Podcasts about islamic africa

This week Mary Hicks and Margari Hill drop in to talk all things DUNE. We focus on Dune Part 2 but also talk about the historical influences on Frank Herbert as he wrote Dune, along with how Dune influenced the science fiction and fantasy that came afterward.  We talk about the parallels between the fictional universe and historical events, such as the Ottoman Empire and the interactions between European powers and Indigenous communities. We also get into the portrayal of whiteness in the film and the complexities of women's roles and agency within the narrative. We dive into the egalitarianism in the Fremen world and the infiltration of outside values. The depiction of female spirituality and the complexity of women characters are discussed. The casting and representation in the film, particularly in relation to Middle Eastern culture, are examined. Mary and Margari also touch on the historical resonances and sensitivity in the film. The difference between a cautionary tale and a hopeful vision is explored. This conversation is one of the best we've ever had on this podcast and I hope you like it.About our guests:Mary Hicks is a historian of the Black Atlantic, with a focus on transnational histories of race, slavery, capitalism, migration and the making of the early modern world. Her first book, Captive Cosmopolitans: Black Mariners and the World of South Atlantic Slavery, 1721-1835, reimagines the history of Portuguese exploration, colonization and oceanic commerce from the perspective of enslaved and freed black seamen laboring in the transatlantic slave trade. As the Atlantic world's first subaltern cosmopolitans, black mariners, she argues, were integral in forging a unique commercial culture that linked the politics, economies and people of Salvador da Bahia with those of the Bight of Benin.Margari Hill  is the co-founder and Executive Director of Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative (MuslimARC), a human rights education organization. She is also a freelance writer published in How We Fight White Supremacy (2018) Time, Huffington Post, and Al Jazeera English. She earned her master's degree in History of the Middle East and Islamic Africa from Stanford University in 2006.  Her research includes transformations in Islamic education, colonial surveillance in Northern Nigeria, anti-colonial resistance among West Africans in Sudan during the early 20th century, interethnic relations in Muslim communities, anti-bias K-12 education, and the criminalization of Black Muslims. She is on the Advisory Council of Islam, Social Justice & Interreligious Engagement Program at the Union Theological Seminary. For her work, she has received numerous awards including the Council of American Islamic Relation's (CAIR) 2020 Muslim of the Year award,  Khadija bint Khuwaylid Relief Foundation Lifetime Humanitarian award in 2019,  the Big Heart Award in 2017, and MPAC's 2015 Change Maker Award. She has given talks and lectures in various universities and community centers throughout the country.

In the years leading up to the Second World War, the U.S. was represented in Japan by Ambassador Joseph Grew: born from a patrician family, Harvard-educated, ran away to the foreign service, and deeply respected by his fellow diplomats and Japanese politicians alike. From his arrival in Tokyo in 1932 to when he was eventually repatriated back to the US in 1942, after Pearl Harbor, Grew dutifully reported to and advised the U.S. on what to do with an increasingly imperialist, militarist—and, at many times—dysfunctional Japan. And if officials had listened to Grew, as Steve Kemper tells it in his book Our Man In Tokyo: An American Ambassador and the Countdown to Pearl Harbor (Marine Books, 2022), the history of US-Japan relations may have looked very different. In this interview, Steve and I talk about Joseph Grew, his time in Japan, and how U.S. obstinance, and Japanese imperialism, militarism and dysfunction, got in the way of his diplomacy. Steve Kemper is a journalist and the author of A Labyrinth of Kingdoms: 10,000 Miles through Islamic Africa (W. W. Norton & Company: 2012), A Splendid Savage: The Restless Life of Frederick Russell Burnham (W. W. Norton & Company: 2016), and Code Name Ginger (Harvard Business Review Press: 2003). He has written for Smithsonian, National Geographic, Outside, Wall Street Journal, BBC Wildlife, and many other magazines and newspapers. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Our Man in Tokyo. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the years leading up to the Second World War, the U.S. was represented in Japan by Ambassador Joseph Grew: born from a patrician family, Harvard-educated, ran away to the foreign service, and deeply respected by his fellow diplomats and Japanese politicians alike. From his arrival in Tokyo in 1932 to when he was eventually repatriated back to the US in 1942, after Pearl Harbor, Grew dutifully reported to and advised the U.S. on what to do with an increasingly imperialist, militarist—and, at many times—dysfunctional Japan. And if officials had listened to Grew, as Steve Kemper tells it in his book Our Man In Tokyo: An American Ambassador and the Countdown to Pearl Harbor (Marine Books, 2022), the history of US-Japan relations may have looked very different. In this interview, Steve and I talk about Joseph Grew, his time in Japan, and how U.S. obstinance, and Japanese imperialism, militarism and dysfunction, got in the way of his diplomacy. Steve Kemper is a journalist and the author of A Labyrinth of Kingdoms: 10,000 Miles through Islamic Africa (W. W. Norton & Company: 2012), A Splendid Savage: The Restless Life of Frederick Russell Burnham (W. W. Norton & Company: 2016), and Code Name Ginger (Harvard Business Review Press: 2003). He has written for Smithsonian, National Geographic, Outside, Wall Street Journal, BBC Wildlife, and many other magazines and newspapers. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Our Man in Tokyo. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-review

