Blue Dahlia Black Gold

Download or read book Blue Dahlia, Black Gold written by Daniel Metcalfe and published by Random House. This book was released on 2014-06-12 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: âe~A rich and fascinating book about an overlooked African powerhouse by a travel writer of rare talent.âe(tm) TIM BUTCHER, author of Blood River and Chasing the Devil Since the end of its crippling 27-year civil war over a decade ago, Angola has changed almost beyond recognition. An oil-fuelled bonanza has brought about massive foreign investment and a fabulously wealthy new elite, making its capital, Luanda, the second most expensive city in the world. Today, fortunes are being made and lost overnight, and rich Angolans are eagerly buying up the assets of its former coloniser, Portugal. Fascinated by this complex nation perched at the forefront of a resurgent Africa, writer Daniel Metcalfe travelled to Angola to explore the country for himself. Ebullient and proud, and often unwilling to dwell on its past, Angola has a large army, a hunger for wealth and a need to prove itself on the continent. But as Metcalfe also discovers, it has some of the most grinding poverty in Africa as few Angolans have reaped the rewards of the peace. Nonetheless, amid Angola's brash reality, Metcalfe finds there is a place for a traveller who isn't there to make a quick buck. Crossing the country as ordinary Angolans do, talking to tribal elders, oil workers, mine clearers and street children, he encounters a place of extremes, where cynicism and excess go hand-in-hand with great hospitality and ingenuity. Metcalfe also reveals a colourful history of pirates and slave traders, capuchin monks, syncretic Christian cults and elaborate spirit masks. This is an Angola that symbolises nothing less than a broader turning point between the continents, the repositioning of the rich developed world versus Africa. It is a land that, until now, few outsiders have managed to unlock.

Download or read book The Passport That Does Not Pass Ports written by Isabel Balseiro and published by MSU Press. This book was released on 2020-10-01 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These seventeen pieces on travel in Africa by leading African authors take readers to places at once homelike and foreign. Against the tropes of travel writing, this book offers the acuity of vision of particular types of travelers. These are travelers whose mother tongue may find the hint of familiarity across otherwise unintelligible languages and for whom a foreign land isn’t necessarily strange; in it they perceive vestiges of the familiar. For them, the act of traveling extends a canvas on which to depict someone else’s reality—a reality never too distant from their own. What makes these writings coalesce is a reflection about the act of being in motion, about reconfiguring place; a consciousness of how geography redirects the focus of one’s gaze and, in turn, how that altered gaze filters inward. Having absorbed the landscape, inhaled the scents, paid heed to accents, and accepted the condition of being out of place, these travelers reconstitute individual consciousness and join a collective sense of existing beyond borders. Place inhabits this renewed sense of self; literature enables its expression. An inviting introduction to travel writing on Africa, The Passport That Does Not Pass Ports is absorbing reading for travelers and students of literature alike.

Download or read book Transcultural Anglophone Studies written by Martina Ghosh-Schellhorn and published by LIT Verlag Münster. This book was released on 2018 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Transcultural Anglophone Studies (TAS) engages with the cultural production of speakers of World English in any part of the former British Empire, and the migrational diasporas resulting thereof. Anglophone texts - in print or other media - have had a tremendous impact despite their relatively `belated' entry to the cultural field. Since TAS forms a vast, heteronomous research area, this Introduction is a first guide for students and researchers. In providing analytical tools for engaging with these exceptional texts, it situates them in the larger context of globalization and neocolonialism.

Download or read book Angola written by Mike Stead and published by Bradt Travel Guides. This book was released on 2019-07-05 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new third edition of Bradt's Angola remains the only dedicated English-language guide to this increasingly popular southern African nation. Thoroughly updated, it includes full practical and background information, everything you need to know about the capital city, Luanda, plus coverage of the rest of the country in 16 chapters. Also featured are 38 maps, including detailed city maps for all 18 provincial capitals, plus a specific section devoted to the sometimes-tricky process of applying for a visa. Bradt's Angola is written by expert author Oscar Scafidi who lived and worked in Angola for five years, has travelled to all the country's provinces, and who has successfully completed a record-breaking kayak trip along the length of Angola's Kwanza River. Thanks to his knowledge, Bradt's Angola is ideal for everyone from independent surfers and bird-watchers on organised tours to fishing enthusiasts, conservationists, surfers, NGO workers and overlanders, not to mention adventurous travellers simply wanting to discover this intriguing country. Angola continues to change at a rapid pace and offers everything from colonial Portuguese ruins to $100-a-plate sushi bars, landscaped waterfronts to grand public buildings, Portuguese and Brazilian heritage to frontier diamond towns, tropical rainforests to desert, and relaxed coastal resorts on 1,000km of unspoiled beaches. It's also the site of the UNESCO World Heritage listed Mbanza Kongo, once the centre of power for the Kilukeni dynasty, who founded the city almost 100 years before the arrival of the Portuguese. Whether wildlife watcher or surfer, business traveller or pioneering adventurer, Bradt's Angola provides all the information you will need to get the most out of this vast country.

Download or read book Historical Dictionary of Angola written by W. Martin James and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-03-01 with total page 573 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Angola, slowly recovering from a twenty-seven year civil war, is becoming a regional super-power in southern Africa. This rise can be attributed to oil, diamonds, a battle-tested armed forces and a political system that is dominated by one party – the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola – MPLA). Problems remain to be solved. The vast wealth is in the control of the elite while the vast majority of the people live on less than two dollars per day. Corruption is rife, the health and education system in shambles, landmines remain a festering problem and the opposition is intimidated and split into various factions. President Eduardo dos Santos, who has ruled Angola for almost thirty-eight years, has opted not to run for re-election in the August 2017 elections. Instead his hand-picked successor João Lourenço was elected president. Interestingly, dos Santos has not surrendered his presidency of the party. This third edition of Historical Dictionary of Angola contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 700 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Angola.

Download or read book Kongo in the Age of Empire, 1860–1913 written by Jelmer Vos and published by University of Wisconsin Pres. This book was released on 2015 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An insightful look at the onset of colonialism in Central Africa from economic, religious, and political perspectives, examining the ultimately tragic participation of African elites in colonial rule.

Download or read book Encyclopedia of Film Noir written by Geoff Mayer and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2007-06-30 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When viewers think of film noir, they often picture actors like Humphrey Bogart playing characters like Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon, the film based on the book by Dashiell Hammett. Yet film noir is a genre much richer. The authors first examine the debate surrounding the parameters of the genre and the many different ways it is defined. They discuss the Noir City, its setting and backdrop, and also the cultural (WWII) and institutional (the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, and the Production Code Administration) influences on the subgenres. An analysis of the low budget and series film noirs provides information on those cult classics. With over 200 entries on films, directors, and actors, the Encyclopedia of Film Noir is the most complete resource for film fans, students, and scholars.