Can archeologists draw conclusions about whole societies? The discipline of social archeology says they can, and Insoll proves it in the case of Islam. His goal is not only to demonstrate the richness and variety of the material culture of Muslim societies-he refers to a satisfactorily wide range of times and places in doing so-but also to interpret material culture and connect it convincingly to social characteristics. Islam itself structures his book, each chapter begin-ning with an epigraph from the Qur'an that sets the theme. Thus the obligation of prayer is made archeologically concrete in the structure of the mosque, the importance of privacy shapes the excavatable spaces of domestic structures, and dietary requirements affect the food remains and the building types the archeologist may find.

This book is a valuable addition to our understanding of Islam. It highlights the rich tradition of Islam without unneccesary and misleading reference to "Orientalist" literature

This is a remarkably complex and thought-provoking book.
It would be of interest to anyone who thinks about:
slavery/the middle passage, the limits (or failures) of Pan-Africanism, the power of the 'Exodus' myth in the Bible, and finally the invisible histories of urban space (i.e., of cities like Liverpool, UK and Charleston, SC).

The different destinations in the book -- Ghana, Liverpool, Charleston, even Israel -- all have some bearing to the middle passage. The argument of this book, if there is an argument, seems to be that the journeys "homeward" that many people of African descent invent for themselves are all in some way symptomatic of the original event of separation, the forcible departure constituted by captivity and the journey to the new world.

Amardeep Singh

I picked this book up in the library probably because of its alluring cover image and title, I'll admit it. And I was prepared to even enjoy what I thought was coming: an intellectual travel book of the Paul Theroux ilk, with perhaps the added sarcasm and chip on the shoulder due any returing British colonial.

It was, however, immediately more interesting and engrossing than any of those books Mr. Theroux has written, and it had even more honesty than Maya Angelou's book about coming to Africa, "All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes." For a long time I was not sure if it was meant to be novel or not. It was acertainly a novel idea, to make such trips, one after the other, in the time that one would need to see the places one was visiting (although I get the feeling that he might have strayed further afield in Africa than he did. There is an element of depression at times that was perhaps strongest in Africa, that kept some of his questions from being asked, so that he decided to move on and end any meandering reflection.) He was always interested in takling to people of the places he visited, but not to justify or romanticize about some book-learned image of the place. He aims more to appreciate what the possibilities of the places he visits are now, and then more importantly, what people there feel their history to be.

It is almost as if he goes to visit a relative in each place, (although he never does this) and in the process was not recognised as a visitor or tourist (was not recognised as anything, perhaps, something that helped lend the novel air to the book, and an interesting element of his reflection. I guess it is based upon the narrator's (and author's, I suppose) African heritage, colonial experience, and English mother tongue, despite his never having lived in America, Britain, or Africa.)

I recomend this book as history and even as a novel. I Guess it is a new sort of book for this age, frank and real and yet also curiously fictitious. It is hard to put down. I look forward to reading it again.

If you love the Drakensberg and like to explore the mountains, you cannot go without this publication. The author relates and shares his experiences and love for the Berg and also tells you about the history, people and explorers. If ever you plan to spend a vacation in the mountains, especially the Drakensberg, you must read this book, for it will enable you to survive and enjoy many pleasurable and exiting hours of joy and relaxation, whether you are a day hiker, backpacker, or mountaineer.

I searched bookshops in South Africa for two months to find a copy - after having found and read it, I would have continued searching for much longer! Barrier of Spears is without a doubt the definitive work on the history of the Drakensberg, its personalities and natural wonder. Everyone who loves this beautiful mountain in South Africa should (and probably already) have one. I fell in love with the Drakensberg all over again and could not stop reading. Although not describing any of the numerous routes of the 'Berg in particular, it gave me a deep understanding and knowledge of the different peaks, passes and areas that would not otherwise be possible. Knowing the story behind the name of a peak, the triumphs and tragedies that took place on it gave my outings to the Drakensberg a whole new dimension. Pearse have a wonderful way with words and I keep referring to many of the thought provoking passages such as the end of the chapter on George Thomson. It may be difficult to find, but it is certainly worth it.

Having spent a year in Africa, I can assure you that the illustrations so beautifully painted by John Butler, recreate the African plain. Most of the colors are yellows and oranges, with the brown mud. Bashi is born into an elephant family whose young females all protect and mother him, as is the norm. It is a good thing they do so, because Bashi's natural enemies are out there awaiting an opportunity. Unfortunately, they almost find one when little one day old Bashi is caught in the mud by the water hole. Luckily, his mother digs out around and under his feet and finally gets him free. The reader gets the idea of just how hard it is for the wonderful little creature to survive his first day of life on the African plain. Children loved it at a recent storytime I did.

