Niger & Nigeria Books

Curse Of The Black Gold: 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta

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

Editorial Review:

Curse of the Black Gold: 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta takes a graphic look at the profound cost of oil exploitation in West Africa. Featuring images by world-renowned photojournalist Ed Kashi and text by Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, prominent Nigerian journalists, human rights activists, and University of California at Berkeley professor Michael Watts, this book traces the 50-year history of Nigeria’s oil interests and the resulting environmental degradation and community conflicts that have plagued the region.
Now one of the major suppliers of U.S. oil, Nigeria is the sixth largest producer of oil in the world. Set against a backdrop of what has been called the scramble for African oil, Curse of the Black Gold is the first book to document the consequences of a half-century of oil exploration and production in one of the world’s foremost centers of biodiversity. This book exposes the reality of oil’s impact and the absence of sustainable development in its wake, providing a compelling pictorial history of one of the world’s great deltaic areas. Accompanied by powerful writing by some of the most prominent public intellectuals and critics in contemporary Nigeria, Kashi’s photographs capture local leaders, armed militants, oil workers, and nameless villagers, all of whose fates are inextricably linked. His exclusive coverage bears witness to the ongoing struggles of local communities, illustrating the paradox of poverty in the midst of plenty.
The publication of Curse of the Black Gold occurs at a moment of worldwide concern over dependency on petroleum, dubbed by New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman as "the resource curse." Much has been written about the drama of the search for oil—Daniel Yergin’s The Prize and Ryszard Kapus´cin´ski’s Shah of Shahs are two of the most widely lauded—but there has been no serious examination of the relations between oil, environment, and community in a particular oil-producing region. Curse of the Black Gold is a landmark work of historic significance.

Married to Africa: A Love Story

G. Pascal Zachary

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Editorial Review:

G. Pascal Zachary is a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal when he finds love in, of all places, the zoo in Accra, Ghana. That is where he meets Chizo Okon, the surrogate mother for an orphaned chimpanzee. In Married to Africa, Zachary tells their warm and humorous story, which is as much about the marriage of two cultures as it is about the marriage of two people.

Chizo introduces Zachary to an Africa usually overlooked by visitors. He learns about the spiritual fervor of ordinary Africans, the mysterious power of juju and the rewards of eating bushmeat and other African dishes. He learns how to haggle effectively, pick a reliable taxi driver, live on "Africa time" and adapt to being a white minority in a black society. Chizo, meanwhile, deftly adapts to living with her obruni, the local nickname for a white person. As their romance deepens, the couple learns how differently things can appear to them. While Zachary indulges a passion for traditional African art, Chizo worries about the possible evil spirits harbored in his wooden statues.

When the two move to San Francisco, Chizo must learn to navigate a new world. The result is a different kind of immigrant story, powered by a series of wacky, wonderful and unforgettable tales -- such as Chizo taking a machete to Zachary's ex-wife's garden (not out of malice, of course), driving enthusiastically without a license, charming her hard-boiled Jewish mother-in-law and managing requests from poor relatives in Africa. The arrival of Chizo's teenage daughter marks the end of the beginning and the start of a new saga in this uniquely American love story.

Married to Africa is a tender and charming account of a marriage and a fascinating look at how two people come to know each other across culture and race.

Nigeria 2nd (Bradt Travel Guide Nigeria)

Lizzie Williams

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Excellent informative book 5 out of 5 stars.
12 of 12 people found this review helpful.

I recently went on a medical mission trip to Nigeria. I bought this book to learn about the basics of the country, including culture, politics and religion. I found this to be a very well researched book with excellent information, presented in an easy to read fashion. Most notable, however, is the fact that this is the first book in its class. There are no other travel publications devoted to Nigeria. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is planning to travel to this part of the world.

Editorial Review:

Despite its negative image, for travelers with an open mind and friendly demeanor Nigeria is an incredibly absorbing country in which to travel. Experience the mind-boggling chaos of Lagos, the traditional durbars, Benin bronzes and walled cities, and enjoy its single greatest quality – the warm generosity of 140 million people.

Details of getting around, by bush taxi, rail, car or on foot, together with accommodations options, wildlife watching and activities, are balanced by a wealth of background information, from history (of a country dating back thousands of years) and geography to culture and the environment.

