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Beyond the Political Spider: Critical Issues in African Humanities (African Humanities Series)
Beyond the Political Spider: Critical Issues in African Humanities by Kwesi Yankah is the first title in the newly established African Humanities Association (AHA) publication series.
By integrating his own biography into a critique of the global politics of knowledge production, Yankah, through a collection of essays, interrogates critical issues confronting the Humanities that spawn intellectual hegemonies and muffle African voices. Using the example of Ghana, he brings under scrutiny, amongst others, endemic issues of academic freedom, gender inequities, the unequal global academic order, and linguistic imperialism in language policies in governance.
In the face of these challenges, the author deftly navigates the complex terrain of indigenous knowledge and language in the context of democratic politics, demonstrating that agency can be liberatory when emphasising indigenous knowledge, especially expressed through the idiom of local languages and symbols, including Ananse, the protean spider, folk hero in Ghana and most parts of the pan-African world.
“Fascinating snapshots from an engaged scholarly life in Africa, valuable as an archival resource for the understanding of this period of higher education in Africa.” – John Higgins, Arderne Chair in Literature, Department of English Literary Studies, University of Cape Town
“This book is unique and gives a powerful rendition of the state of the Humanities in Africa (with Ghana as a case in point). It grapples with some of the pertinent issues dogging the Humanities in Africa. It comments on the Humanities scholarship in Africa, and subtly throws a challenge for future scholarship. It draws on African traditions, communal heritage, and governance in discussing the role and place of the Humanities in Africa. It also brings into the analysis the ever-changing imperatives and modernity in re-configuring African Humanities.” – Mark Benge Okot, Head of Department, Literature, Makerere University, Uganda
“Beyond the Political Spider’ effectively draws, in a unique fashion, from literature, history, linguistics and other cognate disciplines in the African Humanities.” – Sati Umaru Fwatshak, Department of History, University of Jos, Nigeria
₵340.00 -
Towards Colonial Freedom: Africa in the Struggle Against World Imperialism
Africa in the struggle against world imperialism. This little classic was completed in 1945. In the words of the author: “Most of the points I made then have been borne out to the letter and confirmed by subsequent developments in Africa and Asia.“
₵480.00 -
Anansi’s Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World (Paperback)
**Available in 3 weeks after order
‘Fabulously entertaining’ Daily Telegraph
‘This astonishing book reveals some of the most important global events of the twentieth century’ Afua Hirsch
‘Perfect for fans of Frank Abignale Jr.’s Catch Me If You Can‘ Publishers Weekly
The astounding, never-before-told story of how an ingenious Ghanaian con artist ran one of the 20th century’s longest and most audacious frauds.When Ghana declared independence from Britain in 1957, it immediately became a target for opportunists determined to lay hold of whatever assets colonialism hadn’t already stripped. The military ousted the new nation’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, then falsely accused him of stealing the country’s gold and hiding it overseas.
Into this story stepped one of history’s most charismatic scammers, John Ackah Blay-Miezah – a con man to rival the trickster god Anansi. Born into poverty, Blay-Miezah declared himself the custodian of an alleged Nkrumah trust fund worth billions. You, too, could claim a piece, if only you would help him rescue it – with a small investment. Over the 1970s and ’80s, he grew his scam to epic proportions, amassing hundreds of millions of pounds from thousands of marks all over the world. He baffled Henry Kissinger, scandalised Shirley Temple-Black, and had Nixon’s former attorney-general at his beck and call. Many tried to stop him, but Blay-Miezah continued to live in luxury, protected by ex-SAS soldiers while he deceived lawyers, businessmen and investigators around the globe.
In Anansi’s Gold, Yepoka Yeebo chases the ever-wilder trail of Blay-Miezah – and unfolds a riveting account of Cold War entanglements and African dreams – revealing the untold story of the grifter who beat the West at its own thieving game.
₵375.00 -
Politics in Ghana: From the Earliest Times to the Eve of the Fourth Republic
Politics in Ghana: From the Earliest Times to the Eve of the Fourth Republic has been introduced to equip political science students and avid readers interested in the subject as well as both budding and seasoned politicians with effective tools that give them a firm understanding of Ghana’s political development.
