But "Nowhere in Africa", while definitely part of the genre, is better than the other films mentioned. Largely this is the result of the strong character development. We see husband and wife really changed by their experience. Adding depth to the story is the fact that these European ex-pats are escaping Nazi persecution. The fact that they can only do so by participating in colonial oppression is not lost on them.

The dialogue and acting are first rate, as are the cinematography, editing, and music. There are many memorable scenes, including some interesting ones where voices are layered over images in such a way that you can't tell whether the couple are speaking to each other or keeping their thoughts to themselves. Great work. Recommended!

Highly recommended. Good as it is, this should not be your only Franco CD, but it's by far the best selection for a first Franco CD.

I had the good luck to see Pepe Kalle in concert in Libreville, Gabon in 1989. After an opening band, around 10:00 PM, Pepe Kalle's band came on and played a song or two without Pepe Kalle. The crowd was at a fever pitch. Then Kalle and Emauro (a midget who was a dancer at his shows) entered together from a door opposite the stage and danced down the aisle to the bandstand. I don't think I've ever been in such excitement in a crowd. Pepe Kalle (who was a huge man) and Emauro together -- it's a sight you don't forget.

The music and showmanship were superb. In Africa, it's a tradition for concertgoers to give money to the singers and dancers on stage, sometimes by sticking banknotes to the dancer's foreheads. While Emauro danced there was a long line of people waiting to give him banknotes. The money was falling out of his pockets. Then he made a special effort to shake hands and greet the handicapped concertgoers in their wheelchairs. It was very touching.

I had the good luck to see Pepe Kalle in concert in Libreville, Gabon in 1989. After an opening band, around 10:00 PM, Pepe Kalle's band came on and played a song or two without Pepe Kalle. The crowd was at a fever pitch. Then Kalle and Emauro (a midget who was a dancer at his shows) entered together from a door opposite the stage and danced down the aisle to the bandstand. I don't think I've ever been in such an excitement in a crowd. Pepe Kalle (who was a huge man) and Emauro together -- it's a sight you don't forget.

The music and showmanship were superb. In Africa, it's a tradition for concertgoers to give money to the singers and dancers on stage, sometimes by sticking banknotes to the dancer's foreheads. While Emauro danced there was a long line of people waiting to give him banknotes. The money was falling out of his pockets. Then he made a special effort to shake hands and greet the handicapped concertgoers in their wheelchairs. It was very touching.

Many OK Jazz (sometimes called the TPOK Jazz) albums are available on CD, and every "world music" enthusiast should have at least a half dozen. What makes this CD special is its early vintage. These tracks were recorded in the late 1950's and are an extremely interesting foreshadowing of what was to come. It's fascinating to hear African pop music develop before your ears, as the OK Jazz mix African and Latin American rythms and styles. (All the more interesting because Latin American music is itself partly derived from African sources. Latin American records, brough by Europeans and Americans, were very popular in Africa in the middle decades of the 20th century.)

I was amazed to find that this music is available on CD. These are important recordings, documenting a seminal period in the development of modern African popular music. If you want to learn the story of modern African popular music, this is a great place to start.

(One other CD of Congolese popular music of this era is "Ngoma: the early years, 1948-1960", which features recordings of various musicians made for the Ngoma record company of "Leopoldville, Belgian Congo".)

Burton led an amazing life of exploration and scholarship [he wrote "The Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah" after disguising himself as an Arab to travel to the sacred city; he visited Salt Lake City and wrote "City of the Saints"; after exploring in South America he wrote "Explorations of the Highlands of Brazil"; and he translated the "Arabian Nights" and poetry of Luís de Camões], still he may not be an easy writer to come to terms with for many contemporary readers. He is far from what we would call "politically correct". But he wrote so much and so well, and is practically the only writer to travel in Eastern Africa in the 1850's that is in print today (except for John Hanning Speke who was with him on this trip, and who wrote "Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile").