In the years leading up to the Second World War, the U.S. was represented in Japan by Ambassador Joseph Grew: born from a patrician family, Harvard-educated, ran away to the foreign service, and deeply respected by his fellow diplomats and Japanese politicians alike. From his arrival in Tokyo in 1932 to when he was eventually repatriated back to the US in 1942, after Pearl Harbor, Grew dutifully reported to and advised the U.S. on what to do with an increasingly imperialist, militarist—and, at many times—dysfunctional Japan. And if officials had listened to Grew, as Steve Kemper tells it in his book Our Man In Tokyo: An American Ambassador and the Countdown to Pearl Harbor (Marine Books, 2022), the history of US-Japan relations may have looked very different. In this interview, Steve and I talk about Joseph Grew, his time in Japan, and how U.S. obstinance, and Japanese imperialism, militarism and dysfunction, got in the way of his diplomacy. Steve Kemper is a journalist and the author of A Labyrinth of Kingdoms: 10,000 Miles through Islamic Africa (W. W. Norton & Company: 2012), A Splendid Savage: The Restless Life of Frederick Russell Burnham (W. W. Norton & Company: 2016), and Code Name Ginger (Harvard Business Review Press: 2003). He has written for Smithsonian, National Geographic, Outside, Wall Street Journal, BBC Wildlife, and many other magazines and newspapers. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Our Man in Tokyo. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

In the years leading up to the Second World War, the U.S. was represented in Japan by Ambassador Joseph Grew: born from a patrician family, Harvard-educated, ran away to the foreign service, and deeply respected by his fellow diplomats and Japanese politicians alike. From his arrival in Tokyo in 1932 to when he was eventually repatriated back to the US in 1942, after Pearl Harbor, Grew dutifully reported to and advised the U.S. on what to do with an increasingly imperialist, militarist—and, at many times—dysfunctional Japan. And if officials had listened to Grew, as Steve Kemper tells it in his book Our Man In Tokyo: An American Ambassador and the Countdown to Pearl Harbor (Marine Books, 2022), the history of US-Japan relations may have looked very different. In this interview, Steve and I talk about Joseph Grew, his time in Japan, and how U.S. obstinance, and Japanese imperialism, militarism and dysfunction, got in the way of his diplomacy. Steve Kemper is a journalist and the author of A Labyrinth of Kingdoms: 10,000 Miles through Islamic Africa (W. W. Norton & Company: 2012), A Splendid Savage: The Restless Life of Frederick Russell Burnham (W. W. Norton & Company: 2016), and Code Name Ginger (Harvard Business Review Press: 2003). He has written for Smithsonian, National Geographic, Outside, Wall Street Journal, BBC Wildlife, and many other magazines and newspapers. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Our Man in Tokyo. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

