Category: Book review

Book review

In The Other Americans, Laila Lalami reveals what unites and divides us

By David Canfield

Late on a spring night in the Mojave’s Yucca Valley, Driss Guerraoui is killed in a brutal hit-and-run. We meet the man as a helpless victim, but over the course of The Other Americans, he emerges with complexity: a loving grandfather, a flawed husband, a diner operator, a philosophy scholar, a native of Morocco. His death sets into motion a reckoning over 9/11’s long shadow for Muslim Americans, and the treacherous place immigrants occupy in the current climate.

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Book review

Muslim immigrants from Africa keep proving the American dream is still here for all

The streets of Little Senegal in Harlem, New York and the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood in Minneapolis share a common trait: they are both home to thriving African immigrant communities from west and east Africa, many of whom practice Islam. From halal meat stores to restaurants, fabric stores and shops selling religious articles, these buzzing enclaves offer a telling portrait of Islam in America. This review  by  Abdi Latif Dahir of Lekan Oguntoyinbo’s book in QUARTZ AFRICA tells more of the accomplishments of this community in America.
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Book review

Obama and the Legacy of Africa’s Renaissance Generation

There was a generation of Africans who went to the western world to get educated. That generation included the father of former President Barrack Obama and a lot of political leaders who led their countries into independence. This article by Aminatta Forna in the New York Review of Books talks about that Renaissance generation.

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Book review

The Unknown Congolese Heroes – Book Review: ‘Spies in the Congo: America’s Atomic Mission in World War II’

Little is known of Africa’s role in the Manhattan project, the secretive operations that led to the development of the Atomic Bomb. A new book Spies in the Congo by Dr. Susan Williams discusses U.S. intelligence operations in the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of Congo: DRC), to secure uranium during World War II while also preventing Nazi Germany from obtaining said mineral for its own nuclear weapons program. This is a very well-written book that effectively narrates the activities that members of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency) carried out in the Belgian Congo.  and  review the book in The International Policy Digest Continue reading “The Unknown Congolese Heroes – Book Review: ‘Spies in the Congo: America’s Atomic Mission in World War II’” →