For five centuries, the Indians had very little voice in Ecuador. Now they are major protagonists who seek more acceptable terms in which to coexist in a society with two vastly different world views and cultures - that of Indians and that of the descendants of Europeans. Buy

Labels: Ecuador, History, Politics

In addition to interviews with key government officials and diplomats, this two-hour documentary offers eyewitness accounts of the genocide from those who experienced it firsthand. Buy

Labels: History, Politics, Rwanda

Gorkin, an American psychologist, teamed with two Salvadoran women psychologists to explore the life histories of three generations of women in El Salvador. Their recollections of childhood, courtship, marriage, and child rearing are conveyed against the backdrop of the social upheaval of El Salvador's 12-year civil war that ended in 1992. Buy

Labels: El Salvador, History, Inspirational, Women

'Hutus kill Tutsis, then Tutsis kill Hutus - if that's really all there is to it, then no wonder we can't be bothered with it,' Philip Gourevitch writes, imagining the response of somebody in a country far from the ethnic strife and mass killings of Rwanda. In this complex and wrenching book he explains why the Rwandan genocide should not be written off as just another tribal dispute. Buy

Labels: History, Politics, Rwanda

Don Cheadle stars in the true-life story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who housed over a thousand Tutsis refugees during their struggle against the Hutu militia in Rwanda. Buy

Labels: History, Politics, Rwanda

'Discloses what the American military and political leadership largely misunderstood. The nature of Vietnamese society, the confrontation with colonialism and Western values, the resistance of the intellectuals, and the culture of the people.' - New York Times Reviewer. Buy

Labels: Culture, History, Politics, Vietnam

This monumental narrative clarifies, analyzes, and demystifies the tragic ordeal of the Vietnam War. Free of ideological bias, profound in its understanding, and compassionate in its human portrayals, it is filled with fresh revelations drawn from secret documents and from exclusive interviews with the participants - French, American, Vietnamese, Chinese, diplomats, military commanders, high government officials, journalists, nurses, workers, and soldiers. Buy

Labels: History, Vietnam

Labels: History, Politics, Rwanda

India has five thousand years of history that we have enough evidence to write about. Any book that can simply be coherent and readable while covering so much ground is an achievement. Buy

Labels: History, India

'Michael King, a former professor of New Zealand history at Georgetown University, has written an incredibly detailed and thought-provoking survey of New Zealand history. He challenged popular ideas of the first inhabitants of the islands and raised several interesting arguments. If one is looking for a provoking read on one of the world most dynamic democracies, this is a good one'. - Amazon review. Buy

Labels: History, New Zealand

Based on new empirical evidence, interviews with local people and historical contextualization, the authors attempt to shed light on the faultlines which have appeared in Latin American society. Buy

Labels: Culture, El Salvador, History, Politics

This study covers the 1992 peace accords, which include the removal of human rights abusers from the military, the creation of a truth commission and the demilitarization of public security. It also discusses the troubling indications that the government is once again reducing the space available for freedom of expression, including the undermining of the Office of the Human Rights Counsel, the hostile attitude of President Francisco Flores, evidence of internal espionage and a changing international context. Buy

Labels: El Salvador, History, Politics

This Oxfam Country Profile is the most up-to-date overview of contemporary Uganda that is currently available. Leggett has written an objective narrative that covers the major issues facing Ugandans today - education, health, politics, regional conflict, and the economy. Also included are a brief history, current statistics, and additional references. Buy

Labels: History, Uganda

In this new analysis of Honduran social and political development, Darío Euraque explains why Honduras escaped the pattern of revolution and civil wars suffered by its neighbours Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Buy

Labels: History, Honduras, Politics

Having combed public archives in London and Kenya and conducted extensive interviews with both Kikuyu survivors and settlers, Elkins exposes the hypocrisy of Britain's supposed colonial "civilizing mission" and its subsequent cover-ups. A profoundly chilling portrait of the inherent racism and violence of "colonial logic". Buy

Labels: History, Kenya

The unusual and innovative data collected in this book comes from material written by children directly after the coup of July 27th, 1985, in Kampala. Four hundred children wrote essays on "The Events of War and Violence in My Life". Twenty-four of the essays are presented here, along with articles concerning the effects of war on Ugandan children, and the dilemma of parents during wartime. Buy

Labels: Children, History, Uganda

Gurcharan Das' book mixes autobiography, social and political observation and economic history to tell the capitalist's story of India from 1947 to the present. Buy