In the years leading up to the Second World War, the U.S. was represented in Japan by Ambassador Joseph Grew: born from a patrician family, Harvard-educated, ran away to the foreign service, and deeply respected by his fellow diplomats and Japanese politicians alike. From his arrival in Tokyo in 1932 to when he was eventually repatriated back to the US in 1942, after Pearl Harbor, Grew dutifully reported to and advised the U.S. on what to do with an increasingly imperialist, militarist—and, at many times—dysfunctional Japan. And if officials had listened to Grew, as Steve Kemper tells it in his book Our Man In Tokyo: An American Ambassador and the Countdown to Pearl Harbor (Marine Books, 2022), the history of US-Japan relations may have looked very different. In this interview, Steve and I talk about Joseph Grew, his time in Japan, and how U.S. obstinance, and Japanese imperialism, militarism and dysfunction, got in the way of his diplomacy. Steve Kemper is a journalist and the author of A Labyrinth of Kingdoms: 10,000 Miles through Islamic Africa (W. W. Norton & Company: 2012), A Splendid Savage: The Restless Life of Frederick Russell Burnham (W. W. Norton & Company: 2016), and Code Name Ginger (Harvard Business Review Press: 2003). He has written for Smithsonian, National Geographic, Outside, Wall Street Journal, BBC Wildlife, and many other magazines and newspapers. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Our Man in Tokyo. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

In the years leading up to the Second World War, the U.S. was represented in Japan by Ambassador Joseph Grew: born from a patrician family, Harvard-educated, ran away to the foreign service, and deeply respected by his fellow diplomats and Japanese politicians alike. From his arrival in Tokyo in 1932 to when he was eventually repatriated back to the US in 1942, after Pearl Harbor, Grew dutifully reported to and advised the U.S. on what to do with an increasingly imperialist, militarist—and, at many times—dysfunctional Japan. And if officials had listened to Grew, as Steve Kemper tells it in his book Our Man In Tokyo: An American Ambassador and the Countdown to Pearl Harbor (Marine Books, 2022), the history of US-Japan relations may have looked very different. In this interview, Steve and I talk about Joseph Grew, his time in Japan, and how U.S. obstinance, and Japanese imperialism, militarism and dysfunction, got in the way of his diplomacy. Steve Kemper is a journalist and the author of A Labyrinth of Kingdoms: 10,000 Miles through Islamic Africa (W. W. Norton & Company: 2012), A Splendid Savage: The Restless Life of Frederick Russell Burnham (W. W. Norton & Company: 2016), and Code Name Ginger (Harvard Business Review Press: 2003). He has written for Smithsonian, National Geographic, Outside, Wall Street Journal, BBC Wildlife, and many other magazines and newspapers. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Our Man in Tokyo. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world's leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now. In this episode, Andrew is joined by Steve Kemper, author of Our Man in Tokyo: An American Ambassador and the Countdown to Pearl Harbor. Steve Kemper is a journalist and the author of A Labyrinth of Kingdoms: 10,000 Miles through Islamic Africa, A Splendid Savage: The Restless Life of Frederick Russell Burnham, and Code Name Ginger. He has written for Smithsonian, National Geographic, National Geographic Adventure, National Geographic Traveler, Outside, Wall Street Journal, Yankee, National Wildlife, The Ecologist, Plenty, BBC Wildlife, and many other magazines and newspapers. He lives in West Hartford, Connecticut. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 147: A History of Franco-Muslim Education in Morocco and in Northwest Afric Between the 1850s and 1950s, colonial schools called médersas combined elements of French and Islamic educational traditions. First created in Algeria in 1850, the schools spread to the West African colonies of Senegal, French Soudan (today Mali), and Mauritania. The place of Morocco in this history is the subject of this discussion. In the 1910s, early in the protectorate period, the French established two “collèges musulmans,” the Collège Moulay Idriss in Fes and the Collège Moulay Youssef in Rabat. These were similar to the médersas in their curriculum and institutional framework; several of their directors had experience running médersas in Algeria and Senegal. In a field that remains deeply structured by national borders and by the notion of a “Saharan Divide” between North and West Africa, this research reveals close connections between societies usually considered in isolation. Dr. Samuel Anderson is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Pomona College in Claremont, California. He received a PhD in African History from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2018. His research focuses on education, race, and religion in northwest African Muslim societies under colonial rule. His current project examines the médersas, so-called “Franco-Muslim” schools, that combined Islamic and European curricula in a French effort to colonize Islamic schooling and the Muslim elite in the Maghrib and West Africa. He has conducted research on this topic in Algeria, Mauritania, Senegal, France, and now Morocco, with the support of the American Institute for Maghrib Studies (AIMS), the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC), and other organizations. Portions of this project have been published in the journals Islamic Africa and History in Africa. This episode was recorded on July 22st, 2022 at the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies (TALIM).  Posted by Hayet Lansari, Librarian, Outreach Coordinator, Content Curator (CEMA).

