unique but also grouped, somewhat similar with others. However, they'll be a whole host of cultures that look nothing like that. So it's hard to be universal about things. Moreover, some of y'all are working on old and often slightly discredited information. Turns out, the pillars of our big social sciences, the guys who wrote it first--were kinda racist and misogynist. I know SHOCKING!!! Their science may not be completely wrong, but sometimes those -isms kept them from asking the right questions and often, they used a lot of assumptions we now know are wrong. So, yes, you can quote research or books or seen movies about some anthropologist somewhere saying something about gender hierarchy in labor, but how old is it? Whose research is the author using? Are they asking the important questions? Just like technology, social sciences have moved fast and if you are interested, you need to keep up. (btw, can we start pushing for more updated text books?) Here's a link on the ways in which women, asking the questions, are changing the face in which we see human history and culture. Gender, Households, and Society: An Introduction Elizabeth M. Brumfiel Cynthia Robin

​

Domesticating gender: Neolithic patterns from the southern Levant, Jane Peterson is a great paper, (also given freely by the author which we should all say THANK YOU for), that not only looks at a pretty significant period of time but more importantly Peterson writes a lot about why the questions we ask about gender are often misguided by modern gender assumptions. "Abstract: This paper examines the extant evidence regarding gender reconstructions and relations for the Neolithicof the southern Levant of southwest Asia. Data from human skeletal remains, mortuary contexts, architecture, and figurative art provide the empirical bases for a broad assessment of gender in the realms of productive labor, social organization, and ideology. Overall, little evidence is found to support that Neo-lithic societies in this region were organized hierarchically in terms of gender. "

​

Here's some meat and potatoes for ya: "Abstract: ... Interlimb strength proportions among Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Iron Age women were most similar to those of living semi-elite rowers. These results suggest that, in contrast to men, rigorous manual labor was a more important component of prehistoric women’s behavior than was terrestrial mobility through thousands of years of European agriculture, at levels far exceeding those of modern women..." Prehistoric women’s manual labor exceeded that of athletes through the first 5500 years of farming in Central Europe Alison A. Macintosh, Ron Pinhasi, and Jay T. Stock

​

and one last paper that narrows down these concepts into very specific research by the same authors above. Abstract: The Bronze Age to Iron Age transition was associated with morphological change among females, with a significant increase in right-biased asymmetry and a concomitant reduction in sexual dimorphism. Relative to biomechanical properties, humeral length variation and asymmetry were low though some significant sexual dimorphism and temporal change was found. It was among females that the lateralization of humeral biomechanical properties, and variation within them, changed most profoundly through time. This suggests that the introduction of the ard and plow, metallurgical innovation, task specialization, and socioeconomic change through ∼ 5400 years of agriculture impacted upper limb loading in Central European women to a greater extent than men Divergence in male and female manipulative behaviors with the intensification of metallurgy in Central Europe. Macintosh , Pinhasi Stock J

​

Forensic Anthropology/Osteology is a pretty complicated place and I wanted to give a similar to similar research that tells a story. That is, of course, different from, let's say New World transitioning cultures who may have invented different farming techniques (they did) and so their labor divisions and wear patterns look different. This should give you a really round idea of what they do, from broad theory to exact, specific science. Also for the scientists here and those who wonder why I picked these specific papers. My intention was for you all to actually be able to read it and because of the commodification of human knowledge, a lot of the science is locked behind paywalls. I chose papers you all can access, either by submitting some information and getting it free, or just by direct link. The only one that is pay is Clea Koffs book--but honestly, you should read that.

​

finally....down here, if you got this far, is a treat from me to you. This is a great set of papers, a statement and a reply under the title "The Osteological Paradox Reconsidered" by Mark Nathan Cohen and replied by James W. Wood and George R Milner. It's about osteology---but it's funny and it shows the debates of the facts and the perspectives on the truth. I guess it's my way of saying, the science isn't 100% positive proof, but what is when we're talking variables beyond what we already know. The Osteological Paradox, Reconsidered. "The commentators are evenly divided between those who heartily loathed the paper and those who basically liked it but wanted to make additional points or suggest ways of tackling some of the problems we discussed. Since our intention was to spark debate, we welcome all the comments, even those accusing us of scientific snobbery, nihilism, and aiding and abetting the sinister pro-state. pro-civilization forces---though how we can be both nihilist and pro-civilization is something of a mystery to us."

​

Enjoy!

u/Jetamors · 1 pointr/AskHistorians

Do you know if there are any non-flaired users who know about pre-colonial west African history? I read a book about Yorubaland that left me with a lot of questions about the logistics of long-distance trade and how tariffs (?) were assessed, but there didn't seem to be much point in asking them here.

u/doughscraper · 1 pointr/books

Sure. This is not a list of what I consider the most important books on the subject but rather my attempt to select good works with similar profiles to the books found on the list.

