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.

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.

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
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

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.

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.

Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone

• UNABRIDGED (11 hrs and 30 mins)
• By Martin Dugard
• Narrated By John Lee
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

"Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" So goes the signature introduction of New York Herald star journalist Henry Morton Stanley to renowned explorer Dr. David Livingstone, who had been missing for six years in the wilds of Africa. Into Africa ushers us into the meeting of these remarkable men. In 1866, when Livingstone journeyed into the heart of the African continent in search of the Nile's source, the land was rough, unknown to Europeans, and inhabited by man-eating tribes.

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda

• UNABRIDGED (11 hrs and 23 mins)
• By Philip Gourevitch
• Narrated By Jeff Cummings
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

In April of 1994, the government of Rwanda called on everyone in the Hutu majority to kill everyone in the Tutsi minority. Over the next three months, 800,000 Tutsis were murdered in the most unambiguous case of genocide since Hitler's war against the Jews. This haunting work by Philip Gourevitch, staff writer for the New Yorker, is an anatomy of the killings in Rwanda, a vivid history of the genocide's background, and an unforgettable account of what it means to survive in its aftermath.

Labyrinth of Kingdoms: 10,000 Miles Through Islamic Africa

• UNABRIDGED (14 hrs and 51 mins)
• By Steve Kemper
• Narrated By Ed Phillips
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

In 1849 Heinrich Barth joined a small British expedition into unexplored regions of Islamic North and Central Africa. One by one his companions died, but he carried on alone, eventually reaching the fabled city of gold, Timbuktu. His five-and-a-half-year, 10,000-mile adventure ranks among the greatest journeys in the annals of exploration, and his discoveries are considered indispensable by modern scholars of Africa.

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
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

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
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

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.

Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party

• UNABRIDGED (18 hrs and 11 mins)
• By Joshua Bloom, Waldo E. Martin Jr.
• Narrated By Ron Butler
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

In Oakland, California, in 1966, community college students Bobby Seale and Huey Newton armed themselves, began patrolling the police, and promised to prevent police brutality. Unlike the Civil Rights Movement that called for full citizenship rights for blacks within the US, the Black Panther Party rejected the legitimacy of the US government and positioned itself as part of a global struggle against American imperialism.

Up from Slavery

• UNABRIDGED (6 hrs and 12 mins)
• By Booker T. Washington
• Narrated By Noah Waterman
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

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 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.

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
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

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.