The book provides a bird’s eyes view and a penetrating insight into controversial issues that shaped events and developments of the country from the pre-colonial times through the struggle for independence to the post-independence era.
In an accessible and engaging writing style, the book effectively analyses the nexus between the geographical features of the country, particularly the ethnic and regional distributions of the people and how they impacted on the political development during the period under review. It also traverses the constitutional development and other factors that triggered political action from the late 1800s to the eve of the Fourth Republic. Ghana witnessed three republics each of which was truncated by military juntas that provided interim administration to fill the hiatuses before the eventual transition to democratic rule for the fourth time. Factors that occasioned the interruptions and the subsequent return to constitutional rule together with the performances of the various regimes and their ramifications are incisively analysed.
Politics in Ghana: From the Earliest Times to the Eve of the Fourth Republic is an authentic reference document for any person who is thirsty for a better understanding of political events that preceded the final return to constitutional rule in 1993.
₵100.00 -
History of Ashanti by Otumfuo, Nana Osei Agyeman Prempeh II (Hardcover)
History of Ashanti is unusual, perhaps unique, in that it provides a long historical account of the great West African forest kingdom of Asante by a ruler of that society. Thus, it is African history written by an African king and his assistants. This is, without a doubt, a very important document for historians of Africa. It has too a much wider resonance at the present time: here the Asante ‘voice’ is speaking directly to all those across the globe who claim ancestral links to the African continent, and who are still engaged in the struggle to define, to strengthen and to assert their identities in a world that long discounted the value, or even the existence, of their historical experience.
₵712.00 -
Ogyakrom: The Missing Pages of June 4th (Fireman Series) – Paperback
Kwesi Yankah is currently the Minister of State for Tertiary Education in Ghana. Until April 2017, he was Vice Chancellor of Central University, Ghana, and was previously Professor of Linguistics and Pro-Vice Chancellor at the University of Ghana. Yankah, an inimitable satirist, is a proud product of Winneba Secondary School, University of Ghana and Indiana University, USA, where he did his doctorate. Well known in literary and academic circles, Professor Yankah has been a Public Intellectual since the late 1970s when, at 27, he started an anonymous column in The Catholic Standard newspaper, under the pseudonym Abonsam Fireman. The credit for the column, in a suppressive political environment, was often mistakenly given to the two great luminaries PAV Ansah and Adu Boahen.
Later in 1986, when Yankah returned from doctoral work at Indiana University, he introduced another weekly column, Woes of the Kwatriot, this time in The Mirror which he sustained for a period of ten years. In 1996, the Ghana Journalists Association honoured him for ‘the longest running column in the history of Ghanaian journalism.’ His writings, both literary and academic, have won for Yankah various awards including the WEB Du Bois Award (GAW), the Zora Hurston Award (GAW), the Ghana Book Development Award (GBDC) and the Gold Book Award given by the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The present volume represents landmarks within 22 months of Yankah’s weekly column in The Catholic Standard, from January 1979 to March 1980. It is inspired by topical issues in two military regimes (General F Akuffo’s SMC 2, Rawlings’ June 4th Revolution) and one civilian government (Hilla Limann’s PNP). This compilation altogether allows a veiled peep into the most turbulent period in Ghana’s political history, Rawlings’ June 4th Revolution, including preceding events and the aftermath of the Revolution. In the words of Dr Anthony Bonnah Koomson, Editor of The Catholic Standard at the time of Yankah’s celebrated column: “The book captures a momentous era in Ghana’s immediate political history, reminiscences of which the author has sough to recreate and preserve with phenomenal linguistic skill. It presents, through satire, an accurate heartbeat of a people under intense political paralysis.”
This book makes compelling, even if hilarious, reading on Ghana’s enigmatic June 4th Revolution.
₵90.00 -
Baffour Osei Akoto: A Royal Patriot and the Making of Ghana (Hardcover)
Foreword by President John Agyekum Kufuor
This book is primarily composed of speeches presented at the 16th edition of the annual Re-Akoto Memorial Lectures held at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi. The Re Akoto Memorial Lectures, instituted by His Majesty Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, life patron of the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) of the Ghana School of Law, seeks, amongst other things, to promote research, study and educate the citizenry on the development of Ghana’s constitutional democracy and human rights. Over the years, it has been presented by a good number of eminent Ghanaians and through which they have illuminated various spheres of life, especially issues regarding law and fundamental human rights, which are the key components that form the genesis of the famous Re-Akoto Case.
