Burkina Faso Books

Burkina Faso: The Bradt Travel Guide

Katrina Manson, James Knight

Amazon Price: $16.29 List Price: $23.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Bradt Travel Guides Amazon Marketplace: 50 new & used starting at $7.20

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Subjects -> Travel -> Africa -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Don't go to Burkina Faso without it. 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I live in Burkina Faso and this book has tons more information than any other English-language guidebook on the country and seems to be more comprehensive than any French-language ones too. Days after receiving the book, I used it to plan and execute a very successful trip to the far north-east of the country. All of the practical information about where to stay and eat was spot-on. The maps of towns and regions were also very useful. I spent a night at a beautiful desert campsite, 30 kilometers from the nearest dirt road, and run by friendly Tuareg tribesmen because of this book. I'd be delighted with this guidebook even if there was nothing more to it. However, it also has the distinction of being extremely well written and interesting - be it concerning local transportation, customs, history, languages, etc. I enjoyed this book so much that when I recently visited Dogon country in Mali and met a group of Spanish tourists heading for Burkina Faso, I gave them my copy. When I got home, I ordered two more.

Editorial Review:

The first English-language guide to Burkina Faso, the Bradt guide brings to life the many attractions of this stable country which offers a thriving culture, laid-back cities, and wildlife encounters. The authors help visitors discover dramatic mask festivals, Fulani horse-dancing, and both the pan-African film festival in Siao and the craft fair in Fespaco, two of the largest events of their kind on the continent. The romance of the Sahel desert can also be explored and information on desert markets, camel safaris, and secret dune encampments is covered for the intrepid traveler.

Features include:
>Africa's most exciting cultural celebrations
>Best wildlife experiences--from lion-tracking in Arly to close encounters with crocodiles in Bazolé
>Varied history, architecture, and stunning artisanship
>Visiting villages: animist rituals, millet beer, and market days

Riding the Demon: On the Road in West Africa

Peter Chilson

List Price: $24.95 By: University of Georgia Press Amazon Marketplace: 10 new & used starting at $14.99

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Without railroads or domestic airlines, Niger's roads are its lifelines. For a year, Peter Chilson travelled this desert country by automobile, detouring occasionally into Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast, in order to tell the story of West African road culture. He criss-crossed the same roads again and again with bush taxi driver Issoufou Garba in order to learn one driver's story inside and out. He hitchhiked, riding in cotton trucks, and he also travelled with other bush taxi drivers, truckers, road engineers, an anthropologist, Niger's only licensed woman commercial driver and a customs officer. The road in Africa, says Chilson, is more than a direction or a path to take. Once you've booked passage and taken your seat, the road becomes the centre of your life. Hurtling along at 80 miles an hour in a bush taxi equipped with bald tyres, no windows and sometimes no doors, travellers realize that they've surrendered everything. Soldiers collect "taxes" at checkpoints, and black-market gasoline salesmen appear mysteriously from the roadside bush. Courageous drivers - who come across in the book as rogue folk heroes - negotiate endless checkpoints; ingenious mechanics repair cars with nothing. The road is also about blood and fear, and the ecstasy of arrival. On African roads, car wrecks are as common as mile markers, and the wreckage can stand in monument for months or years: a minibus upended against a tree, as if attempting escape; a charred truck overturned in a ditch. Chilson uses the road not to reinforce Africa's worn image of decay but to reveal how people endure political and economic chaos, poverty and disease. The road has reflected the struggle for survival in Niger since the first automobile arrived there at the turn of the century, and it remains a useful metaphor for the fight for stability and prosperity across Africa.

Burkina Faso Map by ITMB (Travel Reference Map)

International Travel Maps

List Price: $8.95 By: ITMB Publishing Amazon Marketplace: 11 new & used starting at $6.00

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Subjects -> Children's Books -> General AAS

Editorial Review:

Road map in color with information for travelers. Differentiates five kinds of roads from all-weather paved roads (numbered) to seasonal roads to unsurfaced roads and rough tracks. Approximate distances shown in kilometers. Differentiates six sizes of cities and towns. Places of interest located directly on the map: international and domestic airports and airfields, petrol stations, train stations, bus stations, post offices, hospitals, medical clinics, hotels, lodging, resthouses or hostels, campsites or huts, border crossings, places where crossing is forbidden, scenic views, museums, archeological sites, forts, mosques, churches / missions, buildings, tourist information centers, banks, wells, mining areas. Shows streams / creeks, intermittent streams, areas of periodic flooding. Index of place names. Subtle color changes show changes in elevation. Brief geographical profile with area, languages, religion, etc. Latitude / longitude. Printed on one side. Scale 1:1,000,000.

Freedom in Fulani Social Life: An Introspective Ethnography

Paul Riesman

List Price: $28.00 By: Univ of Chicago Pr (Tx) Amazon Marketplace: 7 new & used starting at $17.50

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Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Anthropology -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Paul Riesman's Freedom in Fulani Social Life is based upon his two years of residence among the Jelgobe, a group of semi-nomadic Fulani of the Sahel in Upper Volta, western Africa. Since its original publication, this classic study has profoundly influenced the field of anthropology through its re-examination of the enthnographer's personal input on his research.

"Freedom in Fulani Social Life richly documents how the ethnographer's own personal and cultural background is implicated in the research process. . . . For this reason, [Riesman's] book will be of paramount interest to all ethnographers."—Philip L. Kilbride, Reviews in Anthropology

"A remarkably well-written and insightful account of Fulani life. . . . In addition to using the conventional approaches of participating in and observing the daily activities of the Jelgobe . . . Riesman enriches his account by examining his personal feelings about particular incidents."—Library Journal

"An interesting and provocative study."—Choice

At the time of his death in 1988, Paul Riesman was an anthropologist who taught at Carleton College.

Freedom in Fulani Social Life: An Introspective Ethnography

Paul Riesman

List Price: $28.00 By: Univ of Chicago Pr (Tx) Amazon Marketplace: 7 new & used starting at $17.50

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Africa -> General AAS
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Anthropology -> General
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Anthropology -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Paul Riesman's Freedom in Fulani Social Life is based upon his two years of residence among the Jelgobe, a group of semi-nomadic Fulani of the Sahel in Upper Volta, western Africa. Since its original publication, this classic study has profoundly influenced the field of anthropology through its re-examination of the enthnographer's personal input on his research.

"Freedom in Fulani Social Life richly documents how the ethnographer's own personal and cultural background is implicated in the research process. . . . For this reason, [Riesman's] book will be of paramount interest to all ethnographers."—Philip L. Kilbride, Reviews in Anthropology

"A remarkably well-written and insightful account of Fulani life. . . . In addition to using the conventional approaches of participating in and observing the daily activities of the Jelgobe . . . Riesman enriches his account by examining his personal feelings about particular incidents."—Library Journal

"An interesting and provocative study."—Choice

At the time of his death in 1988, Paul Riesman was an anthropologist who taught at Carleton College.