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Destiny and Politics: A Biography of Hon. Samuel Sallas-Mensah
From a humble beginning as the son of a farmer in a relatively small town, Hon. Samuel Sallas-Mensah, four terms MP for Upper West Akim would perhaps have ended up as a farmer too. In those days, children took after their parents’ trades. Sallas got the chance to go to America and the entire course of his life changed. After a distinguished career in accountancy in the US and later in Nigeria, destiny led his way once more but this time to the country of his birth, Ghana, where eventually, a new career window opened in his life – politics.
As a Member of the Consultative Assembly his accounting and financial acumen were in evidence as he actively contributed to the District Assembly Common Fund. And as a Member of Parliament he was instrumental in instituting the live television coverage of the sitting of the Public Accounts Committee – legacies to the nation that survive today.
In this compelling biography the reader come face-to-face with this influential man of few words who is famed to have friends and access to both sides of the Ghanaian political divide. But what would Sallas be remembered for most, a politician, a chartered accountant or family man? More importantly, where else will destiny lead him to?
“Crispy-delicious narratives, refreshingly-garnished insights. This fascinating biography of a patriot never finishes astonishing you with the twists and turns. But it is the authoritative revelations about a nation and its people that makes this book destined to be relevant to the politics of Ghana.” ~ Business & Financial Times
₵45.00 -
Justice Daniel Francis Annan: In the Service of Democracy
Justice Annan’s public service in Ghana’s recent history embodies how an individual, acting in concert with compatriots, can direct the course of history using institutions which may prevail at a specific conjuncture in that history.
The objective of producing this biography of Justice Annan is to extrapolate from his life as a public servant, especially during the critical period of 1982- 1992 when he was a key member of the PNDC, and the 1993 – 2000 when he was Speaker of the first and second Parliaments of the Fourth Republic, the lessons and insights that add value to the existing knowledge of how social and political dynamics are purposefully managed even in the most challenging times; and how key institutions like Parliament are nurtured in a nascent democracy to literally turn dust into gold. The weight of the biography therefore leans heavily on Justice Annan’s public service during the two periods indicated above.
This biography was sponsored by the IDEG under its Senior Citizen Scholar in Residence Programme, which is non-partisan and open to all who have distinguished themselves in rendering service to our dear country Ghana. We hope that this publication will inspire institutions and individual philanthropists, both Ghanaian and foreign, to contribute generously to the funding of the programme. The programme aims at deepening our knowledge and understanding of the momentous conjunctures in our history that have shaped the content and trajectory of Ghana’s young democratic state.
₵170.00 -
Art and the Power of Goodness: A Collection of John Agyekum Kufuor (Hardcover)
**Available from 16 June 2021
FOREWORD BY GORDON BROWN, Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
There is a strong correlation between art and power and in this book, Ivor Agyeman-Duah, a cultural and literary historian, looks at it from the art collection of the former President of Ghana – John Agyekum Kufuor.
From a matrilineal household in Kumasi that is connected to the visual and palace art in the ancient imperial Kingdom of Ashanti, Kufuor travelled the world from Oxford into the pantheon of great personages and power. Along the way, whether in villages in Ethiopia or among the Maasai in Kenya, across the Maghreb into Morocco, infatuation with the Persia classical period, Ottoman or Asia Minor’s remains of modern day Turkey, northern Lebanon and parts of Greater Asia, some of these acquisitions came by way of gifts and purchases.
They reflect family life and belief, ancient trade relations and routes as well as patterns of contemporary geo-politics. It could be through Benin bronze sculpture with facial stratifications or of metal smelted Malian Islamic crusaders on horseback or a herdsman from a Sahel water well.
These works, seventy of which form the basis of this book with few external ones, include resistance art in the fashion of the ‘empire fights back’ against British West African colonial conflict engagements and resultant Independence.
₵200.00 -
Red Oak Heroes Series: Dr. J. B. Danquah
*Available from 15 August 2023
Age Range: 10 – 14 years
Yirivie and his friends meet a historian on a bus while they are going to school and when the historian starts educating the passengers on Dr. J. B. Danquah, they become interested and ask for his contact. Back in school, they give the contact to their History teacher and ask her to invite the historian to come to the school to tell them more. The teacher agrees and books an appointment with Mr. Ofori, the historian.
