Two wonderful books
Almost accidentally, I purchased these two books at
I had no inkling of what I was buying… or as to why I was spending almost 50 USD to buy these two books… the only thing bothering me was how to spend these hours of waiting… I hadn’t heard of them before this… hadn’t therefore, naturally, read any review about them… and still I bought them
As I have always said… serendipity is not all that serendipitous, it favours the brave… the two books turned out to be most gripping books I had ever read. I am still reading them, a few chapters many times over…. And will soon try a book review for them (my first, actually)
Just wanted to share this information, with whoever bothers to read my blog
1. Fergus Fleming's Cassel's Tales of Endurance- A delightful descriptions of path breaking voyages undertaken by the most prominent names in the realms of Traveling… from Marco Polo and Ibn Batuta and Christopher Columbus and Vasco Da Gama to David Livingstone and Robert Scott to Pandit Nain Singh (I can't help but feel amazed by my father's repertoire of information, he was the person who introduced me to the exploits of Nain Singh when I was barely in my teens…).
For those who are interested in the book, here is its link from Amazon
2. Martin Meredith's The State of Africa- A wonderful insight into the last fifty years of so of the political development in Africa… it is sad how little we know of Africa… to us Ghana is just a small country and not the cradle of Africa's political renaissance… it is sad that we often label Europe as a civilized continent… and turn a blind eye towards French cruelty in Algeria, British cruelty in East Africa and Belgian machinations in Congo… Only after reading this book did I realize how great a leader was Gamal Abdul Nasser… often ridiculed by western media for imposing a disastrous battle against Israel… and how great a leader was Ghana's Nkrumah (He, at least, deserved a Nobel Prize for his efforts towards African Political Renaissance, but strange are the ways of the world… Gandhiji was rejected many a times for this award… that has been pedestrianized in last few years…. Guess what!!! One of these days we may hear Kim Il Jong receiving this award for saving this world from a nuclear holocaust)
This book is the starting point for anybody who wants to learn more about Africa and its polity… and Africa is worth reading, for I most certainly believe that today's Africa is where Asia was in 1960s, and they are bound to rise if one engages them meaningfully (and not with the carrot and stick of client-state politics- I for instance rate Ethiopia, Angola, Libya and Ghana as potential model states besides Egypt, South Africa, Algeria and Nigeria). I still remember that Tony Blair once said that Africa was an scar on the conscience of the world.... we as a civilized world need to remove this scar
For those who are interested in this book, here is the link of its review from The Age
So happy reading…..
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