Labels: History, India, Politics

Dallaire - a career man in the Canadian military - was informed that he might be asked to lead a UN peacekeeping mission in Rwanda, to which he replied excitedly, "Rwanda, that's somewhere in Africa, isn't it?" Fourteen months later, he would return from his service there a nearly broken man, having failed to prevent the unfathomable massacre of 800,000 Tutsis and Hutus, which took place over a mere 100 days. Buy

Labels: History, Politics, Rwanda

Conquest examines Stalin's assault on the Soviet peasantry at the end of the 1920s. His horrific details, drawn from Soviet as well as Western sources, lead Conquest to conclude that as many as 14.5 million died in the years 1930-37 as a result of Stalin's terror against the peasantry: five million came from the Ukraine alone. Buy

Labels: History, Politics, Russia

Made up of 20 very different countries, Latin America has sometimes been treated as though it were a homogeneous unit, one mired in poverty and political instability. University of North Carolina scholar John Charles Chasteen's sweeping history of the region imparts a sense of how diverse - ethnically, linguistically, culturally - Latin America truly is, and of how that part of the world is rapidly changing. Buy

Labels: Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, History, Honduras

The Unknown Story does not contain a formal dedication, but it is clear that Chang is writing to honour the millions of Chinese who fell victim to Mao's drive for absolute power in his 50-plus-year struggle to dominate China and the 20th-century political landscape. From the outset, Chang and Halliday are determined to shatter the "myth" of Mao. Buy

Labels: Biography, China, History

This book covers the history of Nepal from the Medieval/Early Modern period up to the mid-1990s. Louise Brown gives particular emphasis to contemporary Nepal, providing an analysis of the elections of May 1991 and the current political scene. Buy

Labels: History, Nepal, Politics

Mamdani writes a brief but extremely insightful analysis of the foreign influences which shaped Uganda from the perspective of dependency theory. He argues that Amin was a social, political, and economic phenomenon constructed not just by Uganda, but with the help of the British, the US, and the Soviet Union. Buy

Labels: History, Politics, Uganda

Mamdani's highly-readable account focuses on the political construction of Hutu and Tutsi as racial/ethnic identities, tracing the tale from the pre-colonial era, through Belgium's administration of the country, to the 1959 Revolution and subsequent attempts to develop an overarching sense of Rwandan nationhood. Buy

Labels: History, Politics, Rwanda

Invidious distinctions on the basis of race and overt racism were central features in American colonial policy in the Philippines from 1898 to 1947, as America transported its domestic racial policy to the island colony. This collection by young Filipino scholars analyzes American colonialism and its impact on administration and attitudes in the Philippines through the prism of American "racial tradition," a structural concept which refers to beliefs, attitudes, images, classifications, laws, and social customs that shape race relations and racial formation in multiracial and colonial societies. Buy

Labels: History, Philippines, Politics

The value of Meredith's towering history of modern Africa rests not so much in its incisive analysis, or its original insights; it is the sheer readability of the project, combined with a notable lack of pedantry, which makes it one of the decade's most important works on Africa. Spanning the entire continent, and covering the major upheavals more or less chronologically...from the promising era of independence to the most recent spate of infamies...Meredith brings us on a journey that is as illuminating as it is gruelling. Buy

Labels: Ghana, History, Kenya, Politics, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda

Kenya, simultaneously heralded for its political stability and economic success and criticized as a wellspring of elitism and class exploitation, remains a close ally of the West and a symbol of capitalism in Africa. Yet its exquisite natural beauty and wildlife hide a more mundane reality. The country is rural, poor, and without mineral wealth, and less than 20 percent of Kenya's land area is readily available for dense human settlement. In this revised edition, Miller and Yeager address these social issues while tracing political and economic developments from early pre-colonial times to the contemporary period. Buy

Labels: History, Kenya, Politics

In this new edition, Montgomery offers a detailed account of the evolution of the war, a clear analysis of why Duarte's promises for peace and prosperity could not be fulfilled, and an evaluation of the electoral victory of the oligarchy in 1989. Buy

Labels: El Salvador, History, Politics

This book provides a comprehensive survey of Russia's tragic and glorious history from prehistory through glasnost and the fall of the Soviet Union right up to the present day. The book begins with prehistoric Russia and its nomadic invaders, and covers the rise of Muscovy with its colourful panoply of rulers from Ivan Moneybags to Ivan the Terrible, despotism of the Romanovs, and the Russian Revolution. Buy

