About this title: Compiled from four decades of reporting, this is celebrated journalist Kapuscinski's most complete portrait of the Africa that he has made the focus of his great career. Kapuscinski's unorthodox approach and his profound respect for the people he meets challenge conventional understandings of modern Africa.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Edition: First Paperback Edition; Eighth Printing
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage, New York
Date Published: 2002
ISBN-13:9780679779070ISBN:0679779078
Description: Very Good+ 0679779078. Clean, tight, unmarked book, not ex-lib, no remainder marks; 0.8 x 7.9 x 5.2 Inches; 325 pages. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Vintage Books
Date Published: 2002-04-01
ISBN-13:9780679779070ISBN:0679779078
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780679779070. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 2002
ISBN-13:9780679779070ISBN:0679779078
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, Toronto
Date Published: 2001
ISBN-13:9780676973747ISBN:0676973744
Description: Very Good + in Very Good jacket. Hardcover with unclipped dust jacket, 325 pages; very gently used, very clean and unmarked throughout. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: PENGUIN BOOKS LTD Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9780141035321ISBN:0141035323
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 336 pages. Tells about the people of africa throughout author's career. in a study that avoids the official routes, palaces and big politics, this book sets out to create an account of post-colonial africa seen at once as a whole and as a location that wholly defies generalised explanations. (Paperback) read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780141037707ISBN:0141037709
Description: Good. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Description: Fine. Excellent condition. Appears unread. No writings/underlines/highlights. Pages are nice and clean. Small whiteout on 1st blank page. Free deliver confirmation! Satisfaction guaranteed! read more
Description: Good. Only lightly used. Book has minimal wear to cover and binding. A few pages may have small creases and minimal underlining. Book selection as BIG as Texas. read more
Description: Good. Dust Cover Missing. Minimal damage to cover and binding. Pages show light use. With pride from Motor City. All books guaranteed. Best Service, Best Prices. read more
"This book captures perfectly the life of Africa and Africans as I have experienced it - one page can be hilarious and the next deeply disturbing. Especially in the way he describes how African thought processes differ from Europeans, the author really helps you to understand why things are the way they are in Africa, and why applying European answers to African problems doesn't always work. And despite all the development that has taken place in Africa, some of his stories from 50 years ago could easily have been written today.
The book starts off with a sense of adventure but this gradually slides towards a feeling of hopelessness at the end that after 40 years experience, nothing has really changed to make Africans' lives better. He tends to lay most of the blame for this on past and current Europeans, which is fair, but I feel like many of the problems he describes are purely African and caused by African attitudes.
The one small problem that I have is that the whole book is very one-sided - like he deliberately always sought out the poorest and most backward people to write about. He also writes about the nasty dictators at the top, but he fails to mention at all the huge expanding middle class in between. There are plenty of people still living in the Stone Age, but equally interesting are the millions who have worked their way out of poverty and have half-decent living standards. I'm glad I didn't read this before coming to Africa, not just because I wouldn't have appreciated it, but because I wanted to come with some hope that there are good things happening here."
"Many authors try to lump their experiences around the continent into one memoir, but few do it with as much grace as Kapuscinski. These vignettes catch the heat, the shadows, and the sense of community that are common to the whole land and the facts laid down from his work as a journalist ground the conflicts without hyperbolizing. The warmth and the humanism of the voyager is applauded all over the promo sleeve, but it is accurate. After this, who could read Theroux again?"
"The author is a Polish journalist who's spent extensive time in sub-Saharan Africa in the last 40 years. He's covered major events, from the death of colonialism, the death of slavery (1936 in Nigeria - who knew?), to the creation of many, many civil wars. The book's chapters are snipets of longer correspondence about different cultures at different times. He brings to life the landscapes and ordinary people he travels and lives with. He considers "Africa" to be an oversimplification of the large continent but does try to help the reader understand some cultural consistencies. A quote about time for instance: Africans apprehend time differently. For them, it is a much looser concept, more open, elastic, subjective. It is man who influence time, its shape, course, and rhythm (man acting of course with the consent of gods and ancestors). Time is even something man can create outright, for time is made manifest through events, and whether an event takes place or not depends, after all, on man alone. If two armies do not engage in a battle, then that battle did not occur (in other words, time will not have revealed its presence, will not have come into being). Time appears as a result of our actions, and vanishes when we neglect or ignore it. It is something that springs to life under our influence, but falls into a state of hibernation, even nonexistence, if we do not direct our energy toward it. It is a subservient, passive essence, and, most importantly, one dependent on man." He makes this observation while waiting four hours for a scheduled bus to leave on it journey. I want to read his other books about Africa."
"Along with Imperium and Travels with Herodotus, this is one of Kapuscinski's best books. It's a panoramic book about Africa, full of characteristic insight and harrowing experiences. No one who reads this book will ever think about Africa as he or she has done before. And it is gripping throughout."
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