• The ‘Kaya’ Diplomat: Diary Notes of a Ghanaian Diplomat (Hardcover)

    The ‘Kaya’ Diplomat: Diary Notes of a Ghanaian Diplomat is an account of event and episodes that I encountered in my forty-one years of service as a Foreign Service Officer.

    Inevitably, such a story coincides with the life and service of other high-ranking personalities who played a role or directed Foreign Policy of the Republic of Ghana, as our lives crossed. These interactions played a major role in developments in my career and fashioned the Diplomat that I became.

    This is my story.

  • Joy: A Biography of Henrietta Mensa-Bonsu

    “At just 18 months of age, in 1959, Henrietta overcame the first of a lifetime of recurring challenges. One day she was rushed to a private hospital in Kumasi by her mother, feverish and weak. Her pulse was faint and everyone was scared. The doctor scolded Elizabeth for waiting for so long before bringing Henrietta to the hospital.

    “This is a hopeless case,” the doctor said to the distraught mother and asked back home with her child. Even after being dismissed from the hospital, Mama Elizabeth still remained on the premises, imploring; her arms firmly around her sick baby. Evidently out of pity, the doctor said, ‘Okay, I’m going to cut you a deal. Go home with the child. If tomorrow morning comes and she is still alive, bring her for treatment.’”

    This biography vividly captures how that 18-month-old baby survived, persevered and rose to become a Justice of the Supreme Court of Ghana.

    Joy is a captivating account of three generations committed to the pursuit of excellence community and public service. It is the testimony of the nurturing powers of education. It is the testimony of a woman whose life epitomises fairness, family and faith.

    “This book offers a lot more than a record of scholarly excellence and legal brilliance. In elegant prose, the author succeeds in combining these illuminating historical essays with a perceptive sociological case study of the ‘middle class’ in Ghana. On all counts. Prof. Henrietta Mensa-Bonsu’s biography is a literary treasure.” − Nana Prof. SKB Asante, Omanhene of Asante Asokore and Past President of Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences

    150.00200.00
  • Contemporary Issues in Foreign Policy, Diplomacy and International Affairs

    This is a collection of essays derived from a series of symposia and online webinars hosted by the Council of Foreign Relations- Ghana.

    From the inaugural symposium chaired by Ambassador James Victor Gbeho, with addresses by The President of Ghana, His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, and Ghana’s Foreign Minister, Madam Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, the CFR-Ghana elicits interesting views and opinions from people best placed to be aware of the big picture of contemporary issues in international affairs, particularly from the perspective of how they impact our African Continent.

    Totally informative and engaging, sometimes entertaining and mentally provocative, which challenges us all to seriously reflect upon contemporary issues in foreign policy, diplomacy and international affairs.

    “The setting up of CFR-Ghana is long overdue and I’m glad that finally it has been done. The Executives and Founding Members are to be commended for this achievement and I wish them the very best of luck in the years to come. “

    – H.E President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo (President of the Republic of  Ghana)

     

    150.00200.00
  • General Acheampong: The Life and Times of Ghana’s Head of State (Hardcover)

    A magnificent book…brilliant in shedding light on some of the most important but little known dark passages in our national history…worth reading by anybody who truly seeks knowledge about our recent past.

  • Special Book Launch Set: Autographed Hardcover of From Achinakrom to Pro-Vice Chancellor (plus paperback and Emancipation book)

    This is a special launch set – limited – that includes an autographed copy of the hardcover of Prof Florence Dolphyne’s new autobiography, a paperback version of the autobiography and a copy of her best-selling book The Emancipation of Women: An African Perspective.

    Blurb for the Autobiography

    An autobiography serves the purpose of relating experiences of the writer. These are usually personal experiences and readers can draw inspiration from such experiences.

    This is a book written by a renowned academician, but unlike many books written by academics, it reads like a story written by an accomplished novelist. It tells the story of a girl of very humble parentage who was able, by dint of hard work and divine providence, to make it to the very apex of academia. It is a book that tells the story of ‘Mmofraturo’, synonymous with the training of girls to influence their world before the advent of militant feminism. It is a story that gives another peep at the practice of racism in Europe.

    But then, it is also the book that confirms the subtle discrimination that women are often subjected to in our education system, even at the highest level.

    Moreover, it is a story that tells the history of the practice of education in Ghana over a number of decades. Then, the writer draws us into the age-old issue of family life, foster children, biological children, and the Ghanaian family set up.

    From Achinakrom to Pro-Vice Chancellor is a book about friendship and love that tells the story of women, individually and in groups trying to help make others enjoy the life of work and leisure. Furthermore, this book gives a hint that speaking one’s first language can be the source of the survival of an individual in certain critical situations.

    This inspiring story is also a personal history of Ghana from pre-independence by someone who has helped to shape Ghana’s education system, women’s rights during the UN Decade for Women, and human rights through Ghana’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It is a story of a phenomenal woman who has made Ghana and Achinakrom proud.

  • Forward Ever: The Life of Kwame Nkrumah

    A short biography of Kwame Nkrumah providing an introduction to his life and work. Set within the context of PanAfricanism the book covers the whole period of Nkrumah’s life from childhood through to his death in Bucharest on 27th April 1972.

  • Who Owns the Land and Who Rules the Land?

    Ghana is undergoing her fourth experiment in Constitutional Rule − the 4th Republic. She was the first Black African country south of the Sahara to gain her political independence in 1957 but economic independence has eluded her till now. Her development is at a snail-pace at best.

