Modern African Political Leaders (Global Profiles) [Hardcover]

R. Kent Rasmussen (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Series: Global Profiles

Profiles eight modern African political leaders, including Nelson Mandela and Haile Selassie.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 7 Up-This collective biography covers leaders representative of the major regions of Africa during a period when many nations on this continent moved from colonial rule to independence. The book begins with Ethiopia's Haile Selassie, who came to power in 1916, and concludes with Nelson Mandela, who was elected president of South Africa in 1994. Also included are Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Leopold Senghor of Senegal, Julius K. Nyerere of Tanzania, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Each sketch focuses on a pivotal incident in the man's life that helped to shape his identity and later actions. Through the context of these individual lives, the author is able to bring the political backgrounds and modern history of their various nations into view. Each of the brief profiles includes a list for further reading. Clear black-and-white photographs, two to a chapter, illustrate the text. A useful resource for an area of the curriculum that continues to receive more attention.
Janet Woodward, Garfield High School, Seattle, WA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Gr. 7^-12. This entry in the Global Profiles series is an absorbing study of the stark political changes that have happened throughout Africa in the twentieth century. Each of the eight biographical essays focuses on how personal incidents inspired the political actions of a vast array of prominent African men (most notably, South Africa's Nelson Mandela). Representing eight different nations, including Ethiopia, Egypt, and Zimbabwe, the leaders have histories as varied as they are fascinating. Rasmussen hooks the reader into each essay with a brief, dramatic excerpt that encapsulates the pivotal moment in a man's life. The author then offers just the right balance of personal background and social context to provide a clear picture of the impact each leader had on the state of his nation. While never shying away from some harsh incidents inherent in many political upheavals, Rasmussen clearly reveres, if not always the political powerhouses they became, certainly the noble idealists they initially were. Roger Leslie

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Facts on File (April 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0816032777
• ISBN-13: 978-0816032778
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,652,288 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born and raised in Northern California. Not long after graduating from the University of California, with a major in the dismal science, I moved to Southern California, where I have remained ever since. At UCLA, I earned a doctorate in African history. My teaching career in that field was regrettably brief, but I later published five books on the subject. Meanwhile, I got into editing work and eventually became a reference book editor. (If you search my name in Amazon books, many of the titles that come up will be reference works I've edited.)

Around 1990, my life began to take an unexpected turn when I renewed my youthful interest in Mark Twain by vowing to read everything he wrote. To give my reading focus, I collected interesting passages from Mark Twain's work with the idea of publishing a quote collection with the reference-book publisher for whom I had written a book on Zimbabwe. I am now astonished to realize that I have published seven books on Mark Twain--with two more due out soon--and have something of a reputation of an authority in Mark Twain studies. How did that happen? I'm not sure, but it has certainly made my life more exciting.

It's now early 2012, and I am a year away from retirement from my editing job. I used the past year to finish two more Mark Twain books, and I'm now on the threshold of branching into other writing fields. I'm hoping that the best is yet to come.