Abstract: Between the 1850s and 1950s, colonial schools called médersas combined elements of French and Islamic educational traditions. First created in Algeria in 1850, the schools spread to the West African colonies of Senegal, French Soudan (today Mali), and Mauritania. The place of Morocco in this history is the subject of this discussion. In the 1910s, early in the protectorate period, the French established two “collèges musulmans,” the Collège Moulay Idriss in Fes and the Collège Moulay Youssef in Rabat. These were similar to the médersas in their curriculum and institutional framework; several of their directors had experience running médersas in Algeria and Senegal. In a field that remains deeply structured by national borders and by the notion of a “Saharan Divide” between North and West Africa, this research reveals close connections between societies usually considered in isolation. Biography: Dr. Samuel Anderson is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Pomona College in Claremont, California. He received a PhD in African History from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2018. His research focuses on education, race, and religion in northwest African Muslim societies under colonial rule. His current project examines the médersas, so-called “Franco-Muslim” schools, that combined Islamic and European curricula in a French effort to colonize Islamic schooling and the Muslim elite in the Maghrib and West Africa. He has conducted research on this topic in Algeria, Mauritania, Senegal, France, and now Morocco, with the support of the American Institute for Maghrib Studies, the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, and other organizations. Portions of this project have been published in the journals Islamic Africa and History in Africa.

This is the web version of Foreign Exchanges, but did you know you can get it delivered right to your inbox? Sign up today:I’m very pleased to be joined this week by Terje Østebø of the University of Florida to discuss the roots and nature of Ethiopia’s “ethnic federalist” system and the impact that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s political changes have had on it. If you’ve been following reports of violence in Ethiopia’s Oromo community or of the rise of nationalist movements among some of its smaller ethnic groups and felt like you would appreciate some deeper background into those stories, this is the interview for you.Abiy during last year’s Russia-Africa Summit in Sochi (Russian government via Wikimedia Commons)Terje Østebø received his PhD in the History of Religion from Stockholm University, and is currently the chair of the Department of Religion and associate professor at the Center for African Studies and the Department of Religion, University of Florida. He is also the founding director of the UF Center for Global Islamic Studies. His research interests are Islam in contemporary Ethiopia, Islam, politics, and Islamic reformism in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, ethnicity and religion, as well as Salafism in Africa. He has lived in Ethiopia for 6 years, and has extensive field-research experience. Major publications include Islam, Ethnicity, and Conflict in Ethiopia: The Bale Insurgency (1963-1970) (Cambridge University Press, 2020); “African Salafism: Religious Purity and the Politicization of Purity” in Islamic Africa, 6, 1-2, 2015; Muslim Ethiopia: The Christian Legacy, Identity Politics, and Islamic Reformism (co-edited with Patrick Desplat), (Palgrave-Macmillan 2013); Localising Salafism: Religious Change among Oromo Muslims in Bale, Ethiopia (Brill 2012); Islamism in the Horn of Africa: Assessing Ideology, Actors, and Objectives, International Law and Policy Institute (2010). This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at fx.substack.com/subscribe

This week we interview an East-African YWAMer on growing up in Islamic Africa, finding Jesus, and being a leader of a 1st generation church. Tune in every Friday at 5:30 pm CT for a new episode! We are on Podbean, Spotify, Itunes, and YouTube! Also check out our social media on Facebook and Instagram!