To put this book in context it is wise to read something about Burton, particulary Burton and Speke in Africa; know why in "Lake Regions" Burton never refers to Speke by name. (There are a few Burton biographies, and books about Burton and Speke; or see the movie: "Mountains of the Moon")

The story is told by geography: Savanna, Desert, Rain Forest, Mountains, Sahel, Great Lakes, Coast, Southern Africa. Being a "companion" to the PBS/NGS TV series there is some (but not much) focus on the people who appeared in the television documentaries. Mostly Reader tells the stories behind the story; his history of Africa is as much about the environmental, geographical, and physiological as merely chronological. For example, Reader tells why bananas and plantains are so important in African history; what makes camels so invaluable in the Sahara, how sickle cells and malaria are related, even the advantages and disadvantages of walking upright. Of course there is some in-this-year-such-and-such happened, but that is kept to a minimum. This "Africa" is not only an outstanding introduction to Africa, it should also be of interest to any Africanist.

The photographs by Michael Lewis are good enough to be a book of their own; they combine with Reader's well organized and informative text to make "Africa" an excellent portrait of the continent. Reader's "Biography of the Continent" is also highly recommended.

1) A recipe from Tanzania with the Swahili title "Ndizi na Nyama" is called "Stewed Tomatoes with Bananas". "Ndizi" means "Banana" (or "Plantain"), "na" means "and", and "Nyama" means "Meat", but there is no meat in the recipe. Maybe the recipe is "Ndizi na Nyanya" (i.e., "Bananas and Tomatoes").

2) A recipe from Gabon for "Gâteau" is a recipe for French bread. "Gâteau" is the French word for "cake", and "pain" is the French word for "bread". The text explains that people in Cameroon and Gabon use the word "gâteau" (instead of "pain") to refer to bread. I lived in Gabon for two years and will be the first to admit that the French language as spoken in Africa often differs from that in France, but I never met anyone who called bread anything other than "pain". Perhaps things are different in Cameroon. (Interestingly, the Gabonese almost always did use the word "gâteau" to refer what the rest of the French-speaking world call "beignets", that is, "doughnuts".)

3) Why does a recipe in the "Egypt" section for "Egyptian-Style Eggplant Salad" have the title "Auberginen auf Ägyptische Art" (which is German for "Eggplant in the Egyptian Style")? I don't get it.

4) Why call the "stiff cornmeal porridge", which is eaten all over Sub-Saharan Africa, by its Lesotho name "Putu" even when it appears in dishes from other countries where it is called by other names? The more common Eastern African name, "Ugali", is never mentioned.

These may seem very small matters, and they don't affect the quality of the recipes, but they make this reviewer begin to wonder about the rest of the book, especially unfamiliar recipes. Despite the fact that most of the recipes and related texts seem correct (as far as I can tell), until this book gets a complete going-over by a team of fact checkers, I cannot recommend it.

Kingsley's book is a treasure trove of information about Atlantic-coast Central Africa in the late 1800s. But beyond its historic and sociological value, the book is just wonderful. Her descriptions are vivid, her insights interesting, and her understated humor is a joy. Anyone with a love of exploration and a good story would enjoy this book. Unabridged versions are highly recommended.

Readers with a particular interest in Gabon should also see the works of Robert Nassau, an American missionary who was in Gabon when Kingsley traveled there. Evidently they met and discussed all things African at length, though Kingsley makes little mention of him. Nassau wrote "Fetichism in West Africa", "In an Elephant Corral" and "My Ogowe", but doesn't get the credit he deserves. Also of interest is "One Dry Season: In the Footsteps of Mary Kingsley" by Caroline Alexander. Alexander visited Gabon in the 1980s and compared what she saw then to what Kingsley had seen a century earlier.

Lamb's book starts with an overview of African politics circa the early 1980's and a chapter about the difference between traditional and modern Africa. The next chapter covers some of Africa's "big men" bad and good: Mobutu, Bokassa, Moi, Nyerere, et al. Uganda's Idi Amin gets an entire chapter, as does the OAU. In the next chapter, African coups are discussed. Then the end of the colonial era, Portugal's African colonies, and African relations with the U.S. and U.S.S.R. The contrasts between the Ivory Coast (led by President Houphouet-Boigny) and Guinea (led President Sekou Toure) make an interesting chapter. Westerners' African Culture Shock is the next chapter's subject, followed by a chapter about journalism in Africa. Health and sickness is treated next, then some sense about African money and economies. Finally Nigeria and South Africa each get a chapter.

