Reddit mentions: The best east africa history books

Yes and no. That is: yes, I do, but none of these launched any kind of such military interventions like Cuba has.

For example: no matter how much encouraged by the Soviets to 'provide their share in internationalism', the East Germans haven't had that much to provide. Correspondingly, and just like Hungarians and Bulgarians, they usually limited themselves to provision of vehicles, small arms, and/or advice in regards of organising intelligence services.

If I'm to ask, it's the Czechoslovaks that were 'much more interesting' - and nearly always mis-identified as 'East Germans' - at least during the (I) Cold War: one should keep in mind that by early 1970s, Czechoslovakia was one of five top arms exporters World-wide; that the Czechoslovak (and not Soviet) advisors were crucial for (re-)establishing and training the Syrian armed forces for all of 1960s and much of 1970s; that they were exporting their arms all over Africa too, and training lots of local armed forces (see Libya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana etc., etc., etc.). Indeed, in Libya of 1980s, the Czechoslovaks run at least three pilot-schools, plus a COIN asset equipped with Aero L-39s (and thus became involved in the War in Chad); most of Libyan T-72s and BMP-1s were made in Czechoslovakia etc.

Poles came second, well after the Czechoslovaks. They constructed the Syrian Air Force Academy air base at Kweres AB, were selling T-72s and similar stuff to Iraq, Syria and few other countries.

North Koreans are their own story: one that has to be seen in its own light - because they were never as tightly controlled by the Soviet s as East Europeans were. They were usually deploying their advisors - and sometimes combat troops - on invitation from the host government. For example:

• A group of up to 40 North Korean pilots was deployed in North Vietnam during the Op Rolling Thunder. Quite a few of them got killed (for example: in Operation Bolo), and buried in Vietnam, but Hanoi then simply deleted all the related files (ironically, the NSA did the same with its recordings of intercepted radio messages in Korean...).
  
  
• A group of about 40 North Korean pilots, cooks and translators served in Egypt during the October 1973 War. Due to language differences, they flew CAPs over the Aswan area and - despite some Israeli claims of the contrary - never saw any combat.
  
  
• Slightly later (writing this from memory), Mobutu contracted North Koreans to help him build-up the Zairian armed forces ('Zaire' was the official designation of the DR Congo from 1971 until 1997). They helped train multiple big and 'heavy' units in mid-1970s (for details, see Kolwezi), though with only meagre success: their and the temperaments of the Congolese were quite 'incompatible'. Moroccans - who deployed to Zaire in 1977 and again in 1978 - and even Egyptians, seem to have been slightly more successful (and influential) in this regards.
  
  
• The North Korean advisors were present in the DR Congo under Kabila of late 1990s, too, when they trained one of newly-established units of the reconstructed Congolese armed forces (for details, see Great Lakes Conflagration).
  
  The Chinese are also 'their own story': in essence, Beijing was acting entirely independently from the USSR, solely in its own interest, which - contrary to the Cuban and Soviet interests - was frequently rather 'commercial' than 'ideological' by nature. The Chinese have played a crucial role in the establishment of the Tanzanian armed forces (for details, see Wars and Insurgencies of Uganda), and they were supporting and advising the UNITA of 1970s and 1980s. Much less is known about their involvement in the Zambian armed forces of 1970s.
  
  In other cases, the Chinese appeared as contracted support personnel for local arms acquisitions. For example, in early 1980s, there was a Chinese team helping the Sudanese become operational on their Shenyang F-6s around the same time Americans were training the locals on Northrop F-5s and the British on BAe Strikemasters. Around the same time, another Chinese team was present in Somalia, which bought about 30 Shenyang F-6s, and - and thanks to the influence of the Pakistani advisors contracted by the Zimbabweans - the Chinese also helped the local air force acquire their Shenyang F-7 interceptors.

Here's the rough outline of what we know as historians of Africa:

1. The spread of Christianity to the northern part of modern-day Ethiopia--really Tigray today--came via Aksum. The key convert is believed to be King Ezana (sorry about wikipedia), whose stelae are still around, likely sometime in the 340s. The conversion of Ezana and his early linkage to the Arian Christians and the Copts is where Frumentius the Syrian, who was apparently his tutor, comes in. His converstion was very likely prompted by the connection to Egyptian Christian traders as well as the Roman Empire's embrace of the faith. It appears to have spread from the port at Adulis, but Ezana took it in for much the same reason that rulers of Swahili towns and empires in West Africa initially accepted an eclectic Islam--trade. The comment made about the connection between the Ethiopian Church and the Egyptian one by ServerofJustice is absolutely correct. (Ezana's focus on trade primacy is also shown by his destruction of the rump of Meroë around 350.) It is to this that Ethiopia traces its Christianity, although during centuries of isolation between Aksum and Ethiopia they apparently did not consult Alexandria. At that time the specific link between King Solomon and the court was not made.
   