The Fate of Africa - Meredith

The Boer War, Pakenham

Britain's Gulag, Elkins

Neoliberal Frontiers, Ethnography of Sovereignty in W. Africa, Chalfin

Africa in World Politics, Harbeson

African Perspectives on Colonialism






u/JustinLyntz · 1 pointr/fsu

Yeah he truly is the best professor here. I had him for Ecstatic Religion and Religion in Africa. He can be tough, but it's for your own good and I've never seen any professor care as much about their students as he does. He really is a gem here and like you I wish they gave him more classes. If anyone that's had him is interested you can buy his book on Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Hunting-Ethical-State-Benkadi-Movement/dp/0226326543/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342588043&sr=8-1&keywords=joseph+hellweg

u/bracciofortebraccio · 1 pointr/CringeAnarchy

Yes, Portugal had already managed to build several outposts along Africa's shores before 1492. Newitt has written an excellent book on the subject, as have Earle & Lowe (eds).

https://www.amazon.com/Portuguese-West-Africa-1415-1670-Documentary/dp/0521159148

https://www.amazon.ca/Black-Africans-Renaissance-Europe-Earle/dp/0521176603

u/hax0r1337 · 1 pointr/DebateReligion

it's a long story, but it's inclusive of but not limited to a lot of very hard archaeological and anthropological data..

Start here:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Sirius-Mystery-Scientific-Evidence/dp/089281750X

then go here
http://www.amazon.com/The-Science-Dogon-Decoding-Tradition/dp/1594771332/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b

then go learn about the Sirius connection to the pharaonic mystery cults and to freemasonry. Why are the dog days so important in the masonic tradition ?

Then start tracking the Sirius connection into the dark occult forces that currently run our society.

"Kenneth Grant, one of Crowley's closest associates in the Ordo Templi Orientis, repeatedly links Crowley with Sirius and seems to be hinting that the 'Holy Guardian Angel' contacted by Crowleyan mind-expansion techniques is a denizen of Sirius. J.G. Bennett, one of the closest of George Gurdjieff's associates, also tells us of coded references to Sirius in Gurdjieff's writings. Sufi historian Indries Shah traces the name of the Illuminati back to a verse in the Koran which mentions a shining star, and Crowley's alternative name for the Illuminati was the Order of the Silver Star (Argentum Astrum)."

  • Robert Anton Wilson, Cosmic Trigger
u/schadwick · 1 pointr/coolguides

"The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu". Best title here.

And it's at amazon.

u/Thisisnotdelicious · 1 pointr/suggestmeabook

The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts by Joshua Hammer

https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Ass-Librarians-Timbuktu-Precious-Manuscripts/dp/1476777411

u/Mansa_Sekekama · 1 pointr/Blackfellas
u/FREETHOUGHTSOPEN · 0 pointsr/conspiracy

Yes, they are.

>A major element in the Sumerian civilisation*, says the African-American historian and researcher Runoko Rashidi, were black migrants from the Nile Valley who called themselves “Blackheads”. Research suggests that the biological make-up of the Sumerians was the same as that of the Ancient Egyptians, the Dogon of West Africa and the indigenous Australians, the Aborigines.

http://www.africaspeaks.com/reasoning/index.php?topic=1868.0;wap2

Get this book if you want to understand what I am saying

http://www.amazon.com/Science-Dogon-Decoding-African-Tradition/dp/1594771332

Remnants of the past.

It's not just in Africa either, before the white expansion of Edom, the native Americans practiced it as well. All of them claim the same prophecy.

Hopi Prophecy & Blacks (Indians) pt1

u/jennyMcbarfy · 0 pointsr/casualiama

rape fantasies are all about power, not rape itself.

check out Chris Coulter's book its about former girl child soldiers/bush wives who were raped many many times and he asks them if they enjoy sex,etc very interesting.

u/GruffbaneJoe · -4 pointsr/UFOs

The problem with all this is that they are just people's testimony, just circumstantial evidence at best.
Alien abductions are real because they are DMT experiences.
The brain produces DMT naturally, and if you read "DMT: The Spirit Molecule" you will find that people all over the world experience "alien abductions" every time they dose up.
Laird Scranton has been on many recent UFO shows like Coast to Coast and he floors the host when he reveals that the Dogon did not get their advanced knowledge from Aliens, but from spirit entities who visit them while they are in Trance: https://www.amazon.com/Science-Dogon-Decoding-African-Tradition/dp/1594771332 Researchers in the 60s and 70s called the DMT "aliens" machine-elves and there are thousands of documented cases.