• Kwame Nkrumah: Africa’s Man of the Millennium

    This book seeks to review various presentations made about the life of the man who led this country in her march towards independence and caught the imagination of the entire continent in the 1960s as he advocated and pushed the frontiers towards continental unity.

    The man at the centre of it all – Kwame Nkrumah – is captured in all his facets; his humble beginnings, studies abroad, his return home to work with the UGCC, his political agitations, tenure of office as Leader of Government Business, Prime Minister and President, his removal from office and the role played by internal and external forces, his days in exile, his death and other aspects of his life. These are all presented with a view to enable the reader learn some history as well as good lessons of life.

    Interestingly, though largely seen as the first universal African of the 19th Century, Kwame Nkrumah was actually a man of two halves; much loved and much hated all at the same time. How a single personality could be viewed in that manner is better appreciated by reading the book.

  • Women’s Leadership in Post-Conflict Liberia: My Journey (Hardcover)

    The realities of trying to institutionalize reform in Liberia after 14 years of civil war comes alive in this book, particularly given the capacity constraints the author had to work with – what she describes as the “no money syndrome” coupled with the human and institutional capacity challenges she faced after a prolonged absence of almost 25 years working and living in the Diaspora.

    This book is a must-read for all women (and men) who need guidance and mentoring on the challenges, consequences and sacrifices required to stand up for one’s convictions.

  • Working with Rawlings

    Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings burst on the Ghanaian political scene with a failed military mutiny on May 15th, 1979. On June 4th 1979, following a successful uprising staged by junior officers and other ranks of the Ghana Armed Forces, he emerged as the Chairman of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) which ruled Ghana for three months and handed over to a civilian constitutional government on 24th September 1979. On 31st December 1981, he overthrew the constitutional government and formed the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) as the Government of Ghana. He was elected a constitutional President in 1992 and assumed office as such on 7th January 1993. He served two terms as President of the Republic of Ghana, finally leaving office on 6th January 2001.

    Jerry John Rawlings is an enigma. It was a privilege working with him and being close to him. He and I went through many exciting experiences together. I have documented some of those experiences in this book. But there are many other experiences which I have not documented either because they belong to the realm of confidentiality or of privacy. What I have documented, however, is enough to give present and future leaders some ideas about governance at the highest levels; the dos and don’ts of governance; the skills required for governance and the importance of human relations as a leadership trait.

    This is not a book about Jerry John Rawlings. It is not a book about Kwamena Ahwoi. It is not a book about the PNDC. It is not a book about the NDC. It is a book about Kwamena Ahwoi working with Jerry John Rawlings; our working relationship; our ups and downs and our joint commitment to building a better Ghana than the one we found it. Somewhere along the line, we drifted apart. This book is about that as well. It is my hope that Ghana’s leaders of today and our leaders of the future will learn some lessons from my account of Working with Rawlings, leaving out the negatives and accentuating the positives.

  • Pilgrims of the Night: Development Challenges and Opportunities in Africa (Hardcover)

    Africa’s development process has and continues to be like walking through a thick forest made obscure by institutional weakness, social challenges and capacity gaps. Sustainable development should be in the hands of Africans and outside support as a critical compliment. Getting the navigation right is paramount in the face of emerging challenges so well covered in this undoubtedly important and highly recommended book. The authors argue that Africa must control its own precious natural resources, reform its government institutions, modify its trade and economic relations and form new relationships with emerging economies in order to improve conditions on the continent.

  • Death of an Empire: Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana and Africa

    A participant-witness in the history of the transition from Gold Coast to Ghana, Jantuah who died in 2011 at the age of 89, reflects and interprets with unique understanding some of the major events of the 1950s and 60s as well as foreign policy formulation including his role as a diplomat during the Algerian struggle for Independence and France’s Charles de Gaulle’s retrogressive policies; his dealings with the African National Congress and it’s president, Oliver Tambo, an Apartheid and Southern Rhodesia; becoming at the end an executor to his friend – Nkrumah’s Will.

    The book also has reflections on Ghana’s Fourth Republic and development on the African Continent since. It is edited with a detailed introduction by Jantuah’s nephew, the development specialist and literacy writer, Ivor Agyeman-Duah, who he worked with over the years on this and is currently a Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa.

  • The Boneshaker Politician

    The Boneshaker Politician is an autobiography of A.K. Opoku. He narrates how he gave his life to Christ in a dramatic way while travelling in a boneshaker, a wooden truck. He recounts how the Lord used him by way of evangelism and church building and his involvement in an uncompromising undercover politics in the church. Meanwhile he had nursed a childhood ambition of being an active politician.

    With all his “boneshaker” experience, he entered into politics and discovers that it was a different world altogether and bemoans the high moral and the financial entry requirements required of a Christian to engage in active politics. He raises question as to whether exhortations to get Christians involved in active politics is enough. He concludes with his family life and marvels at the art of God where four children of the same parentage and breed have four different characters and ambitions.