To Timbuktu: A Journey Down the Niger

Mark Jenkins

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

For nearly eight years as the monthly columnist for Outside magazine, and in his award-winning books, Mark Jenkins has held fans spellbound with his riveting accounts of expeditions to remote parts of the globe. In To Timbuktu, he sets out with three friends to attempt their first descent of the Niger River, hoping to reach the legendary city of Timbuktu. Along the way they are attacked by killer bees, charged by hippos, and stalked by crocodiles. They stumble upon a group of completely blind men living alone in the bush and dance with a hundred naked women. That Jenkins finally reaches his goal—riding alone across the Sahara on a motorcycle—stands in sharp contrast to what befell earlier explorers who tried to find Timbuktu and whose fates the author interweaves with the narrative of his own journey.

A rich combination of cultural exploration, history, and gripping adventure, this beautifully repackaged edition of To Timbuktu is a journey not to be missed.

Niger: The Bradt Travel Guide

Jolijn Geels

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

This first English-language guide to the Saharan country of Niger spans the densely populated regions of the south--a colorful melting pot of cultures--and the hostile desert landscape of the north--featuring some of the most stunning sand dunes in Africa. Transport options for travelers are a particular feature of the guide--including long-distance connections to neighboring countries, river trips on the River Niger and camel trekking in the Massif de Aïr and Ténéré desert regions, home to the nomadic Tuareg people. As more independent travelers are finding their way to Niger, this guide will focus on both ends of the market: the upmarket traveler looking for background information and the budget traveler with a need to know all the practicalities.

Features include:
>Full range of travel and accommodation options
>Present-day peoples and ethnic groups, including the Hausa, the Peul, and the Tuareg, including vocabulary and phrases
>Niger culture and religion
>Wildlife and ecosystems

My African Horse Problem

William F. S. Miles, Samuel B. Miles

Amazon Price: $22.95 List Price: $22.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Univ. of Massachusetts Press Amazon Marketplace: 17 new & used starting at $16.99

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Editorial Review:

In February 2000, William Miles set off from Massachusetts for a Muslim village in West Africa with his ten-year-old son Samuel to settle an inheritance dispute over a horse. National Public Radio was so intrigued with this story that All Things Considered broadcast his pre-departure testament, as well as a follow-up commentary on what actually happened. My African Horse Problem recounts the intricacies of this unusual father-son expedition, a sometimes harrowing two-week trip that Samuel joined as true heir to the disputed stallion. It relates the circumstances leading up to the dispute and describes the intimacy of a relationship spanning a quarter century between William Miles and the custodians of his family horse Islamic village friends eking out a precarious existence along the remote sub-Saharan borderline between Nigeria and Niger. My African Horse Problem is a multilayered narrative part memoir, part ethnography reaching back to Miles s days as a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger in the 1970s and a Fulbright scholar in the 1980s. At a deeper level, the story juxtaposes the idealistic and sometimes irresponsible tendencies of a young university graduate with the parental concerns of a middle-aged, tenured professor. Miles wonders if he was justified in exposing Sam to some of the worst health risks on earth, mainly to restore tenuous ties with long-ago friends in the African bush. Was it reckless to make his son illegally cross international boundaries, in a quixotic quest for justice and family honor? My African Horse Problem is more than an adventurer s tale with a unique story line: it is a father- son travel rumination, leavened by Sam s journal entries that help his father see Africa anew through a child s fresh eyes. In this era of religious and racial tensions, it is also a reaffirmation within a black Muslim context of the basic human imperative of trust.

Among the Ibos of Nigeria (Travellers, Explorers & Pioneers)

G.T. Basden

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Editorial Review:

Among the Ibos of Nigeria is the work of the British missionary George Basden. He lived with the Ibos for many years, recording the complexities of their culture at all stages in life, from childhood to the intricate rituals surrounding death, for his white European audience. He confesses in his introduction that it is a "practical impossibility for a European to comprehend fully the subtleties of the native character," even after years in their midst, but he still manages to provide a intimate record of a fascinating but little-known people of Western Africa around the beginning of the 20th century.

Nigeria Map by ITMB

International Travel Maps and Books

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Nigeria the Country 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 6 people found this review helpful.

I am giving a talk to our Womens group in our church on the Country of Nigeria because of a email friend who lives there.

Editorial Review:

Folded road and travel map in color. Scale 1:1,600,000. Distinguishes roads ranging from freeways to other roads. Legend includes tracks, railways, international/domestic airports, airfields, gas stations, hospitals/medical facilities, hotels, rest houses, huts, camp sites, border crossings, ferries, points of interest, archaeological sites, museums, mosques, missions/churches, beaches, national parks, nature reserves. Includes inset map of Lagos, Lagos Island and Benin City.

Riding the Demon: On the Road in West Africa

Peter Chilson

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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.

Harmatan: poem

Paul Violi

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