Our New Husbands Are Here


Book Description

In Our New Husbands Are Here, Emily Lynn Osborn investigates a central puzzle of power and politics in West African history: Why do women figure frequently in the political narratives of the precolonial period, and then vanish altogether with colonization? Osborn addresses this question by exploring the relationship of the household to the state. By analyzing the history of statecraft in the interior savannas of West Africa (in present-day Guinea-Conakry), Osborn shows that the household, and women within it, played a critical role in the pacifist Islamic state of Kankan-Baté, enabling it to endure the predations of the transatlantic slave trade and become a major trading center in the nineteenth century. But French colonization introduced a radical new method of statecraft to the region, one that separated the household from the state and depoliticized women’s domestic roles. This book will be of interest to scholars of politics, gender, the household, slavery, and Islam in African history.




Husbands That Cook


Book Description

FEATURED IN: LA Times • Relish Magazine • Epicurius.com • Eat Your Books • The Eagle Rock Boulevard-Sentinel • Men's Vow's • Powell's Books Blog • Bay Area Reporter • Passport Magazine Gaby Dalkin says: "Adam and Ryan make vegetarian recipes that are not only delicious but they'll satisfy any meat lover too!" Molly Yeh says: "I love this book! It is truly impossible not to love Adam and Ryan and Husbands that Cook. Between the giggle-worthy headnotes and wildly craveable recipes, this is a book that you will use again and again, and all the while feel as if you are cooking with two great friends." From the award-winning bloggers behind Husbands That Cook comes a book of original recipes inspired by their shared love of vegetarian food, entertaining, world travel—and each other. Food has always been a key ingredient in Ryan Alvarez and Adam Merrin’s relationship—and this cookbook offers a unique glimpse into their lives beyond their California kitchen. From their signature Coconut Curry with Chickpeas and Cauliflower, which was inspired by their first date at a shopping mall food court, to the Communication Breakdown Carrot Cake (which speaks for itself), these and other recipes reflect the husbands' marriage in all its flavor and variety. Written with the same endearing, can-do spirit of their blog, the husbands present more than 120 brand-new recipes—plus some greatest hits from the site—that yield delicious results every time. Each entry in Husbands That Cook is a reminder of how simple and satisfying vegetarian meal-making can be, from hearty main dishes and sides to healthy snacks and decadent desserts and drinks. Ryan and Adam also outline common pantry items and everyday tools you’ll need to fully stock your kitchen. Whether you’re cooking for one or feeding the whole family, this book is chock-full of great creative recipes for every day of the week, all year long.




What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage


Book Description

While observing exotic animal trainers for her acclaimed book Kicked, Bitten, and Scratched, journalist Amy Sutherland had an epiphany: What if she used these training techniques with the human animals in her own life–namely her dear husband, Scott? In this lively and perceptive book, Sutherland tells how she took the trainers’ lessons home. The next time her forgetful husband stomped through the house in search of his mislaid car keys, she asked herself, “What would a dolphin trainer do?” The answer was: nothing. Trainers reward the behavior they want and, just as important, ignore the behavior they don’t. Rather than appease her mate’s rising temper by joining in the search, or fuel his temper by nagging him to keep better track of his things in the first place, Sutherland kept her mouth shut and her eyes on the dishes she was washing. In short order, Scott found his keys and regained his cool. “I felt like I should throw him a mackerel,” she writes. In time, as she put more training principles into action, she noticed that she became more optimistic and less judgmental, and their twelve-year marriage was better than ever. What started as a goofy experiment had such good results that Sutherland began using the training techniques with all the people in her life, including her mother, her friends, her students, even the clerk at the post office. In the end, the biggest lesson she learned is that the only animal you can truly change is yourself. Full of fun facts, fascinating insights, hilarious anecdotes, and practical tips, What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage describes Sutherland’s Alice-in-Wonderland experience of stumbling into a world where cheetahs walk nicely on leashes and elephants paint with watercolors, and of leaving a new, improved Homo sapiens.




My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me


Book Description

An inspiring memoir of life, love, loss, and new beginnings by the widower of bestselling children’s author and filmmaker Amy Krouse Rosenthal, whose last of act of love before her death was setting the stage for her husband’s life without her in the viral New York Times Modern Love column, “You May Want to Marry My Husband.” On March 3, 2017, Amy Krouse Rosenthal penned an op-ed piece for the New York Times’ “Modern Love” column —”You May Want to Marry My Husband.” It appeared ten days before her death from ovarian cancer. A heartbreaking, wry, brutally honest, and creative play on a personal ad—in which a dying wife encouraged her husband to go on and find happiness after her demise—the column quickly went viral, reaching more than five million people worldwide. In My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me, Jason describes what came next: his commitment to respecting Amy’s wish, even as he struggled with her loss. Surveying his life before, with, and after Amy, Jason ruminates on love, the pain of watching a loved one suffer, and what it means to heal—how he and their three children, despite their profound sorrow, went on. Jason’s emotional journey offers insights on dying and death and the excruciating pain of losing a soulmate, and illuminates the lessons he learned. As he reflects on Amy’s gift to him—a fresh start to fill his empty space with a new story—Jason describes how he continues to honor Amy’s life and her last wish, and how he seeks to appreciate every day and live in the moment while trying to help others coping with loss. My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me is the poignant, unreserved, and inspiring story of a great love, the aftermath of a marriage ended too soon, and how a surviving partner eventually found a new perspective on life’s joys in the wake of tremendous loss.




