A thorough and well-reasoned, if wordy, exploration of the possibilities for economic growth in Africa.
A comprehensive strategy for encouraging economic development in African nations.
In this business book, Akhile (Compensatory Trade Strategy, 2006) takes the reader on a detailed journey through the problems that have hampered economic development in much of Africa and the concrete steps that can overcome many of the hurdles. The analysis draws heavily on the contrasting success of the “Asian Tigers,” particularly Singapore, Japan and South Korea, as instances of successful economies in countries that were once under the control of Western nations. Akhile guides the reader through a history that may be unfamiliar to many, from the 19th-century Opium Wars to the 1961 assassination of Patrice Lumumba, connecting each element to his central theme of building vibrant and sustainable African economies. Numerous charts and tables provide data to back up Akhile’s analysis, but despite the number of illustrations, the text remains dense, with sentences like “Let us be unequivocally clear that while there is probably a very miniscule minority of altruistic-minded people involved in the charade of non-profits in African countries, the vast business enterprise of aid is not about how to help African people; rather it is to ensure the continued existence of the various and sundry organizations through ever competitive struggles for donations, government contracts and subsidies” throughout. The indictment of foreign aid and nongovernmental organizations is well-developed, as is Akhile’s prescription for developing a viable export-driven economic base that goes beyond the raw materials that African countries have tended to rely on. Although readers who prefer a broader approach to development may find the book limited in its strictly economic focus—the political repression that accompanied growth in Taiwan and Singapore is not mentioned—they will likely find it a useful tool for the aspects of growth it does address. Frequent citations and a detailed list of sources add to the solidity of Akhile’s study and situate the book within the context of other examinations of economic development and prescriptions for growth.
A thorough and well-reasoned, if wordy, exploration of the possibilities for economic growth in Africa.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2014
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Word Power Publishing Company LLC
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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