Over decades, the Yoruba community of southwest Nigeria has thrived as an inter-religious community, balancing Christianity, Islam, and the ways of a modern and secular globalized world. In this episode, Dr. Adeyemi Balogun, from the University of Bayreuth in Germany, explores the fabric of the Yoruba society in terms of the founding and development of the Muslim Students' Society of Nigeria, the impact of colonialism, and the transformation of Islam over the last 20 years. His discussion is based on his paper titled “‘When Knowledge is there, Other Things Follow': The Muslim Students' Society of Nigeria and the Making of Yoruba Muslim Youths”, published in Brill's Islamic Africa. Guest: Adeyemi Balogun Host: Emily Tamkin

Zachary Wright, Associate Professor of History, Northwestern University Qatar Visionary Knowledge: Encounters with the Prophet in Islamic Africa, 18th Century to the Present Khaled Esseissah, Ph.D. student, History Department, Indiana University-Bloomington The Ulama of Bilad Shinqiti (Mauritania) and their Roles in Disseminating Islamic Learning Outside Africa Ahmed Chanfi, Senior Lecturer, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany Northeastern African `ulama' and Salafism in Mecca and Medina: The Case of the Ethiopian Born Shaykh Muhammad ʿAli Amin al-Jami and the al-Jamiyya Movement in Saudi Arabia Dahlia Gubara, Assistant Professor, American University of Beirut Black Magic, White Magic, and the Man from Katsina Panel chair: Oludamini Ogunnaike, College of William and Mary Texts, Knowledge, and Practice: The Meaning of Scholarship in Muslim Africa website: http://projects.iq.harvard.edu/islamafrica Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

Over the past weeks, Mollie and I were given the privilege or being part of something God is doing in Islamic Africa. It was also the most spiritual warfare that I personally have ever faced.

George reviews the 2014 AVN awards, Woody Allen faces more molestation allegations, Justin Beiber behaves badly, Rob Ford drunkenly speaks Jamaican Patois, fighting in Islamic Africa continues, CM Punk quits WWE. Email us shootingtheish@gmail.com.