The presenters included Kwame Pianim, one of Ghana’s eminent economists; Maxwell Opoku-Agyemang, then-acting Director of the Ghana School of Law; Chief Justice Kwasi Anim Yeboah and Attorney-General Godfred Dame. Prof Mike Aaron Oquaye, a veritable political scientist and accomplished politician, knitted the strains together to discuss how Baffour’s strides and successes reaffirmed the liberal democratic political philosophy of the New Patriotic Party (NPP). He indicated that human beings have a dignity that must be protected and that dictatorial tendencies must not be accepted. Finally, provided a historical trajectory of Ghana’s stint with an authoritarian regime focusing on the country’s post-independence one-party political system.
“Baffour excelled in this career as an Asante diplomat, a valuable repository of Asante and Ghanaian social, cultural and political history, and a defender of the power of traditional leadership in the face of the onslaught of modern post-colonial politics in Ghana.” – His Majesty Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, Asantehene
₵350.00 -
The Fear of Failure: An Autobiography
From Agomanya in the Eastern Region of Ghana, a 65 year old J. P. Adjimani narrates his life and how his fear of failure spurred him on instead of derailing him. In his autobiography, the biochemist unravels why he was never promoted to be a professor despite having a 28-year admirable career in Ghana’s premier university, University of Ghana.
₵80.00 -
Revolutionary Path
This book was compiled during the last two years of the author’s life. It was begun in response to many requests for a single volume which would contain key documents, some of them previously unpublished, which would illustrate landmarks in his career as a leading theorist and activist of the world socialist revolutionary struggle.
Among the documents included in Parts One and Two are Editorials from the Accra Evening News, What I Mean by Positive Action, The Motion of Destiny, The Dawn Broadcast, and the full text of other important speeches and broadcasts. Introductory sections to each document provide further insight into the political thinking of this great revolutionary Pan Africanist.
₵850.00Revolutionary Path
₵850.00 -
Proceedings of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences & The J.B. Danquah Memorial Lecture, Series 3 (Volume VIII, 1970)
Proceedings, 1970. This issue contains the third series of the J.B. Danquah Memorial Lectures delivered by R.K.A. Gardiner in 1970.
Contents
The Role of Educated Persons in Ghana Society – R.K.A. Gardiner (The J.B. Danquah Memorial Lecture, Series 3)
Law Reform in Ghana in the 1970s – Justice N.A. Ollennu
Africa and the European Economic Community – Professor J.C. de Graft-Johnson
The Dilemma of the Scientist – Professor D.A. Bekoe
The Intellectual and the Meeting of Disciplines – Dr. Letitia E. Obeng
The Creative Arts and the Community – Professor J.H. Nketia
Faith and Reason – Professor K.A. Dickson
Some Concepts of Medical Education in Ghana – Professor C.O. Easmon
Training and Employment of Technicians in Ghana – J.G. O’Barka Torto
Technology and Culture – Professor K.E. de Graft-Johnson
Some Aspects of Agricultural Research in Ghana – Professor Kankam Twum-Barima
Social and Educational Factors Relevant to Agricultural Progress in Ghana – S. La-Anyare
Clinical Research in the Ghana Medical School – Professor E.A. Badoe
The State of Research in Applied Genetics in Ghana – Professor Ebenezer Laing
₵20.00 -
In Attendance: On and Off Campus – A Personal Diary
In Attendance is the third in a series of autobiographical reflections by Ebow Daniel, who spent a 34-year career at the University of Ghana, the last ten of which saw him as Registrar – a role which, its prominence notwithstanding, he self-deprecatingly describes as bureaucrat, rather than academic; in academia, but not of it; also present at the Academic Board, but does not count for quorum; to be seen, but not heard, neither Present’ nor ‘Absent,’ in the minutes, only ‘In Attendance.’ Forewords generously contributed to In Attendance by H. E. Mrs Agnes Y. Aggrey-Orleans (Retired Diplomat), Kojo Yankah, founder, African University College of Communications (AUCC) and Ivan Addae-Mensah, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry and Former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, provide compelling reason to read this book.
