Best Nigeria History Books
Here you will get Best Nigeria History Books For you.This is an up-to-date list of recommended books.
1. Hoodoo For Beginners: Working Magic Spells in Rootwork and Conjure with Roots, Herbs, Candles, and Oils
Author: by Angelie Belard
B08L4FL2ST
English
116 pages
Are you looking for magic that actually works? Hoodoo is old North American folk magic, born from African spiritual traditions brought over by slaves. Over the centuries it incorporated Native American and European influences, using what worked and discarding what did not.
What is left is an adaptable, powerful magical system that works. In this book you’ll learn:The history of Hoodoo, including how it relates to VoodooHow to work with your ancestors using an ancestor altarWhy Graveyards and Crossroads are important in Hoodoo, and how to work with each safelyThe importance of Spiritual Cleansing and how to do itWhich roots and herbs are important when getting started with RootworkHow to make your own Conjure Oils and use them in your spellsWhy Candle Magic is importantSimple instructions to make and use Mojo Bags to carry magic with youAnd much more.
This book covers everything you need to know to get started with Hoodoo, and includes over twenty five simple spells to draw money to you, bring luck and love into your life, and protect yourself from evil. Angelie Belard has helped hundreds of people with their problems using the potent and practical magic of Hoodoo.
2. What Britain Did to Nigeria: A Short History of Conquest and Rule
Author: by Max Siollun
Hurst (April 1, 2021)
English
288 pages
Most accounts of Nigeria’s colonisation were written by British officials, presenting it as a noble civilising mission to rid Africans of barbaric superstition and corrupt tribal leadership. Thanks to this skewed writing of history, many Nigerians today still have Empire nostalgia and view thecolonial period through rose-tinted glasses.
Max Siollun offers a bold rethink: an unromanticised history, arguing compellingly that colonialism had few benevolent intentions, but many unjust outcomes. It may have ended slavery and human sacrifice, but it was accompanied by extreme violence; ethnic and religious identity were cynicallyexploited to maintain control, while the forceful remoulding of longstanding legal and social practices permanently altered the culture and internal politics of indigenous communities.
The aftershocks of this colonial meddling are still being felt decades after independence. Popular narratives oftensuggest that the economic and political turmoil are homegrown, but the reality is that Britain created many of Nigeria’s crises, and has left them behind for Nigerians to resolve.
3. Formation: The Making of Nigeria from Jihad to Amalgamation
Author: by Fola Fagbule
English
191317509X
978-1913175092
What do you get when dare-devil Jihadists, mad English missionaries and proud, stubborn, warring natives meet in a clash?Nigeria. Formation: From Jihad to Amalgamation tracks the unlikely series of events and characters that turned a collection of disparate nations into a British colony in 1914.
But the story of Nigeria’s formation begins much earlier, in 1804 when the jihadists launched their attack on countries along the Niger river. What unfolds is a story of conquests and slavery, betrayals and bravery, rivers and riots, victors and vanquished, all of which are central to understanding modern Black struggles.
Formation runs, like the rivers Niger and Benue, through the rise and fall of empires. It explores Dan Fodio’s revolutionary jihad and the spread of Islam, the fall of the Oyo Empire, the influence of the returnee freed slaves, the growing influence of Christianity, and the palm oil politics in the Niger Delta in the territory that would come to be known as Nigeria.
4. The African Experience
Author: by Vincent B Khapoya
Routledge
English
304 pages
Updated in its 4th edition, The African Experience is the only interdisciplinary survey to examine this region of the world from geographic, linguistic, social, historical, and political perspectives. Drawing on research from all of the social sciences, this text captures Africa in its complex totality.
The African Experience helps readers develop a comprehensive and critical understanding of Africa, one that allows them to grasp the regions internal dynamics and its evolving place in the world.
5. There Was a Country: A Memoir
Author: by Chinua Achebe
Penguin Books
English
352 pages
From the legendary author of Things Fall Aparta long-awaited memoir of coming of age in a fragile new nation, and its destruction in a tragic civil warFor more than forty years, Chinua Achebe maintained a considered silence on the events of the Nigerian civil war, also known as the Biafran War, of 19671970, addressing them only obliquely through his poetry.
Decades in the making, There Was a Country is a towering account of one of modern Africa’s most disastrous events, from a writer whose words and courage left an enduring stamp on world literature. A marriage of history and memoir, vivid firsthand observation and decades of research and reflection, There Was a Country is a work whose wisdom and compassion remind us of Chinua Achebe’s place as one of the great literary and moral voices of our age.