Three years ago I travelled overland with my wife from Victoria Falls through Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. It felt like we were on a real adventure. Having just read Steve Kemper‘s excellent book Labyrinth of Kingdoms: 10,000 miles through Islamic Africa (Norton, 2012) about the real explorer, Heinrich Barth, I now feel like our trip was little more adventurous than a trip to the shops to buy some milk. Steve’s book brings home what an extraordinary feat a 19th-century expedition really was. The 10,000 miles that Barth covered took him over five years, from Tripoli down across the Sahara to Lake Chad, and then through the Sahel to Timbuktu. His passage took him through kingdoms, entrepot states and vast areas patrolled by ruthless bandits. The story is an insight into what really lay in those blank bits on European maps of the time – often everything in Africa other than the coast and a couple of rivers. These areas, far from being blank, teemed with life. Steve does a terrific job in documenting the various places that Barth travelled through, the difficulties he faced, the colourful characters he came across and the different ways in which lives were lived. There is banditry, slavery, wealth, poverty and wonder, and the book also gives an invaluable insight into the mammoth logistical tasks associated with embarking on an expedition. The central question that Steve puts forward is why Barth is not feted as one of the great men of this Age of Exploration, along with Speke, Burton, Livingstone and Stanley. By the end of the book you’re left pondering exactly the same question. It’s a book that I heartily recommend – but first have a listen to the interview! PS Steve Kemper is @stevekemper on Twitter and his website. Oh, and you might also want to follow me at @npw99 and NBN at @newbooksnetwork and @newbooksafrica Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Three years ago I travelled overland with my wife from Victoria Falls through Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. It felt like we were on a real adventure. Having just read Steve Kemper‘s excellent book Labyrinth of Kingdoms: 10,000 miles through Islamic Africa (Norton, 2012) about the real explorer, Heinrich Barth, I now feel like our trip was little more adventurous than a trip to the shops to buy some milk. Steve’s book brings home what an extraordinary feat a 19th-century expedition really was. The 10,000 miles that Barth covered took him over five years, from Tripoli down across the Sahara to Lake Chad, and then through the Sahel to Timbuktu. His passage took him through kingdoms, entrepot states and vast areas patrolled by ruthless bandits. The story is an insight into what really lay in those blank bits on European maps of the time – often everything in Africa other than the coast and a couple of rivers. These areas, far from being blank, teemed with life. Steve does a terrific job in documenting the various places that Barth travelled through, the difficulties he faced, the colourful characters he came across and the different ways in which lives were lived. There is banditry, slavery, wealth, poverty and wonder, and the book also gives an invaluable insight into the mammoth logistical tasks associated with embarking on an expedition. The central question that Steve puts forward is why Barth is not feted as one of the great men of this Age of Exploration, along with Speke, Burton, Livingstone and Stanley. By the end of the book you’re left pondering exactly the same question. It’s a book that I heartily recommend – but first have a listen to the interview! PS Steve Kemper is @stevekemper on Twitter and his website. Oh, and you might also want to follow me at @npw99 and NBN at @newbooksnetwork and @newbooksafrica Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Three years ago I travelled overland with my wife from Victoria Falls through Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. It felt like we were on a real adventure. Having just read Steve Kemper‘s excellent book Labyrinth of Kingdoms: 10,000 miles through Islamic Africa (Norton, 2012) about the real explorer, Heinrich Barth, I now feel like our trip was little more adventurous than a trip to the shops to buy some milk. Steve’s book brings home what an extraordinary feat a 19th-century expedition really was. The 10,000 miles that Barth covered took him over five years, from Tripoli down across the Sahara to Lake Chad, and then through the Sahel to Timbuktu. His passage took him through kingdoms, entrepot states and vast areas patrolled by ruthless bandits. The story is an insight into what really lay in those blank bits on European maps of the time – often everything in Africa other than the coast and a couple of rivers. These areas, far from being blank, teemed with life. Steve does a terrific job in documenting the various places that Barth travelled through, the difficulties he faced, the colourful characters he came across and the different ways in which lives were lived. There is banditry, slavery, wealth, poverty and wonder, and the book also gives an invaluable insight into the mammoth logistical tasks associated with embarking on an expedition. The central question that Steve puts forward is why Barth is not feted as one of the great men of this Age of Exploration, along with Speke, Burton, Livingstone and Stanley. By the end of the book you’re left pondering exactly the same question. It’s a book that I heartily recommend – but first have a listen to the interview! PS Steve Kemper is @stevekemper on Twitter and his website. Oh, and you might also want to follow me at @npw99 and NBN at @newbooksnetwork and @newbooksafrica Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Three years ago I travelled overland with my wife from Victoria Falls through Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. It felt like we were on a real adventure. Having just read Steve Kemper‘s excellent book Labyrinth of Kingdoms: 10,000 miles through Islamic Africa (Norton, 2012) about the real explorer, Heinrich Barth, I now feel like our trip was little more adventurous than a trip to the shops to buy some milk. Steve’s book brings home what an extraordinary feat a 19th-century expedition really was. The 10,000 miles that Barth covered took him over five years, from Tripoli down across the Sahara to Lake Chad, and then through the Sahel to Timbuktu. His passage took him through kingdoms, entrepot states and vast areas patrolled by ruthless bandits. The story is an insight into what really lay in those blank bits on European maps of the time – often everything in Africa other than the coast and a couple of rivers. These areas, far from being blank, teemed with life. Steve does a terrific job in documenting the various places that Barth travelled through, the difficulties he faced, the colourful characters he came across and the different ways in which lives were lived. There is banditry, slavery, wealth, poverty and wonder, and the book also gives an invaluable insight into the mammoth logistical tasks associated with embarking on an expedition. The central question that Steve puts forward is why Barth is not feted as one of the great men of this Age of Exploration, along with Speke, Burton, Livingstone and Stanley. By the end of the book you’re left pondering exactly the same question. It’s a book that I heartily recommend – but first have a listen to the interview! PS Steve Kemper is @stevekemper on Twitter and his website. Oh, and you might also want to follow me at @npw99 and NBN at @newbooksnetwork and @newbooksafrica Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices