The Africans

The Foundations of Western Civilization

• ORIGINAL (24 hrs and 54 mins)
• By The Great Courses
• Narrated By Professor Thomas F. X. Noble

What is Western Civilization? According to Professor Noble, it is "much more than human and political geography," encompassing myriad forms of political and institutional structures - from monarchies to participatory republics - and its own traditions of political discourse. It involves choices about who gets to participate in any given society and the ways in which societies have resolved the tension between individual self-interest and the common good.

African Kaiser: General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck and the Great War in Africa, 1914-1918

• UNABRIDGED (18 hrs and 7 mins)
• By Robert Gaudi
• Narrated By Paul Hodgson
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the continent of Africa was a hotbed of international trade, colonialism, and political gamesmanship. So when World War I broke out, the European powers were forced to contend with each other not just in the bloody trenches - but in the treacherous jungle. And it was in that unforgiving land that General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck would make history.

African History: A Very Short Introduction

• UNABRIDGED (4 hrs and 47 mins)
• By John Parker
• Narrated By Dion Graham
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This Very Short Introduction looks at Africa's past and reflects on the changing ways it has been imagined and represented, both in Africa and beyond. The author illustrates important aspects of Africa's history with a range of fascinating historical examples, drawn from over 5 millennia across this vast continent.

Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa

• UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 15 mins)
• By Mungo Park, Kate Ferguson Marsters
• Narrated By Steven Brand

Mungo Park’s Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa has long been regarded as a classic of African travel literature. In fulfilling his mission to find the Niger River and in documenting its potential as an inland waterway for trade, Park was significant in opening Africa to European economic interests. His modest, low-key heroism made it possible for the British public to imagine themselves as a welcomed force in Africa. As a tale of adventure and survival, it has inspired the imaginations of audiences since its first publication in 1799 and writers from Wordsworth and Melville to Conrad.

The Fate of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence

• UNABRIDGED (29 hrs and 21 mins)
• By Martin Meredith
• Narrated By Fleet Cooper

Martin Meredith has revised this classic history to incorporate important recent developments, including the Darfur crisis in Sudan, Robert Mugabe’s continued destructive rule in Zimbabwe, controversies over Western aid and exploitation of Africa’s resources, the growing importance and influence of China, and the democratic movement roiling the North African countries of Tunisia, Egypt, and Jordan.

Afro Hair of the Ancient Egyptians and Blackheads, Africans of Mesopotamia

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 8 mins)
• By Anu M'Bantu
• Narrated By Roger Lott

The Caucasian appearance of the hair on Egyptian mummies has been skillfully avoided by many Black scholars. Professor Diop appears to have been the only scholar to give it even a cursory treatment. We believe had he lived beyond 1986 he would have given the question the detail of attention it deserved. We conclude this because of the scientific pioneering spirit he showed in conducting the melanin dosage test is the same one that would have been required to solve this problem.

The Other Side of History: Daily Life in the Ancient World

• ORIGINAL (24 hrs and 28 mins)
• By The Great Courses, Robert Garland
• Narrated By Professor Robert Garland

Look beyond the abstract dates and figures, kings and queens, and battles and wars that make up so many historical accounts. Over the course of 48 richly detailed lectures, Professor Garland covers the breadth and depth of human history from the perspective of the so-called ordinary people, from its earliest beginnings through the Middle Ages.

The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa's Wealth

• UNABRIDGED (11 hrs and 5 mins)
• By Tom Burgis
• Narrated By Grover Gardner
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The trade in oil, gas, gems, metals, and rare earth minerals wreaks havoc in Africa. During the years when Brazil, India, China, and the other "emerging markets" have transformed their economies, Africa's resource states remained tethered to the bottom of the industrial supply chain. While Africa accounts for about 30 percent of the world's reserves of hydrocarbons and minerals and 14 percent of the world's population, its share of global manufacturing stood in 2011 exactly where it stood in 2000: at 1 percent.

Diamonds, Gold, and War: The British, the Boers, and the Making of South Africa

• UNABRIDGED (19 hrs and 13 mins)
• By Martin Meredith
• Narrated By Matthew Waterson
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Southern Africa was once regarded as a worthless jumble of British colonies, Boer republics, and African chiefdoms, a troublesome region of little interest to the outside world. But then prospectors chanced upon the world’s richest deposits of diamonds and gold, setting off a titanic struggle between the British and the Boers for control of the land. The result was the costliest, bloodiest, and most humiliating war that Britain had waged in nearly a century, and the devastation of the Boer republics.