    According to the author, there are certain fundamental bottlenecks in the country’s governance system which make it difficult for her to realize her economic potential. The author compares Ghana’s governance system to Singapore which gained political independence around the same time as Ghana but has successfully transformed from Third World to First World economic status in 30 years and asks why the difference. The author calls for a national debate on the country’s governance system that will lead to a total review of the 1992 Constitution. The following are some of the key issues he calls the nation’s attention to:

     

    • A Feudal Land Tenure System whereby more than 90% of the land mass of Ghana is vested in the Chieftaincy institution as Stool Lands and the remaining 10% vested in the President on behalf of the people of Ghana as Public Lands. A system which greatly impedes development and benefits only a privileged few and yet there are no Land Reforms
    • The Legacy of the Colonial Indirect Rule leading to a “bifurcated state” in which traditional authority runs parallel to civilian political authority
    • An Ineffective Decentralization System which excludes the traditional leaders and refuses to allow the people to elect their own District Chief Executives whom they can hold accountable
    • An Adversarial Political System in which the two main political parties have indulged in violence since independence and thus refuse to reach consensus for national development
    • The Short Tenure of the Executive and Legislature which does not promote long term planning and execution for meaningful development
    • An expensive electoral system which engenders corruption and prevents well-meaning and qualified candidates from offering themselves for governance
    • The Lack of a National Agenda for development and dependence on party manifestoes thus ignoring the Directive Principles of State Policy. Development is thus not progressive but disjointed and depends on which party is in power
    • A Council of State which is merely advisory and has no power to serve as a check on the Executive
    • A National Mindset of Dependency Syndrome and Entitlement Mentality which has resulted in lack of effective mobilization of the populace by the political and traditional leadership. A national psyche that does not promote self-reliance and the can-do spirit
    • A Governance System which tries to copy Westminster and American systems instead of a home-grown system which suits our situation and promotes development
    • An Educational System that fails to build problem-solving abilities and patriotism into the youth and fails to make them proud of being Africans
    • A Very Strong Religious Atmosphere which feeds on superstition and does not enable the teeming members to transform their mindset and focus on teachings which promote hard work, wealth creation and prosperity
  • Swimming Upstream: The Story of Southern Cross

    Kwame Donkoh Fordwor’s dream was realized due to the precision planning which was utilized to develop Southern Cross Mining Limited (SCML), as the company established itself as the first active gold mining operation to be brought to Ghana Since 1937. This came to pass by way of chance associations and the joint efforts of collaborators who possessed different backgrounds and motivations.
    Even with the assistance of numerous people along the way, the inception of Southern Cross was not easy. It required aggressive action and time to fend or larger corporations and fight government officials for the rights and freedoms they felt they deserved.
    Fordwor titles this book Swimming Upstream: The Story of Southern Cross because of the comparisons he draws between himself and the struggles of salmon attempting to reach their spawning grounds. Much like a salmon battling currents, fishermen, and other predators to reach its final destination, Fordwor had to struggle to make his own path and place in history, using keen instincts and good fortune to maintain the competitiveness and success of SCML.
    Swimming Upstream vividly details the rich history of Southern Cross and other gold mining venturers who strived to achieve historical recognition. It is an illuminating work-powerfully written and inspirational to all who are still seeking to make a lifetime dream come true.

  • Truth Without Reconciliation: A Human Rights History of Ghana (Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights)

    Although truth and reconciliation commissions are supposed to generate consensus and unity in the aftermath of political violence, Abena Ampofoa Asare identifies cacophony as the most valuable and overlooked consequence of this process in Ghana. By collecting and preserving the voices of a diverse cross-section of the national population, Ghana’s National Reconciliation Commission (2001-2004) created an unprecedented public archive of postindependence political history as told by the self-described victims of human rights abuse.
    The collected voices in the archives of this truth commission expand Ghana’s historic record by describing the state violence that seeped into the crevices of everyday life, shaping how individuals and communities survived the decades after national independence. Here, victims of violence marshal the language of international human rights to assert themselves as experts who both mourn the past and articulate the path toward future justice.
    There are, however, risks as well as rewards for dredging up this survivors’ history of Ghana. The revealed truth of Ghana’s human rights history is the variety and dissonance of suffering voices. These conflicting and conflicted records make it plain that the pursuit of political reconciliation requires, first, reckoning with a violence that is not past but is preserved in national institutions and individual lives. By exploring the challenge of human rights testimony as both history and politics, Asare charts a new course in evaluating the success and failures of truth and reconciliation commissions in Africa and around the world.

  • My Life in Law and Politics: Memoirs & Biography of B.J. da Rocha

    This book chronicles the life of B.J. da Rocha as a lawyer and politician. B. J., as he was popularly known, was a legal luminary and politician extraordinaire. Born on May 16th 1927, he devoted the entire course of his professional life to entrenching the rule of law, development of legal education, and in the defence of human rights till his death on the 23rd of February 2010.

    He was noted for forthrightness, integrity and principled stance on issues on the rule of law and national development.

    He played various prominent roles in Law and Politics as a lawyer, director of legal education, law lecturer and first Chairman of the New Patriotic Party.

    This account is related by B.J. himself in Part 1, followed by an Epilogue based on interviews B.J. conducted with Mr. Dei, a student of history, for his dissertation.

    This book is an exciting read for students of political history in Ghana and is an insightful commentary on Ghana’s chequered political history.

    “Here was a man, when comes such another” — Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

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