Courtship, Marriage and Marriage Breakdown


Book Description

This book explores the history of marriage and marriage-like relationships across five continents from the seventeenth century to the present day. Across fourteen chapters, leading marriage scholars examine how the methodologies from the new history of emotions contribute to our understanding of marriage, seeking to uncover not only personal feeling but also the political and social implications of emotion. They highlight how marriage as an institution has been shaped not just by law and society but also by individual and community choices, desires and emotional values. Importantly, they also emphasize how the history of non-traditional and same-sex relationships and their emotions have long played an important role in determining the nature of marriage as an institution and emotional union. In doing so, this collection allows us to rethink both the past and present of marriage, destabilizing a story of a stable institution and opening it up as a site of contest, debate and feeling.




Landscapes, Sources and Intellectual Projects of the West African Past


Book Description

Landscapes, Sources and Intellectual Projects of the West African Past offers a comprehensive assessment of new directions in the historiography of West Africa. With twenty-four chapters by leading researchers in the study of West African history and cultures, the volume examines the main trends in multiple fields including the critical interpretation of Arabic sources; new archaeological surveys of trans-Saharan trade; the discovery of sources in Latin America relating to pan-Atlantic histories; and the continuing analysis of oral histories. The volume is dedicated to Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias, whose work inspired the intellectual reorientations discussed in its chapters and stands as the clearest formulation of the book’s central focus on the relationship between political conjunctures and the production of sources. Contributors are: Benjamin Acloque, Karin Barber, Seydou Camara, Mamadou Diawara, Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias, François-Xavier Fauvelle, Nikolas Gestrich, Toby Green, Bruce Hall, Jan Jansen, Shamil Jeppie, Daouda Keita, Murray Last, Robin Law, Camille Lefebvre, Paul Lovejoy, Ghislaine Lydon, Carlos Magnavita, Sonja Magnavita, Kevin MacDonald, Thomas McCaskie, Ann McDougall, Daniela Moreau, Mauro Nobili, Insa Nolte, Abel-Wedoud Ould-Cheikh, Benedetta Rossi, Charles Stewart.




Routledge Handbook of Historical International Relations


Book Description

Good addition to handbooks programme, no direct competitiors HIST section of ISA is growing each year Faced with an uncertain future, an increasing number of scholars have looked to the past for guidance, patterns and ideas. This tendency has been clear, despite theoretical and methodological difference, this book will fill a lacuna.




The Temne of Sierra Leone


Book Description

Much of the research and study of the formation of Sierra Leone focuses almost exclusively on the role of the so-called Creoles, or descendants of ex-slaves from Europe, North America, Jamaica, and Africa living in the colony. In this book, Joseph J. Bangura cuts through this typical narrative surrounding the making of the British colony, and instead offers a fresh look at the role of the often overlooked indigenous Temne-speakers. Bangura explores, however, the socio-economic formation, establishment, and evolution of Freetown, from the perspective of different Temne-speaking groups, including market women, religious figures, and community leaders and the complex relationships developed in the process. Examining key issues, such as the politics of belonging, African agency, and the creation of national identities, Bangura offers an account of Sierra Leone that sheds new perspectives on the social history of the colony.




Beyond Jihad


Book Description

Over the course of the last 1400 years, Islam has grown from a small band of followers on the Arabian peninsula into a global religion of over a billion believers. How did this happen? The usual answer is that Islam spread by the sword-believers waged jihad against rival tribes and kingdoms and forced them to convert. Lamin Sanneh argues that this is far from the whole story. Beyond Jihad examines the origin and evolution of the African pacifist tradition in Islam, beginning with an inquiry into the faith's origins and expansion in North Africa and its transmission across trans-Saharan trade routes to West Africa. The book focuses on the ways in which, without jihad, the religion spread and took hold, and what that tells us about the nature of religious and social change. At the heart of this process were clerics who used religious and legal scholarship to promote Islam. Once this clerical class emerged, it offered continuity and stability in the midst of political changes and cultural shifts, helping to inhibit the spread of radicalism, and subduing the urge to wage jihad. With its policy of religious and inter-ethnic accommodation, this pacifist tradition took Islam beyond traditional trade routes and kingdoms into remote districts of the Mali Empire, instilling a patient, Sufi-inspired, and jihad-negating impulse into religious life and practice. Islam was successful in Africa, Sanneh argues, not because of military might but because it was made African by Africans who adapted it to a variety of contexts.




Queer and Trans African Mobilities


Book Description

Winner, ASR Best Africa-Focused Edited Collection by the African Studies Review Recent years have seen increased scholarly and media interest in the cross-border movements of LGBT persons, particularly those seeking protection in the Global North . While this has helped focus attention on the plight of individuals fleeing homophobic or transphobic persecution, it has also reinvigorated racist tropes about the Global South. In the case of Africa, the expansion of anti-LGBT laws and the prevalence of hetero-patriarchal discourses are regularly cited as evidence of an inescapable savagery. The figure of the LGBT refugee – often portrayed as helplessly awaiting rescue – reinforces colonial notions about the continent and its peoples. Queer and Trans African Mobilities draws on diverse case studies from the length and breadth of Africa, offering the first in-depth investigation of LGBT migration on and from the continent. The collection provides new insights into the drivers and impacts of displacement linked to sexual orientation or gender identity and challenges notions about why LGBT Africans move, where they are going and what they experience along the way.