Anyone looking for a relatively short and easy to read book about Africa would do well to read David Lamb's "The Africans".

"Ibn Battuta in Black Africa" is a well-edited collection of Battuta's travels in Sub-Saharan Africa. The book is not a lengthy one (it can be easily read in an evening), but it is full of useful information in the introduction and notes on Battuta's text. This is a very good introduction to Ibn Battuta for the student of African history.

Also see "The Travels of Ibn Battuta" (three volumes) by Sir Hamilton Gibb: an unabridged translation with excellent notes.

It seems a pity that many young people are forced to read this book in school; hopefully they will return to it when they have the maturity to understand and appreciate it.

To put this book in context it is wise to read something about Burton, particulary Burton and Speke in Africa; know why in "Lake Regions" Burton never refers to Speke by name. (Or see the movie: "Mountains of the Moon")

The book is a detailed chronological account of nearly three years of difficult travel between Zanzibar and Lake Tanganyika. Nothing escapes Burton's observation. He writes of everything from the local hairstyles to the price of pombe (traditional beer). He gives detailed descriptions of the landscape, geography, flora, and fauna. He writes of Arabs and the Eastern slave trade. He depicts safari life in the days of human porters and mules. He tells of the people he encounters; his descriptions of Africans may be offensive to some. There is a wealth of information here, something for everyone with an interest in Eastern Africa, or exploration, or imperialism. The place names have sometimes changed from Burton's time to ours, as have the English spelling conventions of Swahili words. Anyone with any interest in Eastern Africa, especially the precolonial period, should arm themselves with a good atlas and reference book and read Burton.

"African Game Trails" is a wonderful book for anyone interested in East Africa in the early 1900's, or for anyone interested in Theodore Roosevelt. It was his love of the outdoors, of nature, and of hunting (not contridictions in his time) that led Roosevelt to spend a significant amount of his life in the world's wide open spaces away from "civilization". It is clear that he, like many great thinkers (Beethoven comes to mind), found solace and renewal in the fresh air and quiet of plains, forests, and mountains. He spent almost a year on his African safari. His book was the first by an American to popularize the idea of recreational travel in Africa (still considered a daunting prospect by many Americans today). The prose is easy to read and makes one want to keep reading. Also of interest is the appendix containing the list of books (the "pigskin library") that he took with him on his safari.

Roosevelt also promoted the outdoor life and its benefits in "A Book-Lover's Holidays in the Open" (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916)

"Venture to the Interior" is a thoughful, philosophical, and introspective account of the expedition. Van der Post very much writes in the style of travel writers like Bruce Chatwin and Paul Theroux; the reader sees as much of a mental landscape (Van der Post's) as a geographical one. He describes the journey, both the physical and the mental, in prose that is honest and clear. His thoughts on Africa are usually interesting and often profound.

The people he encounters and writes about are mostly Europeans: the district officer, the businessman, the settler-farmer. It would have been nice had he written more about the African population. Still, overall, this is a book well worth reading for those interested in Africa, exploration, travel writing.

Most of Van der Post's other books are also well written and well worth reading.

This book's title says "continent" and it contains recipes from Western Africa, Eastern Africa, Southern Africa and some from Northern Africa. My real complaint is the complete absence of recipes from Central Africa -- the Congo River basin area. This willful ignorance (in the sense of "to ignore") of Central Africa seems to be common among "fair-weather Africanists"; it also occurs in "Wonders of the African World" by Henry Louis Gates. It is distressing to see that even as we enter the 21st millenium there is still a "dark place", an unknown place on the map of Africa, much as Conrad described in "Heart of Darkness" over a century ago. True, there has been a civil war going on in Congo, and before that Zaire was not an easy place to travel. But there are many Congolese who live in Europe and America who could have provided insight into to the gastronomic traditions of Central Africa. Ms. Harris seems to have picked only the low hanging fruit. Of course it is much easier and pleasant to travel and dine in Senegal and Ivory Coast, or Kenya and Zanzibar rather than Congo and the Central African Republic, but if you want to say your book covers the continent, you can't ignore the very heart of Africa.

