My sister and I read this book in preparation for a four month trip to africa, of which two months was spent on bikes. This book was the single most useful, common-sense guide we read in all of our preparation - both for biking, and just generally getting by in Africa. Really - read this!

This is the best handy-dandy guide to tour preparation that I have ever read (and I have probably read most of them). It is written with a wealth of experience behind the pearls of wisdom and that experience comes shining through on each section.

Concentrating on Africa, Mozer has outlined all of the things that have to be considered when preparing oneself and one's bicycle for a trip to a foreign country. In addition to covering the general prep, visas, inoculations, currency, etc., the author outlines how much one can benefit from experiencing the country on its terms rather than yours. I think he sums it up perfectly, with respect to Africa, when he says "...the essential difference between western and African culture is that Africans are concerned with the form of life and westerns dwell on the content."

Mozer uses a perfect blend of sensible advice and anecdotes in this easy to read manual. Whether or not you are planning an African tour, I think this manual is worth a read.

i think steve biko was a man of right he is so wonderful and when i read the book and wached the video i was tuched by the words that donnaled woods had used i have his book under my bed and i pray evey night that i can be just like steve biko i wish that the people that did that to him should have died strate away and go toHELL. i would love to have seen him and tell him HE HAS MAKE A DIFFERENT I LOVE STEVE BIKO PEACE OUT TO THE BLACK

This book is an excellent source for seeing the experience of apartheid from which the theory of black consciousness emerged. Biko lucidly articulates both the people and the regime he found himself in conflict with, and parallel's between his appraisal and his idea's are made clear. A must read for anyone who wants to get a full understanding of black consciousness.

This book is a must for those who want an account of Black History in North America and the Caribbean. It really provides a foundation for you to view the Caribbean in different light and to understand why we are now where we are today. It is both informative and disturbing. This should be part of the National Curriculum in so many countries. The account Mr Segal gives on each Island is rewarding. I has a 'sense' of what I saw when I went to Martinique and the book provides firm facts which have enabled me to reflect on my journey and forthcoming journeys. If only more people from Europe and within the Islands read a book like this!!

Ronald Segal's book "The Black Diaspora" is an excellent historical and cultural account of African descendents living outside of Africa. This book is so smoothly written that it is impossible not to enjoy and learn a great deal from its pages. The format and flow are so well put together that Segal's many topics of discussion are beautifully linked with easy transitions. I loved this book and learned a huge amount about the black diaspora despite having read many, many other books on this same topic.

A fascinating read, it filled in for me a part of WWII I knew little about, women coming to the USA as war-brides from Algeria. Goetinck's writing held me as she tells the story of the courage of those women as they sailed into an unknown future.

I like this book for its moments of honesty and for the story itself. The story is so interesting, but in its telling, Monette Goetinck is able to stimulate the imagination beyond the page. This is a quality so often missing in much of today's "entertainment".

This biography chronicles the life of an inspiring Afrikaner who, breaking away from the privileges of his family's background, sacrificed everything for his cause. Fischer's spirited dedication to human rights should provide great insipiration to all those who have ever fought for civil rights. The true treasure in this book is Clingman's ability to see symbolism in even the smallest details of Fischer's life. What an invaluable gift this book is to the Fischer family and to South African history. Truly, this book is a fascinating read.

This book is a work of top class scholarship. But when, probably at 4:00am, you finally put it down you'll feel like you've been reading the most perceptive poetry or listening to the most beautiful music. Like the Pablo Neruda inspired debut Juluka album (Universal Men) it weaves a commitment to truth, a reverence for what's most nobel in the human spirit and a feel for tragedy and transcendence together with real wisdom and what can only be described as melody. And, although this book is written with the almost clinical economy of style that characterises J.M. Coetzee's work, there is a passionate undercurrent almost as intense as the more explicit passion of a writer like Frantz Fanon.

Bram Fischer, the Afrikaner Communist who is the subject of this book, was never as romantic a figure as Che Guevarra, Frederick Douglass or Steven Biko but Clingman is so aware of the drama and promise of everyday life that this book ends up being far more engaging than Jon Anderson's recent biography of Che Guevarra.

The book does have its flaws - for example Clingman's understanding of the South African black consciousness movement is poor - but in a strange way the flaws are part of what give this book its character. That's because this book is about struggle and the flaws make the reader aware of Clingman's stuggle to understand and explain Fischer and his country. So while you're reading about Fischers' struggles and South Africa's struggles and being inspired to think about other struggles Clingman's occassional slip ups make you aware of the author's struggle and leave you inspired by his tremendous, although not total, success.

This book is important and valuable in itself. It's also an important work of history which, given the extent to which apartheid and 'postapartheid' mimic the new world order (global apartheid?)is profoundly relevent to life in 1999.

Buy this book, immerse yourself in its riches until they become part of you, and you'll be a better person.

Mr. Jacobs captures the lies and deceit that Nation states engage in when resource control is the objective. In this case..oil. The sad part is that the material costs in human lives is unforgivable.

We tend to remember Vietnam as the defining event of the late 60's and early 70's, but Biafra was and is ultimately more heartbreaking to contemplate, because it is nearly forgotten, even though millions died. Jacobs tells a story of valor and treachery, of relief pilots and aid workers who risked death everyday so that they could bring medicine and food into the oil-rich Biafran separatist enclave, which was completely surrounded by a huge and vengeful, British-backed Nigerian military machine bent on the Biafrans' extinction.