   
2. Christianity remained, for a very long time, the faith of the elites; the "rediscovery" of Solomon and Sheba was part of a political consolidation in the 14th century. The faith's exclusivity was a problem because, as CaisLaochach points out, Islam was a likely contender. In fact it did make inroads into parts of the kingdom, as a creed that spoke to "common" people in a feudal system. At various times, Ethiopian rulers acquired Muslim subjects or even Muslim subordinates; that problem never went away. Christianity remained the faith of the elites in part because the kingdom became insular after the rise of Islam and the loss by Aksum of Adulis around ?750. Eventually, the rise of the Solomonids in 1270 brought with it a re-orientation of biblical history in the form of the Kebre Negast within a century or so that fleshed out the "story" of Sheba after Solomon. The reality was that Aksum collapsed in the 8th century and we really don't know much about how it became Zagwe Ethiopia, or if it truly did; it's possible Ethiopia is an only loosely-related, new political formation that "wrote backwards" and claimed Aksum ex post facto, going so far as to enthrone its emperors (negusa negast, or king of kings) there. We do know that one Christian elite gave way to another, and the state shifted southward somewhat, changing its focus from trade to feudal mixed-pastoralism. In that space, a centralizing religious focus was very useful: to defy the Solomonids was to defy God on some level. Ethiopia also wasn't alone: Christian kingdoms with Islamic subjects also existed to the west in the Nile Valley (known as the "Nubian Kingdoms" collectively) as late as the 1400s. Those collapsed not via conquest, but because their populations became so overwhelmingly Islamic and dependent on trade with Muslims that the elites simply converted.
   
   
3. The Portuguese basically saved Ethiopia from the fate of Islamic conquest from Adal, once they "discovered" the true root of their Prester John mythology and the forgotten Christian kingdom in Ethiopia in 1520. The emperor at that time requested Portuguese help against Adal and its Ottoman ally (the latter fresh off its conquest of Egypt and the Holy Places of Islam in 1517) but aid didn't arrive until 1540. The conflict that culminated in the battle of Wayna Daga (1543) won by an Ethio-Portuguese force over a Somali/Adal-Ottoman one, and the naval confrontations at the Protuguese harbor of Diu (several really) saved Ethiopia from being overrun. The Portuguese however quickly wore out their welcome, and Jesuit missionaries came to see Ethiopian Christianity as almost heretical. They made no shortage of attempts to convert Ethiopian courtiers and the emperors themselves. Father Lobo's experience at this moment, when they were actually given to the Ottomans by their Ethiopian "hosts" on the expectation they would be killed, is recorded in A Voyage to Abyssinia and it makes for some delicious "wtf" reading. Yes, Father Lobo really thought the Portuguese and then the Papacy should organize a full-scale invasion of Ethiopia. I'm not even kidding. From the Ethiopian side, conversion to Catholicism would have been a devastating refutation of the basis of their political legitimacy internally, and it could not be allowed. Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity as a closely-held faith only later spread actively to the general population, much as was the case with Islam in the western Sahel and Sudan. I don't know the details of the way that appeal was made, though, or whether it was truly gradual; it was never really victorious, and Islam is still quite prominent today. My recollection is that the sources aren't very frank about it but I'll have a look again when I'm back in my library.
   
   
4. That era's Ethiopia was really only the northern third or so of today's Ethiopia-Eritrea matrix. Only with the 1870-1890 conquests of Menelik II of Shoa did it take its current shape and extent. Yes, at that time it incorporated a lot of additional non-Christians, many of whom converted later and some likely under duress. "Colonists" weren't interested in Ethiopia is a confusing comment, though--do you mean that colonial powers weren't ever interested? Tell that to General Baratieri, defeated at Adwa on March 1st, 1896. It was after that military victory by an African state over a European one that more people began rediscovering Ethiopia's "white past" and trying to justify the exception to the colonial tide.
   
   See, for example, Harold Marcus, A History of Ethiopia upd. ed., (2002); Richard Pankhurst, The Ethiopians: A History, (2001); and a variety of histories of Christianity that treat it in chapters. General histories of Africa, including Robert Collins's and Kevin Shillington's, also spend time with Ethiopia and do so fairly well for overviews.
   
   [Edit: I tried to clarify a few things. I typed this in a very stream-of-consciousness way, so I apologize.]

My great-great-great Uncle was the first white man to travel across equatorial Africa in the 1870s. Fortunately for me, my great-great Grandfather was the only one of the numerous siblings to have a line that survived to the present day, thus I am next in line to inherit all of the things that he brought back that are not already on loan to the Edinburgh museum. He's a really fascinating character that doesn't get due respect in History really, but he was quite influential in his day I believe. He wrote a couple books on his journeys; Across Africa (2 Volumes) and To the Gold Coast for Gold (2 Volumes) if you're interested in that sort of thing.

Congrats though on an excellent adventure, I'm very jealous!

31 days for Augustus

August is a good month all around. School starts, and Autumn is starting. The leaves are the most beautiful, and the weather is nice. Hunting season also begins.

