Author: J. D. Fage File Type: pdf After the prehistory of Volume I, Volume II of The Cambridge History of Africa deals with the beginnings of history. It is about 500 B.C. that historical sources begin to embrace all Africa north of the Sahara and, by the end of the period, documentation is also beginning to appear for parts of sub-Saharan Africa. North of the Sahara, this situation arises since Africans were sharing in the major civilizations of the Mediterranean world. It is shown that these northern Africans were not simply passive recipients of Phoenician, Greek, Roman and Arab influences, or of the great religions and cultures of Judaism, Christianity and Islam coming from the Semitic world. They adapted these things to their own particular needs and purposes, and sometimes too contributed to their general development. But the North African civilization failed to make headway south of the Sahara. The agricultural crops that sustained it were unsuited to the tropics the growth of populations large enough to secure effective mobilization of resources therefore depended on the development of new crops by Sudanic cultivators immediately south of the Sahara. When this had been done, the foundations were laid for a wholly African civilization and, by the end of the period, the Bantu expansion had brought almost all the southern half of the continent within its sphere.

Author: Langston Hughes File Type: pdf I Wonder As I Wander (1956), Hughess second volume of autobiography, is a continuation from The Big Sea, detailing his global travels to such areas as Cuba, Haiti, Paris, the Soviet Union, and the Far East. It culminates in his 1937 coverage for the Baltimore Afro-American of the Spanish Civil War. The travelogue highlights the beginning of Hughess career as a journalist, a further realization of his goal to live as a professional writer. Furthermore, it shows the influence of legendary black educator Mary McLeod Bethune, who inspired Hughes to travel through the South giving readings of his poetry. His recollections of American journeys place him as well in Carmel, California, and the San Francisco area, where he was befriended by Noel Sullivan and was among the set of Hollywood personalities sometimes including James Cagney, Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, as well as Indian mystic J. Krishnamurti. Hughes also shows readers the lighter side of his adventures in the Caribbean, where he experienced the rhythms of Afro-Cuban music and the wonders of such sights as the Citadel in Haiti.In 1932, having traveled with a group of African Americans to the Soviet Union to make a film about southern black steelworkers and domestic laborers, Hughes became familiar not only with Moscows theatrical life but also with colored minorities in the new republics of Soviet Central Asia. As a wanderer, he carried with him a record player and a collection of jazz recordings and became an informal participant in cultural exchange. For Hughes, the lack of appreciation of jazz by Russian ideologues was a major flaw in the system. In Tokyo and Shanghai, he learned about Asian global politics and tough street life, and in Paris he reacquainted himself with its nightlife and such personalities as Ada Bricktop Smith and Josephine Baker.Throughout his journey, he observed the presence of blacks, whether as entertainers in major capitals or as soldiers on the battlefront in Barcelona and Madrid. His coverage of the Spanish Civil War is a serious report of the tragedy of conscripted North African Moors and the heroic efforts of the International Brigades and such African Americans as Milton Herndon in their fight against fascism. Spain is also a window into flamenco musical culture, where singers such as Pastora Pavon offer their own form of the blues.In rare moments, Hughes reveals aspects of his personal romantic encounters. Also of great interest are his recollections of writers Arthur Koestler, Nicolas Guillen, Pablo Neruda, and Ernest Hemingway. I Wonder As I Wander shows how Hughes maintained a Harlem-derived black consciousness, while expanding it through global wandering.**

