African Studies Review, a multi-disciplinary scholarly journal published by the African Studies Association, contains articles based on original research and analysis of Africa as well as book reviews three times annually. It encourages scholarly debates across disciplines. The editing of the African Studies Review is supported by Five Colleges, Inc., a consortium representing Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The African Studies Review is edited by Ralph Faulkingham of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Elliot Fratkin of Smith College, and Mitzi Goheen and Sean Redding of Amherst College. John Lemly of Mount Holyoke College serves as book review editor. Manuscripts & correspondence concerning manuscripts should be sent to: African Studies Review, 706 Herter Hall, 161 Presidents Drive, University of Massachusetts, Amherst MA 01003. Email: asr@anthro.umass.edu. The African Studies Review web site is http://www.umass.edu/anthro/asr/.

The latest work from Harold Scheub, one of the world's leading scholars of African folktales, is the broadest collection yet assembled with tales from the entire continent of Africa, north to south. It brings together mythic, fantastic, and coming-of-age tales, some transcribed more than a hundred years ago, others dating to modern-day Africa. Scheub includes the work of storytellers from major African language groups, as well as many storytellers whose work is not often heard outside of Africa. This anthology offers a classroom-ready collection that should appeal to any scholar of African literature and culture. Realizing that these tales are part of a dying art, Scheub writes for the inner ear in everyone, bringing an oral tradition to life in written form.

In the 1860s, as America waged civil war, several thousand African Americans sought greater freedom by emigrating to the fledgling nation of Liberia. While some argued that the new black republic represented disposal rather than emancipation, a few intrepid men set out to explore their African home. African-American Exploration in West Africa collects the travel diaries of James L. Sims, George L. Seymour, and Benjamin J. K. Anderson, who explored the territory that is now Liberia and Guinea between 1858 and 1874. These remarkable diaries reveal the wealth and beauty of Africa in striking descriptions of its geography, people, flora, and fauna. The dangers of the journeys surface, too -- Seymour was attacked and later died of his wounds, and his companion, Levin Ash, was captured and sold into slavery again. Challenging the notion that there were no black explorers in Africa, these diaries provide unique perspectives on 19th-century Liberian life and life in the interior of the continent before it was radically changed by European colonialism.

Jean Hartley, born in Kenya, is acknowledged as being the first to legitimise ìfixingî for wildlife film crews. Over the last 25 years, she has worked on over a thousand films, the vast majority being about wildlife and nature. She features five of the great film makers who all started their careers in Kenya in the1950s, legends whom she is proud to call personal friends. Watching all of their films, and many more, she became fascinated by the history of film making in Kenya and determined to find out when it all started. In this insightful book, she traces the roots of wildlife film back a hundred years, drawing on accounts of the original film makers and the professional hunters who guided those early safaris. She tracks the changes from those grainy, speeded up, silent films through to the technologically perfect High Definition and 3D films that are being made today.

The TAZARA (Tanzania Zambia Railway Authority), or Freedom Railway, from Dar es Salaam on the Tanzanian coast to the Copperbelt region of Zambia, was instrumental in fostering one of the most sweeping development transitions in postcolonial Africa. Built during the height of the Cold War, the railway was intended to redirect the mineral wealth of the interior away from routes through South Africa and Rhodesia. Rebuffed by Western aid agencies, newly independent Tanzania and Zambia accepted help from China to construct what would become one of Africa's most vital transportation corridors. The book follows the railroad from design and construction to its daily use as a vital means for moving villagers and goods. It tells a story of how transnational interests contributed to environmental change, population movements, and the rise of local and regional enterprise.

The second edition of this landmark work is enhanced by new chapters on Ogun worship in the New World. From reviews of the first edition:

"... an ethnographically rich contribution to the historical understanding of West African culture, as well as an exploration of the continued vitality of that culture in the changing environments of the Americas." -- African Studies Review

"... leav[es] the reader with a sense of the vitality, dynamism, and complexity of Ogun and the cultural contexts in which he thrives.... magnificent contribution to the literature on Ogun, Yoruba culture, African religions, and the African diaspora." -- International Journal of Historical Studies

Africa?s Political Wastelands explores and confirms the fact that because of irresponsible, corrupt, selfish, and unpatriotic kleptocrats parading as leaders, the ultimate breakdown of order has become the norm in African nations, especially those south of the Sahara. The result is the virtual annihilation of once thriving and proud nations along with the citizenry who are transformed into wretches, vagrants, and in the extreme, refugees. Doh uses Cameroon as an exemplary microcosm to make this point while still holding imperialist ambitions largely responsible for the status quo in Africa. Ultimately, in the hope of jumpstarting the process, he makes pertinent suggestions on turning the tide on the continent.

The late Julius Kambarage Nyerere was nicknamed ìMusaî (Moses) during the later, post-independence years for leading his people from slavery and guiding them toward a free land of prosperity ñ the Promised Land. The Tanzanian odyssey chronicled in this book, which first appeared ten years ago as Tanzanians to the Promised Land, has been updated with new research. The author- also an engineer and a journalist- offers an enlightened and unbiased discussion of the journey and both sides of the contributions - successes and failures - made by former presidents and their systems of administration: the late Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere, Alhajj Ali H. Mwinyi, and Mr. Benjamin W. Mkapa. Tanzaniansí hopes and expectations of the incumbent president, H.E. Mr. Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, are also discussed. It is not intended as a political campaign of any kind, for any party or any individual. As a brief, yet comprehensive guide to the understanding of our nationís political and economic history, it puts forward suggestions concerning important areas of the country's economic development. Nyerere unfortunately didnít live to see his people arrive at the hoped-for destination, and I. J. Werremaís original inspiration to write, at forty years of independence, is sustained because after fifty years The Promised Land is Still Too Far.