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| books about liberia: Charles Taylor and Liberia Colin M. Waugh, 2011-10-13 Campaigner, insurgent, fugitive, rebel commander, commodity kingpin, elected president, exile and finally prisoner, Charles Taylor sought to lead his country to change but instead ignited a conflict which destroyed Liberia in over a decade of violence, greed and personal ambition. Taylor's takeover threw much of the neigbouring region into turmoil, until he was finally brought to face justice in The Hague for his role in Sierra Leone's civil war. In this remarkable and eye-opening book, Colin Waugh draws on a variety of sources, testimonies and original interviews - including with Taylor himself - to recount the story of what really happened during these turbulent years. In doing so, he examines both the life of Charles Taylor, as well as the often self-interested efforts of the international community to first save Liberia from disaster, then, having failed to do so, to bring to justice the man it deems most to blame for its disintegration. |
| books about liberia: Another America: The Story of Liberia and the Former Slaves Who Ruled It James Ciment, 2014-08-12 The first popular history of the former American slaves who founded, ruled, and lost Africa's first republic In 1820, a group of about eighty African Americans reversed the course of history and sailed back to Africa, to a place they would name after liberty itself. They went under the banner of the American Colonization Society, a white philanthropic organization with a dual agenda: to rid America of its blacks, and to convert Africans to Christianity. The settlers staked out a beachhead; their numbers grew as more boats arrived; and after breaking free from their white overseers, they founded Liberia—Africa's first black republic—in 1847. James Ciment's Another America is the first full account of this dramatic experiment. With empathy and a sharp eye for human foibles, Ciment reveals that the Americo-Liberians struggled to live up to their high ideals. They wrote a stirring Declaration of Independence but re-created the social order of antebellum Dixie, with themselves as the master caste. Building plantations, holding elegant soirees, and exploiting and even helping enslave the native Liberians, the persecuted became the persecutors—until a lowly native sergeant murdered their president in 1980, ending 133 years of Americo rule. The rich cast of characters in Another America rivals that of any novel. We encounter Marcus Garvey, who coaxed his followers toward Liberia in the 1920s, and the rubber king Harvey Firestone, who built his empire on the backs of native Liberians. Among the Americoes themselves, we meet the brilliant intellectual Edward Blyden, one of the first black nationalists; the Baltimore-born explorer Benjamin Anderson, seeking a legendary city of gold in the Liberian hinterland; and President William Tubman, a descendant of Georgia slaves, whose economic policies brought Cadillacs to the streets of Monrovia, the Liberian capital. And then there are the natives, men like Joseph Samson, who was adopted by a prominent Americo family and later presided over the execution of his foster father during the 1980 coup. In making Liberia, the Americoes transplanted the virtues and vices of their country of birth. The inspiring and troubled history they created is, to a remarkable degree, the mirror image of our own. |
| books about liberia: Liberia, South Carolina John M. Coggeshall, 2018-04-10 In 2007, while researching mountain culture in upstate South Carolina, anthropologist John M. Coggeshall stumbled upon the small community of Liberia in the Blue Ridge foothills. There he met Mable Owens Clarke and her family, the remaining members of a small African American community still living on land obtained immediately after the Civil War. This intimate history tells the story of five generations of the Owens family and their friends and neighbors, chronicling their struggles through slavery, Reconstruction, the Jim Crow era, and the desegregation of the state. Through hours of interviews with Mable and her relatives, as well as friends and neighbors, Coggeshall presents an ethnographic history that allows members of a largely ignored community to speak and record their own history for the first time. This story sheds new light on the African American experience in Appalachia, and in it Coggeshall documents the community’s 150-year history of resistance to white oppression, while offering a new way to understand the symbolic relationship between residents and the land they occupy, tying together family, memory, and narratives to explain this connection. |
| books about liberia: The Price of Liberty Claude Andrew Clegg III, 2009-09-11 In nineteenth-century America, the belief that blacks and whites could not live in social harmony and political equality in the same country led to a movement to relocate African Americans to Liberia, a West African colony established by the United States government and the American Colonization Society in 1822. In The Price of Liberty, Claude Clegg accounts for 2,030 North Carolina blacks who left the state and took up residence in Liberia between 1825 and 1893. By examining both the American and African sides of this experience, Clegg produces a textured account of an important chapter in the historical evolution of the Atlantic world. For almost a century, Liberian emigration connected African Americans to the broader cultures, commerce, communication networks, and epidemiological patterns of the Afro-Atlantic region. But for many individuals, dreams of a Pan-African utopia in Liberia were tempered by complicated relationships with the Africans, whom they dispossessed of land. Liberia soon became a politically unstable mix of newcomers, indigenous peoples, and recaptured Africans from westbound slave ships. Ultimately, Clegg argues, in the process of forging the world's second black-ruled republic, the emigrants constructed a settler society marred by many of the same exclusionary, oppressive characteristics common to modern colonial regimes. |