The book is detailed but doesn't plod, and we follow along as an ethnic pogrom festers into a civil war, and ultimately a holocaust. Along the way, all the vaunted fail-safes of our modern world, from the U.N., to the Red Cross, to the liberal governments of the U.S. and the U.K., actually aid and abet the Nigerians, and exacerbate the Biafrans' plight and prolong their agony. The U.S.S.R., long falsely seen as an anti-imperialist engine for African liberation, cynically plays its hand as cruelly as anyone else, providing military and technical assistance to the Federal Government of Nigeria whenever the West loses their stomach for it.

When millions are dead, and so many are culpable, one feels it's unfair to assign blame to any single party, but blame must be assigned. Everyone's responsible, all the way back to the imperialists who so ineptly drew the borders of what were to emerge as completely unworkable national entities. Perhaps "state failure" in Africa will ultimately be the force which credibly redraws the boundaries, but in Nigeria's case, that will only happen when the oil runs out. And Lord how high the cost will be.

This is a book for people that think scientists walk around in white coats spouting equations at each other and relating dysfunctionaly to the rest of the world. Learn about science as a way of life, a way of seeing the world and accepting its challenges. Yes, Africa is somewhat of a mess, but as Africa goes, so may go the planet. Tom Bass brings you beautifully into this chaos and gives you the flavor of life with scientists who have let it all hang out, put it all on the line, in their fascination with and commitment to an important way of looking at the world. It's a new genre: Guerilla Science.

Camping With the Prince, a 1990 book by the science journalist Thomas Bass, is a rare find and highly recommended. Most books on contemporary Africa are gloomy and angry. Some are hostile towards Africans, some towards Westerners, some towards both. Camping With the Prince is neither. Instead it is a fascinating look at things which are going right. Bass deserves praise for that alone. But his topics are fascinating in their own right. In seven chapters, Bass investigates seven areas of scientific research in various parts of sub-Saharan Africa. They range from sustainable forestry in Mali, to the response of nomad communities in Kenya to food shortages, Nigerian research on insect pests and virology, and on to paleoanthropology and the mating habits of the multicolored cichlid fish of Lake Malawi. To the extent there are villains in this book, they are international specialists in foreign aid, who have spent forty years delivering bad advice on agricultural policy and building dams that spread the guinea worm. But in fact the villains are very few. Much more common are people like Thomas Risley Odhiambo, a Kenyan entomologist who founded the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology in Nairobi, which carries out world-class research on low-impact pest controls. Bass asks Dr. Odhiambo how Kenya -- and by extension Africa generally -- can afford such a program when many Kenyans have no potable drinking water. Odhiambo makes an equally obvious reply: '"My own feeling is that we have to run on twin tracks," he says. "We have the longer-range problems that depend on science and technology. We must solve them. At the same time we must tackle these problems arising from urbanization and dislocation from the land. If we take only one track and not the other, we will be in worse trouble, because we will have no future in terms of strategies for the long run." Odhiambo's realistic but hopeful attitude -- a recognition of contemporary problems, coupled with the faith that Africa can overcome and transcend them -- is typical of the people Bass meets. They are Africans like Odhiambo and the Nigerian virologist Oyewale Tomori, Westerners like Jeremy Swift, an Englishman who has spent fifteen years living among nomads in the dry savannas, and even East Asians like Odhiambo's Chinese colleague Lu Qing Guang, who conducts research on insects like the trichogramma wasp which prey on common pests. The book has one minor flaw, in that it presents readers with seven more or less independent chapters rather than a coherent narrative. Bass also demands some effort from the reader, as his book addresses complex scientific issues without condescension. Those who will be put off by discussions of nematodes, Lorenzian biological aggression theory or the life cycle of the tsetse fly will find parts of the book pretty dense. But most readers who take up a book like this will view technical detail a strength rather than a weakness. And altogether, Camping With the Prince is a well-written, welcome respite from the bleak tone of most writing on modern Africa. Bass has done a fine job and deserves readers.

"Combining encyclopedic coverage of destinations with loads of practical information and atlas- type maps, the series illuminates the wonders of nature but emphasizes the peculiarity of a place's people and their folklore." Library Journal

This recently published (1999) guide by Bernd Gruschwitz, cites prices that are more likely to reflect reality than older guides to the islands. Its photography is luscious, professional, and plentiful (145), and above all the pictures truly capture what the islands are all about. The maps are excellent and drawn with three dimensional details, so that mountains and valleys are immediately grasped visually.

The book is 257 pages long, giving it sufficient room to address the important aspects of each of the 7 islands, as well as to present an overview of their collective history, language and customs. I found a number of small errors (calling shrimp "cangrejo" and captioning a picture of dried fish as "marinated rabbit") but this is a first edition which often contains such mistakes. Counterbalancing those small irritants, the book is exaustively informative: for instance it tells about topless and nude bathing, about assistance for people with special needs (electric wheel chair rentals in Tenerife, for example) and about recent exchange rates for currency. The book's advice is always sound and by all means should be followed.

I remain partial to the Lonely Planet guide (it is personable and a fun book), but if I were going to the Canaries for the first time and had to make an absolute choice between this guide and Lonely Planet's, this is the one I would take. The author (a frequent vacationer there) wrote the book in German and then had it translated to English; thus the slightly stiff prose. In all, highly recommended and best to be read and digested while the trip to the Canaries is still in its planning stages.

this 56 page book is filled with lots of info. it is great for all ages. it is filled with great illustrated pictures by Laszlo Kubinyi. it's one of the best books i'v ever bought.

This is a good book because it provides a different side to mummies. It has beautiful color drawings of some mummies. It can be helpful when doing a report ,or making a model of one as I did. This book also provides other sources to look at. If you are interested look in your local library or bookstore. (Great for young readers and Egypt book worms)

Es el mejor programa documental que he visto , y lo recomiendo para entender el verdadero significado de la vida .

The first Interactive Movie I have ever seen. You will have a really good time with this program...