This book provides a magnificent escape, with its astonishing illustrations that somehow really do capture the flat, endless essence of the desert savannah, the world the elephants and their potential predators inhabit. There are ordinary books with ordinary illustrations, and then there are books like this, with perfectly executed lines and colors. When you close the book, it is almost as if you've been to Africa, or seen a film of it. I suppose it is somehow like storyboards of a film. Anyhow, it is a beautiful, distinctive book that adults will like as much or more than child readers will. In addition, its story includes a deep motherlove between adult and child elephant that is moving in a calm, realistic way. A really excellent book.

The Battlefield: Algeria 1988-2002 by Hugh Roberts (Senior Research Fellow of the Development Studies Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science) is a close and meticulous study of the recent violence that has wracked Algeria. This impressive history eschews oversimplifications reducing the conflict to simply Islamists vs. a secular state, or the generals vs. the common people. Carefully examining the makeup and motivating forces for the Islamists, the Berberists, various factions in the army and in the general regime, The Battlefield is a compelling dissection of the heart of bloodshed. A work of considerable scholarship but one which is easily accessible by the non-specialist general reader, The Battlefield is highly recommended for students of 20th Century Algerian history.

Hugh Roberts is the leading anglophone expert on Algeria and this book will cause you to question all of your pre-conceived and half-baked notions of what has been going on in Algeria during the last decade and a half. Roberts is a passionately committed scholar who questions everything and comes up with original and serious critiques of what passes for scholarship and with fascinating reflections that will reward your curiousity and cause you to think deeply about why we understood so little about Algeria.

The title initially didn't mean much to me, but when I saw reference to the LRDG, a bell rang. Having served in the Western Desert of Egypt in WW2, I knew that I had to read this book. I did not know any of the LRDG members but I was very familiar with their existance. As with all Special Forces these men had a mission, and as with all special missions, exceptional men were called for... Their mission meant existance very different than todays desert forces face. There were no cell phones, no computers, limited communications, very little water and certainly no Perrier !! Anyone interested in special missions carried out by either side should absolutely not pass this one up. Trooper Jopling's diaries are incredible and the photographs are superb. Author O'Carroll deserves a medal for this one !

This would have to be one of the most insightfull books on the LRDG that I have ever read.Having meet and talked with several KIWI LRDG veterans,this book truly reflects what daily life in the LRDG was like. Frank Joplings diaries are packed with the "every day" happenings that this elite group of humble heroes took as "just doing their bit"as they blazed their way into history and legand. This book is one of the best.Many of the photographs have never been published before, Do not miss out, you will regret it forever.

This book is a wonderful collection of tales told by Tunisian women, translated into English. While it is folklore, it is not for children--some of the tales are quite risqué! Highly recommended--but for adults!

Fun and easy reading. Challenges stereotypes and cliches one may have about women in muslim societies. This is the tale of tales which explores the oral tradition of a society's women to pass on stories of one's culture. By the telling stories -often "dissed" as old wives tales - of women in non-traditional roles, or sometimes ordinary roles, these tales validated and placed a value on the lives of many women in a society which tended to devalue their existence. Read and see how important that part of your growing up may have been. I liked the book and challenge you to find a reason to dislike it.

The world's full of literary journals. Why read this one? If you want to know about the world, it's all on National Geographic, Discovery Channel, and CNN, isn't it? What possibly can a literary journal add?

Don't look for the answer in the Table of Contents. Look for it in the Author Bios. To take only a few of the 28 contributors: Razi Abedi is from Pakistan, Vasilis Afxentiou from Greece, Arlene Ang from Manila, Anjana Basu Calcutta, Richard Czujko South Africa, Viktor Car and Miroslav Kirin from Croatia, Raymond Ramcharitar from Trinidad. Several are from India, there's a handful are Yanks, plus assorted hangers-on from places in the world with no fixed address, apparently they just respond to "Occupant."

Some of their characters leave a track, some make a mark, some luxuriate in unearned reward, some crumple under the stubbornness of systems, some sing, some cry. Yet when the last shovel of dirt is spaded or the pyre done to embers, their little bundles of personality have vanished along with their fleeting, private histories, blips on a scale whose magnitude they or we may never know, their meaning incomplete because our comprehension is incomplete. This instant, too, is a short story.

More than mere characters are in these stories. We are, in that part of ourselves which is all humans. First we are a dream, then we are not, then we are again ("Sister Hanh" by Ly Lan), only this time vaporous angels, the angels of the keys, angels in the sense of "Mon ange te précédera"-My angel will precede you-the ignored part of our own relevance going ahead of us into the so-called future (A Feast of Crows" by KC Chase), preceding, going ahead of us, furthering us ahead of our pace ("The Long Journey" by Vasanthi Victor; "Jesus Christ Lord of Hosts Discovers Southern California" by Holly Day), while events of the hour play themselves out as if seemingly important in our monkey-brain salad-bar humanity heads ("Parking Ticket" by Norma Kitson). The carnival barker calls on ("Singing in the Wind" by Keith Smith).

In these stories.