  • The River in the Sea: The Autobiography of Akenten Appiah-Menka

    The River in the Sea is a story of courage, determination, a clear sense of mission and vision on the part of a rural Ghanaian who, from humble beginnings, has risen to the highest echelon in society as a lawyer, an industrialist, a politician and statesman.It is a welcome addition to the limited literature available on the Ghanaian elite; a must read for all lawyers, politicians, academics and the populace at large.

  • Kwame Nkrumah and the Dawn of the Cold War: The West African National Secretariat, 1945-48

    The history of a Pan-Africanist movement based in Britain and its role in the Cold War in Africa

    The West African National Secretariat (WANS) has almost been forgotten by history. A pan-Africanist movement founded in 1945 by Kwame Nkrumah and colleagues in London and France, WANS campaigned for independence and unity. Nkrumah returned to the Gold Coast in late 1947. The colonial government accused him of being a communist and fomenting the riots of early 1948. He was jailed. This led to the beginning of the Cold War in West Africa.

    Drawing on archival research including the newly released MI5 files, Marika Sherwood reports on the work of WANS, on the plans for a unity conference in October 1948 in Lagos, and on Nkrumah’s return home. Sherwood demonstrates that colonial powers colluded with each other and the US in order to control the burgeoning struggles for independence. By labelling African nationalists as ‘communists’ in their efforts to contain decolonisation, the Western powers introduced the Cold War to the continent.

    Providing a rich exploration of a neglected history, this book sheds light for the first time on a crucial historical moment in the history of West Africa and the developmental trajectory of West African independence.

  • Frantz Fanon (Panaf Great Lives)

    Required reading for all interested in the Algerian Revolution, and in Fanon’s brief but highly productive contribution. A close study is made of the relationship between Fanon’s ideological development and the content and impact of his political philosophy.

  • Patrice Lumumba (Panaf Great Lives)

    This book considers the first years of the Congo Republic following independence in 1960. Particular analysis is made of Lumumba’s policies and of western pressures in this crucial experience of the African Revolution.

    The story of Lumumba underlines the correctness of Nkrumah’s Pan-African thesis.

  • The Destiny of A Horse Boy

    The Destiny of a Horse Boy, an autobiography, tells Mahama’s story of growing up as a member of the nobility in an Africa of bygone days. Raised by his grandparents, Mahama, an exceptional boy, starts life in the parched and inhospitable landscape of Northern Ghana, a far flung place that is thoughtfully, even lovingly, brought to life through the words of this prolific author.

    His hunger to go to school, to be educated, to rise above his time and place, is so powerful that he runs away from home, travelling in cars that can sometimes go no faster than eight miles an hour, in decrepit trucks, on unreliable ferries and pontoons, past menacing wild animals, ultimately to present himself at a school and beg for admission. Once accepted, he studies through school holidays, excels at nearly every undertaking, and proves himself to be a remarkable young man. At a time when the literary rates were in the single digits, Mahama goes on to become a lawyer and a politician of influence and note, thanks to his integrity and his desire to better his country and the lives of his fellow countrymen in Ghana.

    The Destiny of a Horse Boy delineates the steps from colonial rule to self-rule in Mahama’s beloved Ghana. He tells of violent, warring royal clans, the worst kinds of political jockeying and bloodshed at the hands of government lackeys, politicians and leaders who quite literally risk theirs lives in their quests for power.

    This resourceful and accomplished man has left an indelible mark on Ghana and global politics.

  • Two Views from Christiansborg Castle Vol I: A Brief and Truthful Description of a Journey to and from Guinea

    Selena Axelrod Winsnes has been engaged, since 1982, in the translation into English, and editing of Danish language sources to West African history, sources published from 1697 to 1822, the period during which Denmark-Norway was an actor in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. It comprises five major books written for the Scandinavian public. They describe all aspects of life on the Gold Coast [Ghana], the Middle Passage and the Danish Caribbean islands [US Virgin Islands], as seen by five different men. Each had his own agenda and mind-set, and the books, both singly and combined, hold a wealth of information – of interest both to scholars and lay readers. They provide important insights into the cultural baggage the enslaved Africans carried with them to the America’s.

    One of the books, L.F. Rømer’s A Reliable Account of the Coast of Guinea was runner-up for the prestigious International Texts Prize awarded by the U.S. African Studies Association.

  • Interim Republic: Ghana – The 1st Military Junta (1966 – 1969)

    When the long years of plotting by foreign powers with Ghanaian collaborators to upset governance in Ghana finally succeeded, many justification books and laudatory pamphlets and newspaper articles were published at home and abroad. Some bore pseudonames, others came forceful. The event which occasioned the potpourri was the 1st military coup d’etat in Ghana staged by a military and police combine.

    The Military/Police combination which overtook the government of Ghana, the 1st Republic Convention People’s Party (CPP)-led government in that putsch, installed an administration which came to be known as the National Liberation Council (NLC).

    This book sheds much-needed light on their lives and times.

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