MATTHEW HAWKINS applauds a psychotherapist’s disection of William Blake
Africa in its own right
ROGER McKENZIE welcomes an important contribution to the history of Africa, telling the story in its own right rather than in relation to Europeans
IN SEARCH OF RELEVANCE: Rafiki Theatre (Uganda) production Beyond the Nomads
[Rafiki Theatre/Creative Commons] 
New releases from Christina Alden and Alex Patterson, Odette Michell, Clementine Lovell
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a very readable account of Britain’s involvement in South America
Strip cartoons used to be the bread and butter of newspapers and they have been around for centuries. MICHAL BONCZA asks our own Paul Tanner about which bees are in his bonnet
GORDON PARSONS acknowledges the authority with which Sarah Kane’s theatrical justification for suicide has resonance today
RON JACOBS welcomes a timely homage to one of the IWW and CPUSA’s most effective orators
The African Revolution: A History of the Long Nineteenth Century
Richard Reid, Princeton University Press, £30
IF YOU have a preference for a well researched book about a much neglected period of African history before the “scramble for Africa” written by a white academic, then The African Revolution: A History of the Long Nineteenth Century is for you.
The author, Richard Reid, is a professor of African history at the University of Oxford and a fellow at the university’s St Cross graduate college.
He is clearly extremely learned on African history, having written numerous books on modern Africa. His latest work innovatively uses a stretch of road in east Africa in what is now known as Tanzania to help him to paint a picture of events leading up to the feasting on African labour and resources that took place during what he terms the “long nineteenth century.”
More from this author
ROGER McKENZIE expounds on the motivation that drove him to write a book that anticipates a dawn of a new, fully liberated Africa – the land of his ancestors
While much attention is focused on Israel’s aggression, we cannot ignore the conflicts in Africa, stoked by Western imperialism and greed for natural resources, if we’re to understand the full picture of geopolitics today, argues ROGER McKENZIE