In some tales is the taste of cultures gone rancid ("The Ngong Hills" by Rasik Shah and "London Through the Magic Eye" by Raymond Ramchartiar), scallop-shaped memories in white light ("The Lost Village"-Lang Lo in Vietnam-by Le Van Thao), the wire through which happiness flows ("The Burden of Grace" by Vasilis Afxentiou), the sense of life's undoing preordained ("Curses and Poetry" by Anjana Basu and "Diary of a Street Kid" by Fanuel Jongwe), this or that character blocked by not knowing their true worth ("Dalit Literature" by Rezi Abedi and "Spectacles" by Anjana Basu), others a tarantella of quick cuts as the burning finger of the past reaches their heels ("Snapshots of Elsewhere" by Raymond Ramchartiar). The shape of a woman created out of the galaxies ("A Betting Man" by Vallath Nandakumar). The gelatin temple of turning deeds into a brand name (Winnie Mandela portrayed in David Herman's "The Lady and the Tiger"; "The Transformation of Sleepy Hollow" by Richard Czujko).

Everything is real, their reality, even the phantasmagoric. Like the paintings of California Realist James Doolin, the "realism" in these stories is skewed in a way that what is seems always lunging forward at an angle, anything but static. A good story tells us of time; what it brings us to know within is untouched by time. These accounts are real, yes, close to the surface of here and now, but also deeper for their absence of self-interjection, the contrived just-so light and just-so exoticism of the TV Special. Nothing artificial, nothing fake, nothing held back. What you feel is not the author's work, it is your own feelings responding to the facts they set forth.

About half are fiction-or rather, reality with the clothes of character on-the rest non-fiction. Some are cryptic enough to be short-shorts. Most have a certain fabulistic air about them; all you have to do is change the humans to animals and you have Apulius' Golden Ass or Mr. Toad and friends. The usual baggage of reviewer lingo hovers uneasily near these pages. The stories are lives, not stories; circumstances, not contexts. In the lives on these pages, Levi-Strauss, F.R. Leavis, postmodernism, and semiotics are self-indulgent caricatures. When we know where fear comes from, we transect it. That's when the stairway appears before us.

This "Gowanus" anthology is an outstanding volume of third world writing. Reading many of the essays, short stories, and poetry was more than a joy, because you get the flavor of other places, a sense of the people, and new perspectives about what's happening in "real time" around the world. To be sure, a lot of these writers are unsung, but clearly enormously talented. This volume deserves nationwide exposure, and many of the writers here could make a lot of noise, if they are "discovered." I recommend this one! It's an exciting, turn-the-pages read.

A friend of mine from North Carolina had a copy of this rare, unavailable, out of print book. I really enjoyed it, especially the details given about the Alpha Centauri star system and their world around the star Proxima Centauri. The detailed descriptions of the world, including detailed scientific descriptions were excellently done, except that they could have referred to what specific types of TREES grow on that world. I am glad to know that humans in other star systems have evolved to the point of being peaceful, loving people with a positive minded technology to care for the planet, not pollute it, and be able to control its weather to prevent it from being violent. Maybe we Earthlings will eventually achieve the same. As far as Elizabeth and Akon's love was concerned, it was great and genuine and everything, but Elizabeth was already married to an Earth husband, even though at the end of the story she finally writes that she was divorced from her husband. It's just that Akon assumed that Elizabeth was his and that they belonged together. Akon never asked her if it was all right if he mate with her. He just did it, and while she happily went along with it, he should have asked her first, out of courtesy. While it was great that the people from Proxima Centauri studied plants and collected specimens, I still wish the author had listed the types of TREES on Proxima Centauri. Great book otherwise. Anyone interested in space travel needs to read this book.

Beyond the Light Barrier is probably the best book I've read in a long time. The love Elizabeth and Akon shared, and still share, is beaituful.

The information Akon relayed to Elizabeth regarding space travel, etc., is highly interesting.

I recommend this book to anyone and everyone who believes that we are not alone in this universe, and have never been alone.

Mr. Forsyth in this book became the voice of millions of suffering Biafrans whose sin was a determination to exist against all odds.

His analysis captured the brutality of the Nigerian soldiers while the rest of the world fell victim to the deceit of the pronouncements of the Commander of the Nigerian Armed Forces...General Yakubu Gowon.

Forsyth is known for his later works the "Day of the Jackal", "Odessa File" and "Dogs of War". This though is his first book and in many ways superior to the rest.

A non-fiction detailed description of the Biafran war, Forsyth pulls no punches describing the valiant but fruitless fight by the Ibo tribe to secede from Nigeria. Outnumbered, outgunned and out financed by the central government, the Ibo finally fell because of the support of the European powers for Nigeria.

Forsyth does a wonderful job in giving us a journalist eye view of the conflict which eventually became known more for the starvation of hundreds of thousands of Ibo. A long forgotten classic that has never been outdone by his later novels.