On the day of the appointment, it doesn’t look like Mr. Ofori will show up. Yirivie and his two friends who promised their class a great time with the historian are caught in a fix but things turn around in the most unexpected way.₵25.00 -
Red Oak Heroes Series: John Agyekum Kufuor
*Available from 15 August 2023
Age Range: 10 – 14 years
From his childhood, he was raised to be a leader and J.A. Kufuor took advantage of every opportunity that came his way. His thoughtfulness enabled him to face all situations – a virtue that came with exceptional patience resulting in his ability to rise to the highest office of the land. At one time he was a political prisoner but that was not even enough to deter him from achieving his dream leadership. There is no wonder that this President achieved so much for Ghana. The ‘Gentle Giant’ is a man of vision and action.
₵35.00 -
Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now (Hardcover)
A concise, brilliant, and trenchant examination of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s successful lifelong quest for the presidency by National Book Award winner Evan Osnos.
President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has been called both the luckiest man and the unluckiest—fortunate to have sustained a fifty-year political career that reached the White House, but also marked by deep personal losses and disappointments that he has suffered.
Yet even as Biden’s life has been shaped by drama, it has also been powered by a willingness, rare at the top ranks of politics, to confront his shortcomings, errors, and reversals of fortune. As he says, “Failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable.” His trials have forged in him a deep empathy for others in hardship—an essential quality as he leads America toward recovery and renewal.
Blending up-close journalism and broader context, Evan Osnos, who won the National Book Award in 2014, draws on nearly a decade of reporting for The New Yorker to capture the characters and meaning of 2020’s extraordinary presidential election. It is based on lengthy interviews with Biden and on revealing conversations with more than a hundred others, including President Barack Obama, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, and a range of activists, advisers, opponents, and Biden family members.
This portrayal illuminates Biden’s long and eventful career in the Senate, his eight years as Obama’s vice president, his sojourn in the political wilderness after being passed over for Hillary Clinton in 2016, his decision to challenge Donald Trump for the presidency, and his choice of Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate.
Osnos ponders the difficulties Biden faces as his presidency begins and weighs how a changing country, a deep well of experiences, and a rigorous approach to the issues, have altered his positions. In this nuanced portrait, Biden emerges as flawed, yet resolute, and tempered by the flame of tragedy—a man who just may be uncannily suited for his moment in history.
₵250.00 -
Too Much and Never Enough How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man (Hardcover)
In this revelatory, authoritative portrait of Donald J. Trump and the toxic family that made him, Mary L. Trump, a trained clinical psychologist and Donald’s only niece, shines a bright light on the dark history of their family in order to explain how her uncle became the man who now threatens the world’s health, economic security, and social fabric.
Mary Trump spent much of her childhood in her grandparents’ large, imposing house in the heart of Queens, New York, where Donald and his four siblings grew up. She describes a nightmare of traumas, destructive relationships, and a tragic combination of neglect and abuse. She explains how specific events and general family patterns created the damaged man who currently occupies the Oval Office, including the strange and harmful relationship between Fred Trump and his two oldest sons, Fred Jr. and Donald.
A firsthand witness to countless holiday meals and interactions, Mary brings an incisive wit and unexpected humor to sometimes grim, often confounding family events. She recounts in unsparing detail everything from her uncle Donald’s place in the family spotlight and Ivana’s penchant for regifting to her grandmother’s frequent injuries and illnesses and the appalling way Donald, Fred Trump’s favorite son, dismissed and derided him when he began to succumb to Alzheimer’s.
Numerous pundits, armchair psychologists, and journalists have sought to parse Donald J. Trump’s lethal flaws. Mary L. Trump has the education, insight, and intimate familiarity needed to reveal what makes Donald, and the rest of her clan, tick. She alone can recount this fascinating, unnerving saga, not just because of her insider’s perspective but also because she is the only Trump willing to tell the truth about one of the world’s most powerful and dysfunctional families.
₵205.00 -
Chasing the Elephant Into the Bush: The Politics of Complacency
Chasing the Elephant Into the Bush: The Politics of Complacency is an insider’s account of how the governing New Patriotic Party lost power in the closest elections in Africa’s history. The writer believes that providing an accurate account will begin the process of correcting the rumours, lies and myths that are out there about the 2008 elections in Ghana.
Throughout, the book is liberally sprinkled with quotes and historical references that makes it very informative and interesting. He begins with the state of the nation and the governing party as Ghana approached 2008.
He then takes the reader through the NPP primary and his own experiences as a losing candidate. There is candid discussion of the rivalries in the campaign that undermined its effectiveness. He takes the reader inside meetings and quotes some of the key players at key moments in the campaign.