The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story

• UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 29 mins)
• By Douglas Preston
• Narrated By Bill Mumy
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Since the days of conquistador Hernán Cortés, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior, called the White City or the Lost City of the Monkey God. Indigenous tribes speak of ancestors who fled there to escape the Spanish invaders, and they warn that anyone who enters this sacred city will fall ill and die.

Up from Slavery

• UNABRIDGED (6 hrs and 12 mins)
• By Booker T. Washington
• Narrated By Noah Waterman
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Booker T. Washington fought his way out of slavery to become an educator, statesman, political shaper, and proponent of the "do-it-yourself" idea. In his autobiography, he describes his early life as a slave on a Virginia plantation, his steady rise during the Civil War, his struggle for education, his schooling at the Hampton Institute, and his years as founder and president of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, which was devoted to helping minorities learn useful, marketable skills.

The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry

• UNABRIDGED (30 hrs and 37 mins)
• By Ned Sublette, Constance Sublette
• Narrated By Robin Eller

The American Slave Coast tells the horrific story of how the slavery business in the United States made the reproductive labor of "breeding women" essential to the expansion of the nation. The book shows how slaves' children, and their children's children, were human savings accounts that were the basis of money and credit. This was so deeply embedded in the economy of the slave states that it could be decommissioned only by emancipation, achieved through the bloodiest war in the history of the United States.

Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies

• UNABRIDGED (16 hrs and 20 mins)
• By Jared Diamond
• Narrated By Doug Ordunio
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Having done field work in New Guinea for more than 30 years, Jared Diamond presents the geographical and ecological factors that have shaped the modern world. From the viewpoint of an evolutionary biologist, he highlights the broadest movements both literal and conceptual on every continent since the Ice Age, and examines societal advances such as writing, religion, government, and technology.

A Short History of Africa

• UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 29 mins)
• By Roland Oliver, J. D. Fage
• Narrated By Ralph Cosham

Dramatic alterations in political power have corrected the once prevalent vision of a European-centered world. While the centers of European culture flourished, decayed and sprouted in turn, empires in Africa rose, ruled, resisted, and succumbed. Much of Africa's past has now been excavated from ignorance and error, revealing a rich and previously little-known human heritage.

Eisenhower in War and Peace

• UNABRIDGED (28 hrs and 25 mins)
• By Jean Edward Smith
• Narrated By Paul Hecht

Author of the best-seller FDR, Jean Edward Smith is a master of the presidential biography. Setting his sights on Dwight D. Eisenhower, Smith delivers a rich account of Eisenhower’s life using previously untapped primary sources. From the military service in WWII that launched his career to the shrewd political decisions that kept America out of wars with the Soviet Union and China, Smith reveals a man who never faltered in his dedication to serving America, whether in times of war or peace.

Elements of Jazz: From Cakewalks to Fusion

• ORIGINAL (5 hrs and 59 mins)
• By The Great Courses
• Narrated By Professor Bill Messenger

Jazz is a uniquely American art form, one of America's great contributions to not only musical culture, but world culture, with each generation of musicians applying new levels of creativity that take the music in unexpected directions that defy definition, category, and stagnation. Now you can learn the basics and history of this intoxicating genre in an eight-lecture series that is as free-flowing and original as the art form itself.

The Great Ideas of Philosophy, 2nd Edition

• ORIGINAL (30 hrs and 10 mins)
• By The Great Courses
• Narrated By Professor Daniel N. Robinson

Grasp the important ideas that have served as the backbone of philosophy across the ages with this extraordinary 60-lecture series. This is your opportunity to explore the enormous range of philosophical perspectives and ponder the most important and enduring of human questions-without spending your life poring over dense philosophical texts.

Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?

• UNABRIDGED (8 hrs and 27 mins)
• By Thomas Frank
• Narrated By Thomas Frank
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It is a widespread belief among liberals that if only Democrats can continue to dominate national elections, if only those awful Republicans are beaten into submission, the country will be on the right course. But this is to fundamentally misunderstand the modern Democratic Party. Drawing on years of research and first-hand reporting, Frank points out that the Democrats have done little to advance traditional liberal goals: expanding opportunity, fighting for social justice, and ensuring that workers get a fair deal.