| books about liberia: L Is for Liberia Dwedor Morais Ford, 2013-05-03 Authors Note: I was born in Liberia and moved to the United States more than three decades ago. This book is a result of my desire to share with my children and grandchildren some of the foods I enjoyed while growing up in Liberia. All but three of the alphabets do not represent foods because I wanted to add geographic, historic, and cultural features to the book: A is a Africa pinpoints where Liberia is located; L is for Liberia depicts the Liberian map and flag; and Q is for e(Q)uator shows how close Liberia is to the middle of the Earth. |
| books about liberia: This Our Dark Country Catherine Reef, 2002 Explores the history of the colony, later the independent nation of Liberia, which was established on the west coast of Africa in 1822 as a haven for free African-Americans. |
| books about liberia: An African Republic Marie Tyler-McGraw, 2009-11-30 The nineteenth-century American Colonization Society (ACS) project of persuading all American free blacks to emigrate to the ACS colony of Liberia could never be accomplished. Few free blacks volunteered, and greater numbers would have overwhelmed the meager resources of the ACS. Given that reality, who supported African colonization and why? No state was more involved with the project than Virginia, where white Virginians provided much of the political and organizational leadership and black Virginians provided a majority of the emigrants. In An African Republic, Marie Tyler-McGraw traces the parallel but seldom intersecting tracks of black and white Virginians' interests in African colonization, from revolutionary-era efforts at emancipation legislation to African American churches' concern for African missions. In Virginia, African colonization attracted aging revolutionaries, republican mothers and their daughters, bondpersons schooled and emancipated for Liberia, evangelical planters and merchants, urban free blacks, opportunistic politicians, Quakers, and gentlemen novelists. An African Republic follows the experiences of the emigrants from Virginia to Liberia, where some became the leadership class, consciously seeking to demonstrate black abilities, while others found greater hardship and early death. Tyler-McGraw carefully examines the tensions between racial identities, domestic visions, and republican citizenship in Virginia and Liberia. |
| books about liberia: Dream Country Shannon Gibney, 2018-09-11 The heartbreaking story of five generations of young people from a single African-and-American family pursuing an elusive dream of freedom. Gut wrenching and incredible.”— Sabaa Tahir #1 New York Times bestselling author of An Ember in the Ashes This novel is a remarkable achievement.—Kelly Barnhill, New York Times bestselling author and Newbery medalist Beautifully epic.—Ibi Zoboi, author American Street and National Book Award finalist Dream Country begins in suburban Minneapolis at the moment when seventeen-year-old Kollie Flomo begins to crack under the strain of his life as a Liberian refugee. He's exhausted by being at once too black and not black enough for his African American peers and worn down by the expectations of his own Liberian family and community. When his frustration finally spills into violence and his parents send him back to Monrovia to reform school, the story shifts. Like Kollie, readers travel back to Liberia, but also back in time, to the early twentieth century and the point of view of Togar Somah, an eighteen-year-old indigenous Liberian on the run from government militias that would force him to work the plantations of the Congo people, descendants of the African American slaves who colonized Liberia almost a century earlier. When Togar's section draws to a shocking close, the novel jumps again, back to America in 1827, to the children of Yasmine Wright, who leave a Virginia plantation with their mother for Liberia, where they're promised freedom and a chance at self-determination by the American Colonization Society. The Wrights begin their section by fleeing the whip and by its close, they are then the ones who wield it. With each new section, the novel uncovers fresh hope and resonating heartbreak, all based on historical fact. In Dream Country, Shannon Gibney spins a riveting tale of the nightmarish spiral of death and exile connecting America and Africa, and of how one determined young dreamer tries to break free and gain control of her destiny. |