6. A History of Nigeria
Author: by Toyin Falola
Cambridge University Press
English
370 pages
Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country and the world’s eighth largest oil producer, but its success has been undermined in recent decades by ethnic and religious conflict, political instability, rampant official corruption and an ailing economy. Toyin Falola, a leading historian intimately acquainted with the region, and Matthew Heaton, who has worked extensively on African science and culture, combine their expertise to explain the context to Nigeria’s recent troubles through an exploration of its pre-colonial and colonial past, and its journey from independence to statehood.
By examining key themes such as colonialism, religion, slavery, nationalism and the economy, the authors show how Nigeria’s history has been swayed by the vicissitudes of the world around it, and how Nigerians have adapted to meet these challenges. This book offers a unique portrayal of a resilient people living in a country with immense, but unrealized, potential.
7. The Biafra Story: The Making of an African Legend
Author: by Frederick Forsyth
B00ZGOZPF0
March 21, 2015
English
A fearless act of journalism in 1960s Nigeria and the true story behind the international bestselling novel The Dogs of War. The Nigerian civil war of the late 1960s was one of the first occasions when Western consciences were awakened and deeply affronted by the level of suffering and the scale of atrocity being played out in the African continent.
This was thanks not just to advances in communication technology but to the courage and journalistic skills of foreign correspondents like Frederick Forsyth, who had already earned an enviable reputation for tenacity and accuracy working for Reuters and the BBC.
In The Biafra Story, Forsyth reveals the depth of the British Government’s active involvement in the conflictinformation which many in power would have preferred to remain secret. General Gowon’s genocide of the Biafran people was facilitated by a ready supply of British arms and advice.
Still tragically relevant in its depiction of global affairs, this powerful book also launched Frederick Forsyth to literary stardom by providing him with the background material for The Dogs of War. The dramatic events and shocking political exposures, all delivered with Forsyth’s bold and perceptive style, makes The Biafra Story a compelling lesson in courage.
8. Stolen Girls: Survivors of Boko Haram Tell Their Story
Author: by Wolfgang Bauer
English
192 pages
1620972573
Former Boko Haram captives tell their terrifying and heartbreaking stories to a leading European journalistOne night in April 2014, members of the terrorist organization Boko Haram raided the small town of Chibok in northeast Nigeria and abducted 276 young girls from the local boarding school.
The event caused massive, international outrage. Using the hashtag Bring Back Our Girls, politicians, activists, and celebrities from all around the worldamong them First Lady Michelle Obama and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzaiprotested. Some of the girls were able to escape and award-winning journalist Wolfgang Bauer spent several weeks with them as they recounted their ordeal.
In Stolen Girls, he gives voice to these girls, allowing them to speak for themselvesabout their lives before the abduction, about the horrors during their captivity, and their dreams of a better future. Bauer’s reportage is complemented by over a dozen stunning portraits by award-winning photographer Andy Spyra.
9. The Fate of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence
Author: by Martin Meredith
PublicAffairs
English
816 pages
The definitive story of African nations after they emerged from colonialism – from Mugabe’s doomed kleptocracy to Mandela’s inspiring defeat of apartheid. The Fate of Africa has been hailed by reviewers as “A masterpiece…. The nonfiction book of the year” (The New York Post); “a magnificent achievement” (Weekly Standard); “a joy,” (Wall Street Journal) and “one of the decade’s most important works on Africa” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
Spanning the full breadth of the continent, from the bloody revolt in Algiers against the French to Zimbabwe’s civil war, Martin Meredith’s classic history focuses on the key personalities, events and themes of the independence era, and explains the myriad problems that Africa has faced in the past half-century.
It covers recent events like the ongoing conflict in Sudan, the controversy over Western aid, the exploitation of Africa’s resources, and the growing importance and influence of China.
10. Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know®
Author: by John Campbell
Oxford University Press
English
240 pages
As the “Giant of Africa” Nigeria is home to about twenty percent of the population of Sub-Saharan Africa, serves as Africa’s largest producer of oil and natural gas, comprises Africa’s largest economy, and represents the cultural center of African literature, film, and music.
Yet the countryis plagued by problems that keep it from realizing its potential as a world power. Boko Haram, a radical Islamist insurrection centered in the northeast of the country, is an ongoing security challenge, as is the continuous unrest in the Niger Delta, the heartland of Nigeria’s petroleum wealth.
There is also persistent violence associated with land and water use, ethnicity, and religion. In Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know, John Campbell and Matthew Page provide a rich contemporary overview of this crucial African country. Delving into Nigeria’s recent history, politics, and culture, this volume tackles essential questions related to widening inequality, the historic 2015presidential election, the persistent security threat of Boko Haram, rampant government corruption, human rights concerns, and the continual conflicts that arise in a country that is roughly half Christian and half Muslim.
11. The Shackled Continent: Power, Corruption, and African Lives
Author: by Robert Guest
B0045EO706
October 5, 2010
English
A former Africa editor for The Economist, Robert Guest addresses the troubled continent’s thorniest problems: war, AIDS, and above all, poverty. Newly updated with a preface that considers political and economic developments of the past six years, The Shackled Continentis engrossing, highly readable, and as entertaining as it is tragic.
Guest pulls the veil off the corruption and intrigue that cripple so many African nations, posing a provocative theory that Africans have been impoverished largely by their own leaders’ abuses of power. From the minefields of Angola to the barren wheat fields of Zimbabwe, Guest gathers startling evidence of the misery African leaders have inflicted on their people.
But he finds elusive success stories and examples of the resilience and resourcefulness of individual Africans, too; from these, he draws hope that the continent will eventually prosper. Guest offers choices both commonsense and controversial for Africans and for those in the West who wish Africa well.
12. Vaccines and Bayonets: Fighting Smallpox in Africa amid Tribalism, Terror and the Cold War
Author: by Bee Bloeser
Wheatmark (April 22, 2021)
English
419 pages
“At a time when vaccines are front-page news and a deadly pandemic is raging across the globe, Bloeser’s memoir makes for riveting reading… A captivating family history and a reminder of how public health campaigns are still inextricably intertwined with politics..
.” – Sasha Polakow-Suransky, Deputy Editor of Foreign Policy magazine”. .. A closely observed memoir… Historically important… Most remarkable when it recounts living in tropical, isolated and unfortunate Equatorial Guinea… Sympathetic, vividly told and useful record of an unusually sombre moment in West African history.” – Adam Roberts, Midwest Correspondent at The Economist”. ..
Reads like a political thriller, women’s history, and African adventure rolled into one…. Riveting.” – Pamela Alexander, Pulitzer Prize-nominated authorWhen the world’s nations join hands to banish smallpox, the author’s husband is posted to West Africa, initially to Nigeria. She eagerly follows him with two young children and wide-eyed ideals.
13. Aké: The Years of Childhood
Author: by Wole Soyinka
Vintage (October 23, 1989)
English
240 pages
A dazzling memoir of an African childhood from Nobel Prize-winning Nigerian novelist, playwright, and poet Wole Soyinka. Ak: The Years of Childhood gives us the story of Soyinka’s boyhood before and during World War II in a Yoruba village in western Nigeria called Ak.
A relentlessly curious child who loved books and getting into trouble, Soyinka grew up on a parsonage compound, raised by Christian parents and by a grandfather who introduced him to Yoruba spiritual traditions. His vivid evocation of the colorful sights, sounds, and aromas of the world that shaped him is both lyrically beautiful and laced with humor and the sheer delight of a child’s-eye view.
A classic of African autobiography, Ak is also a transcendantly timeless portrait of the mysteries of childhood.
14. The Dark Child
Author: by Camara Laye
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
English
192 pages
The Dark Child is a distinct and graceful memoir of French author Camara Laye’s youth in the village of Koroussa, French Guinea. Long regarded as Africa’s preeminent Francophone novelist, Laye (1928-1980) herein marvels over his mother’s supernatural powers, his father’s distinction as the village goldsmith, and his own passage into manhood, which is marked by animistic beliefs and bloody rituals of primeval origin.
Eventually, he must choose between this unique place and the academic success that lures him to distant cities. More than an autobiography of one boy, this is the universal story of sacred traditions struggling against the encroachment of a modern world.
A passionate and deeply affecting record, The Dark Child is a classic of African literature.
15. Oil, Politics and Violence: Nigeria’s Military Coup Culture (1966-1976)
Author: by Max Siollun
English
284 pages
0875867081
This is a ground breaking book by historian Max Siollun about the relationship between oil and military rule in Nigeria. Modern Nigeria cannot be understood without reference to its era of military rule. Military rule and oil wealth effected cataclysmic changes in Nigeria that nearly tore the country apart on several occasions.
40 years after the end of the Nigeria-Biafra civil war, Max Siollun answers the key questions that go to the root of the Nigerian nation: *Who were the key personalities and events that caused the Nigeria/Biafra civil war? What is the root of the Niger Delta oil conflict and the “curse of oil”? *How has Nigeria managed to endure successive military coups, civil war, ethnic violence and still remain united?
The role of Babangida, Ojukwu, Abacha, Obasanjo, Yar’Adua and Buhari in previous military coup plots and Nigerian governments. The book’s style is that of a fast paced dramatised narrative that will bring the characters and the story to life in a manner that will engage the casual, journalistic or academic reader.