Labels: Armchair Travel, History, Russia

Romanian poet, philosopher and editor Petreu shows in this dense but fresh work that many Romanian intellectuals were seduced by fascist ideology during the interwar years, and that philosopher Cioran, an "aphorist of humorous despair," was haunted by this legacy for the rest of his life. Buy

Labels: History, Literature, Romania

The son of Vietnamese parents who suffered terribly during the Vietnam War and brought their family to America when he was 10, Pham, on the cusp of his 30s, defied his parents' conservative hopes for him and his engineering career by becoming a poorly paid freelance writer. After the suicide of his sister, he set off on an even riskier path to travel some of the world on his bicycle. In the gruelling, enlightening year that followed, he pedalled through Mexico, the American West Coast, Japan, and finally his far-off first land, Vietnam. Buy

Labels: Armchair Travel, Biography, History, Vietnam

Prunier, a senior researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris, has written the first comprehensive account in English that examines the causes and events of this civil war. Prunier points out, correctly, the substantive underlying causes: a colonial legacy that disrupted pre-colonial ethnic relations, political chaos and repression, economic dislocation, Western bungling and neglect, the role of the church, and overpopulation to name a few. Buy

Labels: History, Politics, Rwanda

Political activists Schirmer and Shalom gather here over 80 articles and documents that seek to demonstrate a long-time, popular struggle on the part of Filipinos for social justice and freedom from foreign domination. The selections tell of the past and present U.S. role in the Philippines from the turn-of-the-century U.S. conquest (wresting control of the colony from Spain) to the flight last year of dictator Ferdinand Marcos and Corazon Aquino’s assumption of the presidency. Buy

Labels: History, Philippines, Politics

As India's multicultural society confronts violent sectarianism at home and a range of destabilizing forces internationally, these illuminating essays from Nobel Prize winning economist Sen offer a timely and cogent examination of the country's long history of heterodoxy and public discourse. Challenging the notion of the West as sole originator of liberal values, the book bears forcefully on contemporary debates over multiculturalism, secularism and postcolonial identity. Buy

Labels: Culture, History, India

Russia had an extraordinary twentieth century, undergoing upheaval and transformation. Updating his acclaimed History of Twentieth-Century Russia through 2002, Robert Service provides a panoramic perspective on a country whose Soviet past encompassed revolution, civil war, mass terror, and two world wars. Buy

Labels: History, Russia

The editors have assembled in this work a unique and important volume of personal and historical reflections on the Filipino experience. This interdisciplinary collection brings together views from the Philippines and the voices of Filipinos in the U.S. It's a must-read for anyone interested in the post-colonial experience. Buy

Labels: History, Philippines, Politics

An often controversial analysis of Nepali society, this work has a very good historical introduction and the author looks particularly critically at the caste system. Buy

Labels: Development, History, Nepal

Kwame Nkrumah is the inspiration of African reconstructionism. Despite being the prime minister and president of Ghana, he died penniless. Buy

Labels: Biography, Ghana, History

Much more than a land of coffee and bananas, Costa Rica boasts more teachers than soldiers; it has even abolished its army. This book is divided into 11 chapters covering history, government and politics, the economy, the family, education, and religion. The authors draw on their experiences in the country, interviews with people from all walks of Costa Rican life, and secondary sources. The result is a solid monograph on Costa Rica that points out the contradictions in its perception by the rest of the world. Buy

Labels: Costa Rica, Culture, History, Politics

Behr's probing analysis of the historical roots of the Ceausescu dictatorship in Romania goes a long way toward explaining the pathological behaviour characterising the rule of "the communist Dracula" and why his regime endured. Buy

Labels: Biography, History, Romania

Over six million child combatants were killed or injured in the past decade. In this groundbreaking and comprehensive study, Singer, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and former adviser to the U.S. military, explores the rise and expansion of child soldiery. Buy

Labels: Children, History, Politics, Uganda

How did the rise in banana consumption in the United States affect the banana-growing regions of Central America? In this lively, interdisciplinary study, John Soluri integrates agro-ecology, anthropology, political economy, and history to trace the symbiotic growth of the export banana industry in Honduras and the consumer mass market in the United States. Buy