| books about liberia: Madame President Helene Cooper, 2017-03-07 BEST BOOKS of 2017 SELECTION by * THE WASHINGTON POST * NEW YORK POST * The harrowing, but triumphant story of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, leader of the Liberian women’s movement, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and the first democratically elected female president in African history. When Ellen Johnson Sirleaf won the 2005 Liberian presidential election, she demolished a barrier few thought possible, obliterating centuries of patriarchal rule to become the first female elected head of state in Africa’s history. Madame President is the inspiring, often heartbreaking story of Sirleaf’s evolution from an ordinary Liberian mother of four boys to international banking executive, from a victim of domestic violence to a political icon, from a post-war president to a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author Helene Cooper deftly weaves Sirleaf’s personal story into the larger narrative of the coming of age of Liberian women. The highs and lows of Sirleaf’s life are filled with indelible images; from imprisonment in a jail cell for standing up to Liberia’s military government to addressing the United States Congress, from reeling under the onslaught of the Ebola pandemic to signing a deal with Hillary Clinton when she was still Secretary of State that enshrined American support for Liberia’s future. Sirleaf’s personality shines throughout this riveting biography. Ultimately, Madame President is the story of Liberia’s greatest daughter, and the universal lessons we can all learn from this “Oracle” of African women. |
| books about liberia: Little Liberia Jonny Steinberg, 2012 In his latest book, Little Liberia: An African Odyssey in New York, Steinberg takes us to Park Hill Avenue on Staten Island, where a community of Liberians have made their home. Through interviews and shadowing of two community leaders, Steinberg strives to understand the peculiarities of this community; while it appears at times as if a piece of Liberia has been sliced off and dropped in New York, the Park Hill community is ravaged by conflict between different interest groups. To understand what is going on in 2008 New York, Steinberg travels back - back to Liberia and back to the country's tragic recent history of civil war, military coups and mass exterminations. The story of Liberia is a gruesome and miserable one but Steinberg's empathy for his subjects never allows the narrative to descend into voyeurism. The combination of hard nosed investigative journalism, a gift for storytelling and an obvious empathy for the characters that he shadows makes Steinberg an author who demands to be read, whatever the subject matter. A brilliant and important book which will delight Steinberg's thousands of followers and doubtless earn him many more--Book Lounge. |
| books about liberia: Liberia Gabriel I. H. Williams, 2002 On December 24, 1989, a group of Libyan-trained armed dissidents, which styled itself the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), attacked Liberian territory from neighboring Ivory Coast. The band of outlaws was led by Charles Taylor, an ex-Liberia government official who escaped from prison in the United States while facing extradition to Liberia for allegedly embezzling nearly one million dollars of public funds. After he fled the U.S. Taylor returned to West Africa, from where he connected with Libya. Sustained by Libyan support, Taylor went to Liberia to spearhead his murderous brand of civil war. Liberia's dictatorial leader Samuel Doe responded to the NPFL invasion by deploying troops in the conflict area, whose senior ranks were dominated by the military strongman's own ethnic group. The government forces carried out collective punishment against local villagers, killing, looting, and raping, while singling out people from certain ethnic groups whom they regarded as supporters of the invasion by reason of their ethnic identity. The NPFL also targeted members of Doe's ethnic group and other ethnic groups that were seen to be supportive of the government, as well as its officials and sympathizers. As the war spread from the interior toward the Liberian capital of Monrovia amid widespread death and destruction, the United States responded to the deteriorating situation by dispatching four warships with 2,300 marines to evacuate Americans and other foreigners who were in the country. The U.S. decided not to intervene to contain the unfolding catastrophe. Officials of the George Bush administration maintained that Liberia, which was then America's closest traditional ally in Africa, was no longer of strategic importance to the U.S. Coincidentally, the Liberian civil war started at the time the Cold War was ending. Located on the West Coast of Africa, Liberia was founded in 1822 by freed black American slaves who were returned to the continent. Their passage was paid by the American Colonization Society, a philanthropic organization, whose members included Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe. The Liberian capital Monrovia is named after Monroe, who was president of the United States at the time Liberia was founded. The country's national flag of red, white and blue stripes with a star, bears close resemblance to the American flag. The systems of government and education, architecture and other aspects of Liberian life reflect American taste. Names of places in the country include Virginia, Maryland, Georgia, Louisiana and Buchanan. More than anywhere in Africa, spoken English in Liberia echoes the rhythms of Black American speech. Liberia served as the regional headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and hosted a Voice of America relay station that beamed American propaganda, as well as other major U.S. security installations during the Cold War. The Americans also operated the Omega Navigation Tower, which was intended to track the movement of ships and planes in the region and beyond. Once one of Africa's most stable and prosperous countries, Liberia was regarded as a haven for international trade and commerce because of the use of the American dollar as a legal tender. Major U.S. investments in the country included the Firestone Rubber Plantation, the world's largest plantation, which produce rubber for Firestone tires, Chase Manhattan Bank, and Citibank. Pan American Airlines (PAN AM) once operated Liberia's Roberts International Airport, where U.S. fighter jets have landing rights. During part of the 1970s, Liberia's per capita income was equivalent to that of Japan. Independent since 1847 as Africa's first republic, Liberia's plunge into anarchy began after a bloody military coup that ended the rule of descendants of the freed slaves, who monopolized political and economic power for over a century. During the 1980 coup, President William Tolbert, who tried to institute some meaningful po |