Following Mr. Registrar, published in 1999 and A Tale of Cape Coast published in 2004, In Attendance is a book of many parts. Beyond the autobiographical insights it provides in its vignettes, it recounts, within well-researched contextual accounts of colonial and post-colonial educational policy, the foundational stories of Adisadel College and the University of Ghana, both alma maters of the author. In Attendance also presents, with liberal doses of the author’s characteristic humour, the author’s educational and professional journey – and people encountered, some in wistful detail – from early days in Sekondi through to his professional life in Legon and to his post retirement life in Kigali, Rwanda; in the Office of President J. A. Kuffuor at the Osu Castle and Jubilee House; and, to final retirement at Another Den, his home in Tema. The author’s reflections on higher education in Ghana, on the political experiment that Ghana is, on religion, on Freemasonry, and on the role of the latter in his life, all presented in a unique style of writing, make for fascinating reading. Foreshadowing his demise in 2019, the titles of final parts of In Attendance – At the Confessional, Homestretch, In Memoriam, Nothing now Remains, Curtain, End of Story and – Final Call belie his humorous depiction of life’s lessons.
₵200.00 -
A Legacy of Service to Humanity- Brig. Gen. Joseph Nunoo-Mensah
In the book “A Legacy of Service to Humanity” author Korletey Jorbua Obuadey reveals to the reader the humanitarian activities of Brigadier General Joseph Nunoo-Mensah. The book inspires all especially the youth of Africa to service to our fellow country men and women and to our nation.
₵50.00 -
Bookset: Not My Time to Die & Guns Over Kigali (2 books)
A pack of 2 books on the Kigali Genocide
About the Books
Not My Time to Die
“Reading Yolande Mukagasana’s book in French at the age of 15 changed my life.”- Gaël Faye
Originally published as La mort ne veut pas de moi in 1997, this book was the first survivor testimony to be published about the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
In 1994 Yolande was an unconventional nurse and mother of three who enjoyed wearing jeans and designer glasses. She ran her own clinic in Nyamirambo and was planning a party for her wedding anniversary. But when genocide started everything changed. Targeted because she was a successful Tutsi woman, she was separated from her family and had to flee for her life.
Mukagasana’s gripping memoir describes the betrayal of friends and help that came from surprising places. Quick-witted and courageous, Yolande never lost hope she would find her children alive.
Translated from the French by Zoe Norridge.
Guns Over Kigali
The world has come to know about the carnage and human suffering in Rwanda through the reportage by newsmen. Guns Over Kigali is no such reportage. It is personal account of a UN peacekeeping soldier who was in the thick of the action to bring sanity into a country that had gone berserk.
Major General Anyidoho, the author of this book, survived the mayhem and the hectic moments in Rwanda and tells the world the true story of the events as he saw them. What is valuable in his account are the lessons he draws which have profound implications for UN peacekeeping around the world. Students in military institutions, researchers in war studies, politicians, policy makers, relief NGOs and the general reader interested in international relations will find this book a compelling and very useful reading.
In Rwanda the author was the Deputy Force Commander and Chief of Staff of the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) where he collected the material for this book.
₵175.00 -
Inside Out: Autobiographical Memoirs
The author recounts a journey that starts in a small town in Ghana, through an academic and professional career in finance in Canada and the United States, culminating at the Ministry of Finance in Ghana where he served as Technical Advisor to three different Ministers of Finance from different political parties.
The memoirs depict the complexities of decision-making that combine technical know-how with political reality using several instances of policymaking and financial transactions that he led at the Ministry. For the technical reader, the author recounts a 25-year history of his involvement in many key initiatives of financial market development in Ghana.
The sweetener in Inside Out is an interesting case study of how to navigate political transitions and maintain relevance as a senior advisor to Ministers in a “winner-takes-all” political environment.
₵150.00 -
Consciencism: Philosophy and Ideology for Decolonisation
Revised, and with a new Author’s Note written in Conakry
Kwame Nkrumah, always in the vanguard of the African Revolution, has not only been at the centre of its political action, but has formulated its ideology. In this book he expresses his philosophical beliefs, relating them to the special problems of Africa, and states his case for scientific socialism as the essential and logical development from Africa’s socio-political heritage.₵570.00