Ms. Harris has written a good book, despite the fact that it ignores the very heart of Africa. If you're interested in cooking you should have some African recipe collections; this is a good one. Other good African cookooks that contain not only recipes but also very good writing that puts the recipes into a cultural context (but also mostly ignore Central Africa) are:

Ellen Gibson Wilson - "A West African Cookbook: An introduction to food from Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone."

Laurens van der Post - "Foods Of The World: African Cooking" (from Time-Life) and "First catch your Eland: a taste of Africa"

The protagonist is a young Indian from the Eastern coast. ("Indian" in the sense of his ethnicity, his family has been in Africa longer than they can remember.) He has purchased a shop in Kisangani, and trys to build up his business as the "big man" consolidates power in the newly independent country. Things go from bad to worse, for the new shopkeeper and the country. Though this is fiction, every word is true.

Naipaul writes beautifully, and has many insights into Africa, colonialism, history, and life. This is one of the few books that I have read and enjoyed more than once.

Some people recommend Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" to readers looking for an "African" novel. But to recommend "Things Fall Apart" over "A Bend in the River" makes sense only if you can read just a single book about Africa. Achebe's novel is set in Nigeria; Naipaul's is about Zaire. It's like saying don't bother with "Brothers Karamozov", read "Great Expectations" instead. I should hope a serious reader would turn his attention to both.

(The last days of the Belgian Congo is the setting for Barbara Kingsolver's "The Poisonwood Bible". Many good nonfiction stories from this time and place are found in "A Doctor's Life: Unique Stories" by William T. Close. A literary approach to the early days of the Belgian Congo is Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness".)

One must come to Burton's "Wanderings in West Africa" with the understanding that there are not a lot of primary (first-hand) sources of information about Atlantic coast Africa in the 19th century. Furthermore, the majority of books about Africa of this era (mostly by explorers and missionaries; few or none by Africans) are long out of print and can only be accessed in mjor libraries. Given that, Burton's work is a valuable and readable account of a voyage along Africa's West Coast, as far south as Fernando Po (Equatorial Guinea). (We should be thankful for the publisher.) His text is direct and readable. The account is chronological, port by port. Burton describes the the places and people and whatever catches his interest. His opinion is always present. Burton goes into many details--trade, early colonial administration, rulers, languages, etc.--and it is unlikely that any one reader would be interested in all of it, but most students of African history are likely to find something of interest. There is no index. It should be noted that Burton has plenty of scorn and disdain for many of the Africans he encounters (as well as for many Europeans); this is typical for Burton, but may upset a reader who is new to this writer.

Many of the names (of places, tribes, etc.) are antiquated so a good reference book is a help.

Overall this is not Burton's best book, but it does have a place along with his other books on Africa ("First Footsteps in East Africa", "The Lake Regions of Central Africa") and it adds something of value to the reputation of the great writer, explorer, traveler, and translator who produced "Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al Madinah and Mecca" and "The Arabian Nights".

One must come to Burton's "Wanderings in West Africa" with the understanding that there are not a lot of primary (first-hand) sources of information about Atlantic coast Africa in the 19th century. Furthermore, the majority of books about Africa of this era (mostly by explorers and missionaries; few or none by Africans) are long out of print and can only be accessed in mjor libraries. Given that, Burton's work is a valuable and readable account of a voyage along Africa's West Coast, as far south as Fernando Po (Equatorial Guinea). (We should be thankful for the publisher.) His text is direct and readable. The account is chronological, port by port. Burton describes the the places and people and whatever catches his interest. His opinion is always present. Burton goes into many details--trade, early colonial administration, rulers, languages, etc.--and it is unlikely that any one reader would be interested in all of it, but most students of African history are likely to find something of interest. There is no index. It should be noted that Burton has plenty of scorn and disdain for many of the Africans he encounters (as well as for many Europeans); this is typical for Burton, but may upset a reader who is new to this writer.

Many of the names (of places, tribes, etc.) are antiquated so a good reference book is a help.

Overall this is not Burton's best book, but it does have a place along with his other books on Africa ("First Footsteps in East Africa", "The Lake Regions of Central Africa") and it adds something of value to the reputation of the great writer, explorer, traveler, and translator who produced "Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al Madinah and Mecca" and "The Arabian Nights".