| books about liberia: Gbagba Robtel Neajai Pailey, 2013 |
| books about liberia: Journey Without Maps Graham Greene, 2010-10-02 The iconic writer's travel log from the uncharted shores of West Africa. Leaving Europe for the first time in his life, Graham Greene set out in 1935 to discover Liberia, then a virtually unmapped republic on the shores of West Africa. This captivating account of his arduous 350-mile journey on foot - a great adventure which took him from the border with Sierra Leone to the Atlantic coast at Grand Bassa - is as much a record of one young man's self-discovery as it is a striking insight into one of the few areas of Africa untouched by Western colonisation. Journey Without Maps is regarded as a masterclass in travel writing. WITH A FOREWORD BY TIM BUTCHER AND AN INTRODUCTION BY PAUL THEROUX 'One of the best travel books this century' Independent |
| books about liberia: The Liberian Civil War Mark Huband, 2013-06-17 The civil war in 1989 promised freedom from ten years of vicious dictatorship; instead the seeds of Liberia's devastation were sown. Mark Huband's account of the conflict is a portrayal of the war as it unfolded, drawing on the author's experience of living amongst the fighters. |
| books about liberia: Liberia J. Gus Liebenow, 1969 Study of the politico-social structure of Liberia - covers historical aspects, political parties, political leadership, political problems, economic growth problems, tradition, family and intergroup relations with tribal peoples and interest groups, foreign policy, the role of USA and economic aid, social implications, discrimination, etc. Annotated bibliography pp. 224 to 239 and maps. |
| books about liberia: The Myth of Self-Reliance Naohiko Omata, 2017-06 For many refugees, economic survival in refugee camps is extraordinarily difficult. Drawing on both qualitative and quantitative research conducted over several years, this volume challenges the reputation of a 'self-reliant' model given to Buduburam refugee camp in Ghana and sheds light on considerable economic inequality between refugee households. The Myth of Self-Reliance provides valuable insights into refugees' experiences of repatriation to Liberia after protracted exile and their responses to the ending of refugee status for remaining refugees in Ghana. |
| books about liberia: The Evolution of Deadly Conflict in Liberia Jeremy I. Levitt, 2005 This book represents the first attempt to holistically document and analyze the causes of deadly conflict in Liberia from its founding to the present. It reconstructs and examines the root, operational, and catalytic causes of eighteen internal deadly conflicts that transpired in Liberia between 1822 and 2003, including the 1980 coup d'e'tat against the Tolbert regime and the Great War (1989-2003). The book seeks to answer two primary questions: What are the historical causes of deadly conflict in Liberia, and To what extent has the evolution of settler nationalism and authoritarianism contributed to the stimulation of conflict between settler and native Liberians? To answer these questions, Levitt examines a continuum of circular causation among the state of affairs that led to the founding of the Liberian State, the evolution of settler authoritarianism and nationalism, and internal conflict. By analyzing these processes together, the causes of eighteen conflicts are revealed and thoroughly discussed. The book also has three major objectives: to determine the historical causes of deadly conflict in Liberia, in particular, the underlining historical phenomena responsible for birthing the Great War; to present an alternative framework to comprehend and examine the aged conflict dynamic between settler and indigenous Liberians, and within Liberian society itself; and to produce the first comprehensive study of deadly conflict in Liberia. This book advantageously spans the fields of political science, history, international law, and peace and conflict studies; it is an excellent interdisciplinary choice. Dr. Levitt has meticulously investigated the major violent conflicts in Liberia's tortured history and convincingly traced their roots to political institutions of domination and control that remain at the foundation of Liberia's system of governance today. The book's message for Liberia's future is unmistakable. -- Amos Sawyer, Professor and Associate Director, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University-Bloomington, and former Interim President of Liberia, IGNU [T]he definitive work on the causes of Liberia's cycle of deadly conflict... The vital importance of Dr. Levitt's work is clear: only by understanding those root causes can Liberians and those who wish them well hope to find an exit from the cycle. -- David Wippman, Professor of Law and Vice Provost for International Relations, Cornell University This is an excellent book... Levitt deserves great credit for its quality, thoroughness and the care of his research. -- Crawford Young, Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison [A]n original work with fresh perspective that is well grounded in history and theory and of great value to Liberian studies and to the theoretical literature on deadly conflict. -- D. Elwood Dunn, Professor & Chair of Political Science, University of the South (TN), Former Liberian Government Official Levitt's painstaking documentation of the deadly conflicts makes a most useful contribution to the on-going governance debate. This work is a major contribution to understanding the primary factors that collapsed the Liberian state. -- Dr. Byron Tarr, Development Consultants Inc. Monrovia, Liberia Levitt, for his part, makes a major contribution to our understanding both of Liberia's past and how that past ought to inform our understanding of the present. Indeed, his is the first systematic accounting for the many nation-building conflicts of Liberia. -- African Studies Review |