Thanks for the contest!

Item 1

Item 2

Item 3

Item 4

My suggestions:

Raymond Jonas' The Battle of Adwa: African Victory in the Age of Empire chronicles the war waged (and won) by Ethiopia against Italy who planned to conquer it during the Scramble for Africa.

Jeff Pearce's Prevail: The Inspiring Story of Ethiopia's Victory over Mussolini's Invasion, 1935–1941. Well, the title says it all.

I'd recommend more books, but it's late here in the Philippines. If you're eager for more, please reply and I'll post the others. :)

Dude you're miles ahead of me and I still have the 40lbs of fat to lose. You've got what it takes just focus on your swimming. When I first started swimming freestyle I couldn't make it past a lap without getting extremely tired, and it turned out that I just needed to exhale slowly underwater till i turned for a breath. I went from that to doing 500m in about a week. I would recommened reading Never Quit ,None Braver, Black Hawk Down I would recommend watching inside combat rescue, and then Rescue Warriors which actually follows a class through indoc and some of the follow on training. Get your EMT-B for a test of the medicine while you're working on your swim. I'm taking the time to get my EMT-P (paramedic) while I work on my run/swim times and remaining fat. Learn what you can where you can and put in that work. I'm sure after looking into it you'll find the answer of whether you have it in you to do it all. I know I sent you a lot but let me tell you when it's your passion, no amount of information seems like enough.

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.com

amazon.co.uk

amazon.ca

amazon.com.au

amazon.in

amazon.com.mx

amazon.de

amazon.it

amazon.es

amazon.com.br

amazon.nl

amazon.co.jp

amazon.fr

Beep bloop. I'm a bot to convert Amazon ebook links to local Amazon sites.
I currently look here: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.ca, amazon.com.au, amazon.in, amazon.com.mx, amazon.de, amazon.it, amazon.es, amazon.com.br, amazon.nl, amazon.co.jp, amazon.fr, if you would like your local version of Amazon adding please contact my creator.

A caveat here, I haven't read any of the books I'm linking. I'm somewhat familiar with Irish history, so I'm using what I know to find keywords to get books.

The Flight of the Earls

Biography of Grace O'Malley

Review of a book on Jacobitism in Ireland and possibly touching on the Williamite Rebellion.

Overview of the Penal Code, restrictions on Catholics that lasted a couple hundred years.

A book on the politics surrounding the potato famines

Huge scholarly work on the Irish Enlightenment. Try to find this one in the library as it's REALLY expensive, even for six volumes.

You could also look at a biography of, say Jonathan Swift, or into Handel when he wrote The Messiah and debuted it in Dublin 17 days later.

Nothing under the heading of "earlier stuff" is really coming to mind, unless you're interested in early Christianity.

The movie that everyone is so familiar with is actually based on a book: Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden. It's a really good read, and the movie follows it fairly well.

You might enjoy Fingerprints of the Gods. I thought it was the best written and least kooky book when I was into the whole ancient astronauts thing.

And his more famous Sign and the Seal.

I don't think mention the legend of Gilgamesh, but if you're into such things, you'll probably dig them.

Kenya: A Country in the Making 1880-1940

Its a fascinating book, especially if you are a history buff. You'd know more about Kenya that many Kenyans!

For anyone who might be interested, /u/jay212127 is referring to The Somalia Affair. A fantastic sociological review of it was written by Sherene Razack, called Dark Threats and White Knights

Fantastic! Just what I was looking for. Are you by chance in the UK? I only ask because Amazon has two books on the subject with the exact same cover by the same author and I can't figure out if it's actually two different books or different localizations.

Tip and Run

and

World War I: The African Front

• Comment en es-tu venu à t'intéresser à cette pratique ?
  
  
• Utilises-tu des drogues ? Illicites ?
  
  
• Quel est le profil des clients qui viennent te voire (si tu en as) ?
  
  
• As-tu déjà lu des livres académique sur la magie exemple ?
  
  Tu peux répondre à autant de question que tu veux, voir aucune ;)

The author of this piece is Tom Cooper, who has written many history books about Aerial combat in the Middle East and Africa.

Like 1, 2, and 3

Also the author of this post as well: https://www.reddit.com/r/hoggit/comments/53h2a8/timely_article_on_a_historical_f5_vs_mig21/

It was a book before it was a movie. Very well written. Here's a link to the Kindle edition.

Suggest this book as well:

• Making Sense of Somali History Val.1 and Val.2 by Abdurahman Abdullah

The Dungeons of Nakasero is about the legacy of Idi Amin's rule in Uganda.

Great book written by him.

A lot of what I talked about is covered in Bahru Zewde's A History of Modern Ethiopia: 1855-1991 where the focus is on the development and destruction of the absolutist monarchy. The first edition was written in 1991, so get the 2nd edition, it has much more information about the successful independence struggle of Eritrea from 1976-1991.