Labels: History, Honduras

A clear-eyed look at the Rwandan genocide is offered in Sometimes in April, a frank take on the 1994 slaughter that claimed upwards of 800,000 lives. Buy

Labels: History, Politics, Rwanda

The period covered in Keith Taylor's ambitious and pioneering book stretches from the origins of the Vietnamese people through eleven centuries of Chinese rule down to the tenth century, when the Vietnamese gained a fragile independence in the shadow of the Chinese empire. With this work of meticulous scholarship, Taylor has put both Vietnamese and Chinese historians in his debt. Buy

Labels: History, Vietnam

The abduction of over 40 girls from the Catholic School at Aboke, and the nun who followed the rebels on foot to get them back is an amazingly heart wrenching and well told tale. Els De Temmerman also offers fascinating insights into the twisted mind of rebel leader Joseph Kony, and his spiritual quest to purify the Acholi race. If at all you are interested in the Northern Ugandan crisis, then this is an absolute must read. Buy

Labels: Children, History, Uganda, Women

What we now know as China began to emerge four to five thousand years ago, in the fertile flatlands of the middle Yellow River. In the second millennium BC first the shadowy Xia, then the Shang, and finally the cultivated Zhou dynasty created an integrated, expansive kingdom that spread north, east and south. Buy

Labels: China, History, Travel Guide

The World Guide provides you with a refreshingly different perspective of the countries of the world. Drawing on United Nations and other mainstream data, it includes all the facts, history, political and economic analysis you would find in a conventional reference work, but it also offers information on the issues central to the lives of people in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean. Buy

Labels: Culture, History, Politics

By examining the political signifacance - and complex ramifications of - reproductive controversies in twentieth-century Kenya, this book explores why and how control of female initiation, abortion, childbirth, and premarital pregnancy have been crucial to the exercise of colonial and postcolonial power. Buy

Labels: Health, History, Kenya, Politics, Women

A penetrative probe into South Africa's memorable history. Beginning with the earliest aborigines of the area and concluding with the up-to-date happenings, Thompson examines primarily the encounters of blacks. The text is basic for any reader who wishes to comprehend the historical patterns that preface the struggles that seethe and boil in this country. Buy

Labels: History, South Africa

Here is a fresh perspective on the last tumultuous years of the Soviet Union and an exquisitely poetic travelogue. With a keen grasp of Russia's history, a deep appreciation for its architecture and iconography, and an inexhaustible enthusiasm for its people and its culture, Colin Thubron is the perfect guide to a country most of us will never get to know firsthand. Here, we can walk down western Russia's country roads, rest in its villages, and explore some of the most engaging cities in the world. Buy

Labels: Armchair Travel, History, Russia

Williamson (Univ. of Edinburgh) has accomplished a nearly impossible task: he has produced a lucid, objective interpretation for the non-specialist reader. The book is organized topically, rather than by country, and the author wisely selects regional examples of his major themes, rather than attempting a detailed analysis of each country. The work ends with an unusual exploration of literature and culture in relation to identity and modernization, followed by a helpful bibliographic essay. Buy

Labels: Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, History, Honduras

This highly acclaimed book, the standard history of Thailand for almost twenty years, has now been completely revised by the author. David K. Wyatt has also added new sections examining the social and economic changes that have transformed the country in the past two decades. Buy

Labels: History, Thailand

Anderson's authoritative history of the last days of the British Empire in Kenya focuses on the colonial judicial system, which sent over 1,000 native Kenyans to the gallows between 1952 and 1959, during the state of emergency triggered by the Mau Mau insurrection. Buy

Labels: History, Kenya

The New Ghana is the exciting account of the birth of Ghana, newest member of the British Commonwealth of Nations - the story of a bid for freedom crowned with success. Buy

Labels: Ghana, History, Politics

Faced with a changing situation that included a rise in crime and loss of human rights, Hondurans have raised a spirit of nationalism against America, argues Canadian journalist Acker in this timely and incisive work, one of the few on this Central American country. Buy

Labels: Development, History, Honduras

One of Chinua Achebe's many achievements in his acclaimed first novel, Things Fall Apart, is his relentlessly unsentimental rendering of Nigerian tribal life before and after the coming of colonialism. First published in 1958, just two years before Nigeria declared independence from Great Britain, Achebe sketches a world in which violence, war, and suffering exist, but are balanced by a strong sense of tradition, ritual, and social coherence. Buy

Labels: History, Literature