| books about liberia: Welcome to Liberia Yumi Ng, 2004 An overview of the geography, history, government, economy, people, and culture of Liberia. |
| books about liberia: Empire of Rubber Gregg Mitman, 2021-11-02 An ambitious and shocking exposé of America’s hidden empire in Liberia, run by the storied Firestone corporation, and its long shadow In the early 1920s, Americans owned 80 percent of the world’s automobiles and consumed 75 percent of the world’s rubber. But only one percent of the world’s rubber grew under the U.S. flag, creating a bottleneck that hampered the nation’s explosive economic expansion. To solve its conundrum, the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company turned to a tiny West African nation, Liberia, founded in 1847 as a free Black republic. Empire of Rubber tells a sweeping story of capitalism, racial exploitation, and environmental devastation, as Firestone transformed Liberia into America’s rubber empire. Historian and filmmaker Gregg Mitman scoured remote archives to unearth a history of promises unfulfilled for the vast numbers of Liberians who toiled on rubber plantations built on taken land. Mitman reveals a history of racial segregation and medical experimentation that reflected Jim Crow America—on African soil. As Firestone reaped fortunes, wealth and power concentrated in the hands of a few elites, fostering widespread inequalities that fed unrest, rebellions and, eventually, civil war. A riveting narrative of ecology and disease, of commerce and science, and of racial politics and political maneuvering, Empire of Rubber uncovers the hidden story of a corporate empire whose tentacles reach into the present. |
| books about liberia: The Dragons, the Giant, the Women Wayétu Moore, 2020-06-02 FINALIST FOR THE 2020 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR AUTOBIOGRAPHY An engrossing memoir of escaping the First Liberian Civil War and building a life in the United States When Wayétu Moore turns five years old, her father and grandmother throw her a big birthday party at their home in Monrovia, Liberia, but all she can think about is how much she misses her mother, who is working and studying in faraway New York. Before she gets the reunion her father promised her, war breaks out in Liberia. The family is forced to flee their home on foot, walking and hiding for three weeks until they arrive in the village of Lai. Finally, a rebel soldier smuggles them across the border to Sierra Leone, reuniting the family and setting them off on yet another journey, this time to the United States. Spanning this harrowing journey in Moore’s early childhood, her years adjusting to life in Texas as a black woman and an immigrant, and her eventual return to Liberia, The Dragons, the Giant, the Women is a deeply moving story of the search for home in the midst of upheaval. Moore has a novelist’s eye for suspense and emotional depth, and this unforgettable memoir is full of imaginative, lyrical flights and lush prose. In capturing both the hazy magic and the stark realities of what is becoming an increasingly pervasive experience, Moore shines a light on the great political and personal forces that continue to affect many migrants around the world, and calls us all to acknowledge the tenacious power of love and family. |
| books about liberia: Journey of Hope Kenneth C. Barnes, 2005-10-12 Liberia was founded by the American Colonization Society (ACS) in the 1820s as an African refuge for free blacks and liberated American slaves. While interest in African migration waned after the Civil War, it roared back in the late nineteenth century with the rise of Jim Crow segregation and disfranchisement throughout the South. The back-to-Africa movement held great new appeal to the South's most marginalized citizens, rural African Americans. Nowhere was this interest in Liberia emigration greater than in Arkansas. More emigrants to Liberia left from Arkansas than any other state in the 1880s and 1890s. In Journey of Hope, Kenneth C. Barnes explains why so many black Arkansas sharecroppers dreamed of Africa and how their dreams of Liberia differed from the reality. This rich narrative also examines the role of poor black farmers in the creation of a black nationalist identity and the importance of the symbolism of an ancestral continent. Based on letters to the ACS and interviews of descendants of the emigrants in war-torn Liberia, this study captures the life of black sharecroppers in the late 1800s and their dreams of escaping to Africa. |
| books about liberia: The Darling Russell Banks, 2010-07-23 “After many years of believing that I never dream of anything, I dreamed of Africa.” Over a decade after leaving her three sons behind in Liberia, Hannah Musgrave realizes she has to leave her farm in the Adirondacks and find out what has happened to them and the chimpanzees for whom she created a sanctuary. The Darling is the story of her return to the wreckage of west Africa and the story of her past, from her middle-class American upbringing to her years in the Weather Underground. It is also one of the most powerful novels of the decade, an unforgettable tale of growth and loss, and an unstinting exploration of some of the most troubling issues of our time: terrorism, race, and the contact between the first world and the third. Hannah Musgrave, the narrator of The Darling, tells us she first travelled to Africa in the mid-1970s, to escape prosecution for her radical political activities with the Weathermen. Arriving in Liberia to work in a medical research lab, Hannah – also known by her alias, Dawn Carrington – meets Woodrow Sundiata, an official in the ministry of public health, and they fall immediately in love. Courting with Woodrow, an intelligent, ambitious man, means encountering his other life in his ancestral village of Fuama – a life that could scarcely be more different from Hannah’s affluent childhood as the daughter of a bestselling pediatrician. Hannah and Woodrow start a family, but she feels herself to be somehow estranged from her life in Liberia and curiously detached from her husband and three sons. Still in search of herself as her children grow older, Hannah develops a closer and closer bond with the chimpanzees at the lab, whom she calls “dreamers.” During the early 1980s, Liberian society grows more unstable, until an illiterate soldier named Samuel Doe brutally overthrows and assassinates the president. Hannah’s courageous intervention with Doe leads to Woodrow’s release from detention, but at a price: she must return to the US, leaving her family behind. Hannah feels that her dreamers will feel her absence more deeply than her family will. In the US Hannah briefly reconnects with her parents after years of estrangement before returning to her friends from her underground years. One of them, Zack Procter, is involved with a plan to spring Charles Taylor – an attractive Liberian politician – from jail, and Hannah involves herself with the plot, genuinely believing that Taylor will bring social democracy to west Africa. Hannah gets permission to return to her family in the mid-1980s, and decides that this time things will be different: she will take charge of her home life, ousting Woodrow’s young cousin Jeanette, and she will build a sanctuary for her chimpanzees. But Charles Taylor has also returned, and his slow and bloody rebellion against Doe leads, eventually, to a night of horrific violence in which Woodrow is murdered and Hannah’s teenaged children disappear. Amidst chaos and almost unbelievable bloodshed, Hannah has time only to move her dreamers to Boniface Island before facing the heartrending decision to escape Liberia, leaving her children behind. More than ten years will pass before she can return to discover their fate, and understand her own. |
| books about liberia: Development, (Dual) Citizenship and Its Discontents in Africa Robtel Neajai Pailey, 2022-07-07 Drawing on rich oral histories from over two hundred in-depth interviews in West Africa, Europe, and North America, Robtel Neajai Pailey examines socio-economic change in Liberia, Africa's first black republic, through the prism of citizenship. Marking how historical policy changes on citizenship and contemporary public discourse on dual citizenship have impacted development policy and practice, she reveals that as Liberia transformed from a country of immigration to one of emigration, so too did the nature of citizenship, thus influencing claims for and against dual citizenship. In this engaging contribution to scholarly and policy debates about citizenship as a continuum of inclusion and exclusion, and development as a process of both amelioration and degeneration, Pailey develops a new model for conceptualising citizenship within the context of crisis-affected states. In doing so, she offers a postcolonial critique of the neoliberal framing of diasporas and donors as the panacea to post-war reconstruction. |
| books about liberia: Long Story Bit by Bit Tim Hetherington, 2009 Intrepid journalist considers power's corrosion, evades execution, and walks on the wild side of war-torn Africa. |
| books about liberia: A Short History of the First Liberian Republic Joseph Saye Guannu, 1985 |
| books about liberia: Too Late to Turn Back Barbara Greene, 1990 |
| books about liberia: Living Liberia Robert Cherry, 2017-08 Living Liberia introduces the reader to a charming, exotic and unforgettable land, although given Liberia's history it seems that God himself, at times, has forgotten it. The book also depicts the education of a young American in tribal rituals, sexual mores and, not least, his encounters with a memorable gallery of African idealists and rogues. |
| books about liberia: Liberia Frank Sherman, 2011 This work is a general introduction to Liberia. It is comprehensive in scope covering a wide range of subjects from a historical and contemporary perspective. It is intended for members of the general public. But some members of the academic community may also find this work to be useful in their fields. Subjects covered include an overview of the country and its geography including all the regions - known as counties - and the different ethnic groups who live there. The work is also a historical study of Liberia since the founding of the country by freed black American slaves. One of the subjects covered in the book is the conflicts - including wars - the new black American settlers had with the indigenous people. The freed slaves who, together with their descendants, came to be known as Americo-Liberians, dominated the country and excluded the indigenous people from the government and other areas of national