Author: Bill Hayes File Type: epub A moving celebration of what Bill Hayes calls the evanescent, the eavesdropped, the unexpected of life in New York City, and an intimate glimpse of his relationship with the late Oliver Sacks. ** *A beautifully written once-in-a-lifetime book, about love, about life, soul, and the wonderful loving genius Oliver Sacks, and New York, and laughter and all of creation.--Anne Lamott *Bill Hayes came to New York City in 2009 with a one-way ticket and only the vaguest idea of how he would get by. But, at forty-eight years old, having spent decades in San Francisco, he craved change. Grieving over the death of his partner, he quickly discovered the profound consolations of the citys incessant rhythms, the sight of the Empire State Building against the night sky, and New Yorkers themselves, kindred souls that Hayes, a lifelong insomniac, encountered on late-night strolls with his camera. hrAnd he unexpectedly fell in love again, with his friend and neighbor, the writer and neurologist Oliver Sacks, whose exuberance--I dont so much fear death as I do wasting life, he tells Hayes early on--is captured in funny and touching vignettes throughout. What emerges is a portrait of Sacks at his most personal and endearing, from falling in love for the first time at age seventy-five to facing illness and death (Sacks died of cancer in August 2015). Insomniac City is both a meditation on grief and a celebration of life. Filled with Hayess distinctive street photos of everyday New Yorkers, the book is a love song to the city and to all who have felt the particular magic and solace it offers.**Amazon.com ReviewAn Amazon Best Book of February 2017 The late, great Oliver Sacks was so famously private, he didnt divulge that he was gay until his memoir, On the Move, was published, shortly before his death at the age of 82. Granted, this revelation was one of the least interesting things about him. Sacks was widely beloved, which is saying something for a scarily brilliant, yet somewhat reclusive neurologist. But his childlike wonder and ability to wrap our brains around the complexities of everything from music to migraines to the cancer he succumbed to, was infectious, and the graciousness--and extraordinary gratitude--with which he accepted his terminal diagnosis earned him even further admiration. It stands to reason, then, that Sackss life partner must be pretty remarkable as well, and Insomniac City provides ample proof. In this affectionate and magnanimous memoir, author and photographer Bill Hayes pays tribute to their relationship, and provides a paean to one of the other loves of his life New York City. Hayess contagious regard for the Big Apple makes you almost believe that getting lost on the subway is a happy accident (almost!), and his Humans of New York-esque vignettes inspire the same esteem and faith in humanity as Brandon Stantons blog of the same name. Add to that a couple of delightfully unlikely cameos from Bjork and a black-eyed Lauren Hutton, and you wont want to sleep until the last page of Insomniac City is turned. Somewhere, Oliver Sacks is smiling. --Erin Kodicek, The Amazon Book ReviewReview[A] loving tribute to Sacks and to New York . . . Read just 50 pages, and youll see easily enough how Hayes is Sackss logical complement. Though possessed of different temperaments, both are alive to difference, variety, the possibilities of our rangy humanity both are avid chroniclers of our species . . . Frank, beautiful, bewitching--[Hayess photographs] unmask their subjects best and truest selves. - Jennifer Senior, New York TimesRemarkably poignant. Readers will find themselves wishing the two men had more time, but as Hayes makes clear, they wasted none of the time they had. - Publishers Weekly[Insomniac City] seems written in heightened states of feeling that infuse every detail with meaning and transient beauty. - Shelf AwarenessA unique and exuberant celebration of life and love. - Kirkus ReviewsBill Hayes has an unusual set of skills . . . He is . . . part memoirist, part culture explainer. - The New York TimesLike Patti Smiths haunting M Train, Hayes book weaves seemingly disparate threads of memory into a kind of sanctuary -- a secret place where one can shake off the treasured relics of past lives and prepare to be reborn anew. - San Francisco ChronicleHayes turns out to be that particular kind of big-city denizen, the irrepressible soul who treats the pavement like a cocktail party. - Peter Lewis, Barnes & NobleHayes captures both the frenetic, exhilarating pace of New York City as well as the whimsy, fun and romance of the years he spent with Sacks. - New York PostInsomniac City is resoundingly about life--about being wide awake to possibility, to the beauty of every fleeting moment. - Oprah.comBuy a box of tissues and pray for snow This is the perfect weekend February read, and will have you alternately bawling and giddily clapping your hands for the lovers that may not have had the time they deserved, but certainly made the best with the time that they had. - Newsweek, The Best New Book ReleasesAs eloquent in its silences and visuals as it is in its telling of the secrets of the heart. . . . The brilliance of Insomniac City is that almost Tolstoy-an directness and concretion of observation, both down-to-earth and downright visionary. - Bay Area ReporterPoetic and profound . . . What emerges from this dual love letter is a lyrical reminder that happiness and heartache are inseparably entwined. . . . Insomniac City is an ineffably splendid read in its entirety, a mighty packet of pure aliveness. - Brainpickings[Hayes] has written beautifully about [he and Olivers] love and life together. - Maria Popova, Brain PickingsThat life permeates every page of Insomniac City, a dual love story of a powerful relationship that will shortly end but, also, of a city that is constantly reinventing itself. - CounterpunchInsomniac City is a beautiful memoir in which Oliver Sacks comes wonderfully to life--a double portrait that also provides a vivid picture of New York Citys neighborhoods and people. The ending is exquisitely wrought, heartrending and joyous. - Joyce Carol OatesLike New York, the city he celebrates so poignantly in this book, Bill Hayes mixes memory with desire to create a heartbreakingly gorgeous story of love, loss, and renewal. - Azar Nafisi, author of READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN Insomniac City is a love story to New York and the people we cherish, for Bill Hayes, the late Oliver Sacks. With prescience and tenderness, written with a sharp eye and a camera attuned to life on the streets, Hayes has composed a gorgeous memoir on why place matters to the soul of our humanity. I loved every single sentence in this quiet night-book, erotic and evocative, at once. - Terry Tempest Williams, author of THE HOUR OF LAND

Author: Arthur Zajonc File Type: pdf What happens when the Dalai Lama meets with leading physicists and a historian? This book is the carefully edited record of the fascinating discussions at a Mind and Life conference in which five leading physicists and a historian (David Finkelstein, George Greenstein, Piet Hut, Arthur Zajonc, Anton Zeilinger, and Tu Weiming) discussed with the Dalai Lama current thought in theoretical quantum physics, in the context of Buddhist philosophy. A contribution to the science-religion interface, and a useful explanation of our basic understanding of quantum reality, couched at a level that intelligent readers without a deep involvement in science can grasp. In the tradition of other popular books on resonances between modern quantum physics and Zen or Buddhist mystical traditions--notably The Dancing Wu Li Masters and The Tao of Physics, this book gives a clear and useful update of the genuine correspondences between these two rather disparate approaches to understanding the nature of reality.About the AuthorArthur Zajonc is at Amherst College.