There is candid discussion of the roles of the media, the security forces and civil society. The identification of issues and their use in the campaign is discussed thoroughly. While his sympathies are never in doubt, he is very objective and acknowledges the mistakes made by the campaign, the government and the party. He credits the NDC Campaign for doing certain things well. Amongst these are the deployment of President Mills and former President Rawlings as well as Vice-President John Mahama.
He reveals the roles of key people, including the President, the Presidential candidate and powerful groups, like the “Kyebi Mafia”. He offers candid assessments of all the key players. He suggests reasons for the NPP defeat and the way to recapture power.
This will be a very significant first cut and reference point for an account of the 2008 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections in Ghana.
₵320.00 -
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.
₵150.00 -
Ahwene Pa Nkasa: Standing with JDM
Standing with JDM is quite clear in this title that it does not intend to undermine the former president’s image but to burnish it. What is not clear is whether it was written to coincide with the 2020 Election Year.
It is in two parts, “The Homeland Briefs” and the “Diplomatic Briefs”. Independent of each other, they are held together by what the author calls the “Mahamarabilia” thread – a word he invented to describe his privileged proximity to the 4th president of the 4th Republic of Ghana.
Part One has 42 chapters that highlight events like Dumsor, Gitmo 2, Montie 3, Cheating at Elections, Lying and Blaming it on Mahama, Destroying friends and Family and much, much more…It also has intellectual discourses on Traditional Governance and the Ballot Box, Kigali (dangers that could be awaiting Ghana in this Election Year), Ebola and Covid-19 and the history of Ghana’s “coodetas” in new lights that would surprise and reveal…
Part Two, with 25 chapters, is devoted entirely to the author’s diplomatic service and reads sometimes like a coursebook on practical diplomacy and other times like a travelogue with intriguing insights. We come across his encounter with a sex change person (man to woman) and how his life was nearly cut short when his official car and ostrich crashed into each other on the highway from Windhoek to Gaborone. Part Two is so suffused with humour that it is difficult to tell whether he is pulling the reader’s leg or stating facts.
Most of the chapters are illustrated with unique pictures that could stand on their own as stories. It is a beautifully designed book, well laid out reader-friendly. For the first time, a modern version of adinkra, called adinshia, has had a public airing in the book…
Whatever your political persuasion is, your intellect will make you love this beautiful book on Mahama.₵120.00 -
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.
₵150.00Working with Rawlings
₵150.00 -
Bookset: Lives of 5 Ghanaian Pioneers and 5 Ghanaian Leaders (2 books)
Age Range: 8 – 15 years
Two amazing books that introduce young people to great Ghanaian leaders and pioneers who contributed to the development of this country. Their roles in shaping the course of Ghana’s history, independence and social life are detailed as examples for study by our youth.
₵44.00₵48.00 -
The Political History of Ghana (1950-2013): The Experience of a Non-Conformist – Pre-Order
This book is an instructive historical record of the First Republic of Ghana and the triumphs and tribulations of successive governments since 1950. It reminds us of the struggle between Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and his political opponents in the period preceding the achievement of political independence for Ghana, the events leading to his overthrow, and its impact on the course of Ghana’s history. It is perhaps the most comprehensive history to date of the Rawlings era, the establishment of the Fourth Republic, and the formation of the National Democratic Congress (NDC). The NDC came to eclipse the Convention People’s Party (CPP) as the rival of the Danquah-Busia tradition manifested in the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), the country’s oldest national political movement originally formed to pioneer the independence struggle but later eclipsed by the breakaway CPP. The UGCC has undergone several transformations since and today is represented by the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
The book well documents the challenges facing independent Ghana, including those related to the growth of democracy nationwide and within political parties. The African liberation struggle, the drama of the Congo crisis of the 1960s, and the Liberian crisis of the 1990s are graphically re-enacted to highlight Ghana’s significant role in the events. It is perhaps the best account of the sacrifices Ghana and other ECOWAS countries, particularly Nigeria, made in returning peace to Liberia after a bitter civil war through the successful peacekeeping and peace-enforcement efforts of ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG).
The book sheds light on Dr. Obed Yao Asamoah’s evolution into a politician of no mean achievement during the creation of the Fourth Republic and as the longest serving Foreign Minister and Attorney-General and Minister of Justice Ghana has ever known, offices he held simultaneously between 1993 and 1997.
₵1,365.00 -
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.
₵100.00 -
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.
₵85.00