life for almost 160 years until the Americo-Liberian rulers were overthrown in a military coup in 1980. It was one of the bloodiest military coups in modern African history. The soldiers who overthrew the government were members of native tribes and were hailed as liberators by the indigenous people who had been dominated and had suffered discrimination at the hands of Americo-Liberians throughout the nation's history. Some of them were even sold into slavery in Panama by the Americo-Liberian rulers in the 1930s, prompting an investigation of the labour scandal by the League of Nations. Others were forced to work on various projects within Liberia itself and became virtual slaves in their own country. Americo-Liberians saw the natives as inferior to them and treated them that way. The mistreatment of the members of native tribes by the Americo-Liberians was one of the main reasons native soldiers of the Liberian army decided to overthrow the government. The book also covers the Liberian civil war which destroyed the country in the 1990s and early 2000s, a conflict which also had historical roots. The conflict is attributed to the inequalities between Americo-Liberians and the indigenous people which existed throughout the nation's history. But its immediate cause was the brutalities Liberians suffered under the military rulers who overthrew the Americo-Liberian-dominated government. Another major subject covered in the book is the ethnic composition of Liberia. The work looks at all the ethnic groups in the country and their home regions - counties - as well as their cultures, providing a comprehensive picture of life in contemporary times in Africa's oldest republic. The national culture of Liberia in general is also another subject addressed in the book. The author has also addressed another very important subject: indigenous forms of writing invented by the members of different tribes or ethnic groups in Liberia. The indigenous scripts are a major contribution to civilisation and Liberia stands out among all the countries on the African continent as the country which has the largest number of these forms of writing. People going to Liberia for the first time, and anybody else who wants to learn about this African country, may find this work to be useful. |
| books about liberia: Liberia Raymond Leslie Buell, 1947 Published jointly with the Committee on African Affairs under the editorship of H. A. Wieschhoff, this volume from the series African Handbooks describes the conditions and significant issues facing the continent during and immediately following World War II. |
| books about liberia: Birds of Liberia Wulf Gatter, 2013-02 In geographical terms, Liberia is still regarded as one of the least known areas of Africa. An inventory of its birds was only undertaken for the first time in the 1960s and 1970s. Liberia has the most extensive area of rainforest within the Upper Guinea region of West Africa. In 1980, half the country was covered by primary forest and -significant areas of lowland rainforest were only first surveyed after 1981. This book is the result of 15 years of research by the author and includes a complete checklist of the birds of the region. It contains distribution maps for 400 species as well as a wealth of other ornithological information. Fresh insights are given into the impact of forest destruction on the distribution of species. There is also new information on the movement of diurnal migrants and the numbers and ecology of migrant Palearctic and Afrotropical species. Of particular interest are the recently -discovered endemic species in the region of Mt. Nimba which straddles the border of Guinea and the Ivory Coast. This book adds considerably to our knowledge of West African birds and will be regarded as a model for future studies of the area. |
| books about liberia: Social Studies, Book Five A. Doris Banks Henries, 1984 |
| books about liberia: The Dung Beetles of Liberia Daniel V. Meier, Jr., 2019-09 Based on the remarkable true account of a young American who landed in Liberia in the 1960s. It's 1961 and young Ken Verrier is experiencing the turbulence of Ishmael and the guilt of his brother's death. His sudden decision to drop out of college and deal with his demons shocks his family, his friends, and especially his girlfriend, soon to have been his fiance. His destination: Liberia--the richest country in Africa both in monetary wealth and natural resources. But nothing could have prepared Ken for the experiences he was about to live through. He quickly realizes that he has arrived in a place where he understands very little of what is considered normal, where the dignity of life has little meaning, and where he can trust no one. Author Daniel Meier describes Ken Verrier's many escapades, spanning from horrifying to whimsical, with engaging and fast-moving narrative that ultimately describe a society upon which the wealthy are feeding and in which the poor are being buried. It's a novel that will stay will you long after the last word has been read. |
| books about liberia: Liberia Art and Culture Emmanuel Alvin, 2016-11-07 Liberia Art and Culture, who is Liberian and what is the tradition and origin, this book details about the entire Liberian profile and the environment, related to Culture, Art, History and the Environment, Liberia rejoices in a cultural heritage whose divertsity and dynamism enriches the nation�s life in all its aspects. After an inevitable period in which the vitality of the nation�s own cultural traditions was weakened by Western influence, the nation�s arts and crafts are thriving as Liberians increasingly come to valie their own indigenous cultural expressions while at the same time drawing on the best of Western culture to produce a healthy and exciting eclecticism.Liberia�s National Culture Troupe, for instance, offers plays and dances based on traditional Liberian themes both at home and abroad, under the encouragement of President Tolbert, initiator of the annual National Art and Culture Festival. On Liberian television and radio, African drama and music have an honored place, while Liberian writers, encouraged by the country�s rapidly rising level of literacy, are increasingly finding a voice.. |
| books about liberia: Charles Taylor and Liberia Colin M. Waugh, 2011-10-13 Campaigner, insurgent, fugitive, rebel commander, commodity kingpin, elected president, exile and finally prisoner, Charles Taylor sought to lead his country to change but instead ignited a conflict which destroyed Liberia in over a decade of violence, greed and personal ambition. Taylor's takeover threw much of the neigbouring region into turmoil, until he was finally brought to face justice in The Hague for his role in Sierra Leone's civil war. In this remarkable and eye-opening book, Colin Waugh draws on a variety of sources, testimonies and original interviews - including with Taylor himself - to recount the story of what really happened during these turbulent years. In doing so, he examines both the life of Charles Taylor, as well as the often self-interested efforts of the international community to first save Liberia from disaster, then, having failed to do so, to bring to justice the man it deems most to blame for its disintegration. |
| books about liberia: History of Liberia J. H. T. McPherson, 2013-09-03 History of Liberia offers a new twist and fresh historical perspective on the history of Liberia that is well worth reading. In the words of Emmanuel Abalo, former acting president of the Press Union of Liberia, History of Liberia offers an absolutely invaluable historical insight couched in language which is conclusive and entertaining. A striking and eloquent literary effort. In another review, Abdoulaye Dukala wrote that with Liberia now emerging from war and starting a new process of reconstruction, this publication is more than timely. It is important for Liberians today and all those interested in the story of that very particular country to understand what the thinking was behind its creation and how the people who launched the process viewed themselves and viewed Africans. This book is a must read and will open doors for scholars and students of Liberian and African history. History of Liberia was written by J. H. T. McPherson as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Johns Hopkins University. |
| books about liberia: Area Handbook for Liberia Thomas Duval Roberts, 1972 |
| books about liberia: Liberia Izetta Roberts Cooper, Kyra E. Hicks, 2008-01-01 Izetta R. Cooper has loved books since she was a child. Liberia - A Visit Through Books is part biography and part bibliography. Within these covers, you will learn about the woman who:- lovingly raised three children and several foster children while supporting her husband's medical career- introduced the Dewey Decimal System to the University of Liberia Library- served as Library Consultant for the Presidential Library of the Executive Mansion for President William V. S. Tubman- hosted the ELTV television show, The World of Books- compiled a bibliography of more than 230 historical books on Liberia- chronicled historical events and literary publications in an extensive timeline |
| books about liberia: Liberian Politics Hanes Walton (Jr.), James Bernard Rosser, Robert L. Stevenson, 2002-01-01 Liberian Politics tells the fascinating story of Liberia's early nation-building efforts, its attempts to establish democracy, and the pivotal role played by African Americans in exporting the American democratic experiment to Liberia. The story of the rise of Africa's oldest democracy is told through the writings of J. Milton Turner, an African American diplomat who served in Liberia from 1871 to 1878. Turner's official diplomatic correspondence--superbly organized and edited by Walton, Rosser, and Stevenson--document Liberia's struggle to define its political institutions and processes. They chart Liberia's struggle to establish its relationship with the wider world and offer an intimate portrait of Turner's role as the agent of U.S. foreign policy in Liberia. A comparative study in the best tradition of Tocqueville and Myrdal, this pathbreaking work reveals the global dimensions of nineteenth-century African American politics and offers rich insight into the direction of early U.S. diplomacy in Africa. |
| books about liberia: Liberia and the Quest for Freedom C. Burrowes, 2019-08-22 Africa's past and present are deeply influenced by the capture and selling of millions of its people over several centuries. To a greater extent, that is true for Liberia, a country to which blacks from the Americas returned. Liberia's recent civil war, the trans-Atlantic slave trade inflicted pains, traumas and losses that cannot be ignored out of existence. Driven beneath the surface, they corrode our conscience and erode our humanity. By pretending they did not happen, we destroy our ability to tell right from wrong, victims from villains. Echoes of the slavery era can be heard in the derogatory names we call each other like Gio, Belle, and ex-slaves. Liberians living today are called upon to build peace by doing away with relations of great inequality. They have no better examples than the first generation of Liberians, both repatriates and indigenous, who worked together to do just that. |
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