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Annotated Bibliography 3
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Example Book (1):

Rotberg, Robert I.  Joseph Thomson and the Exploration of Africa. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971. 
Rotberg’s biography recounts the experiences of the Scottish explorer Joseph Thomson. The author contends that, though Thomson came relatively late to the exploration of Africa, he made significant geographical and cultural discoveries for British interests. An enthusiastic participant and supporter of British imperialism, Thomson influenced policy in Kenya and Nigeria.  Rotberg believes that Thomson was an exception to the traditional European explorer in that he was a pacifist committed to conflict resolution. The author claims that the explorer respected Africans and African cultures, and believed that Africans should be accorded equal status. Rotberg’s accounts of the intense coverage of Thomson’s activities and philosophy by newspapers were avidly followed by the general public, and that this influenced colonial policy in that it mitigated some of the harsher methods by which the British implemented policy. Rotberg’s biography is well-written and interesting. If this source is accurate, it provides insight into the power of the explorer to color and influence popular perceptions of Africa. It is an account from the perspective of the non-African, but it gives rise to the possibility of a correlation between the travel writing of explorers, and public/imperialistic responses.  

Example Book (2):  

Thompson, Stith.  The Folktale.  New York: Dryden, 1986.  
Thompson, folklorist and linguist, offers a useful survey of forty-six popular folktales used in Euro-American literary works.  He traces the histories of predominantly European folktales from their oral cultural roots to their literary transformations, and examines their literary functions with some illuminating results.  I found some interesting cross-cultural correlations to the ways African oral folktales are used in modern African literature and fiction: for example, multiple and changing versions of an oral tale give Western fiction writers freedom to select and adapt a folktale to make it serve new literary uses and messages.  Still, it is clear that oral arts traditions do not carry the same social and spiritual weight in European works as they do in African arts and literatures.  Thompson’s sometimes dense and jargon-ridden prose style may frustrate non-specialist audiences, but the persistent reader interested in the oral roots of world literatures will find many rewards in this knowledgeable, well-researched, and thoroughly indexed reference book.
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Example Journal Article:

Mugambi, J.N.K. "African Churches in Social Transformation." Journal of International Affairs 50.1 (Summer 1996): 194. 
This article sets out to examine the role of the church in South Africa as well as critique the role it played in transforming the social and political foundations in Africa. A major strength of this paper is that it is written from a fairly neutral position; it does not contain biased undertones within the discussion. I feel the paper could have been stronger if more concrete examples were cited in relation to some of the opinions argued (namely the arguments of the church bringing major social change during early colonization). The underlying thesis of the paper is that missions, in general, have had a growing involvement with the various colonies/countries they reside in. Mugambi asserts that missions were originally self-sustaining and free from partisan ties. In his opinion, missions existed entirely independently of European colonization during the early arrivals. It is pointed out that missions were actually punished for starting or assisting in the creation of independent African churches, which taught Africans to be culturally self-confident. The paper argues that colonial governments justified their claims to African territory by early missionary success in converting native Africans to Christianity. So by either "design or accident," the church was directly involved in the social and political transformation of Africa. It is at this point that missions lost their political innocence. Missions created schools teaching westernized values and religion in return for grants provided by the colonial governments for health services, agriculture, etc. The paper continues in a discussion of the present day involvement of the church in Africa. Perhaps the most dignified remark of the paper was:  “There were missionaries who were racial bigots and colonial bullies, but there were also others who were excellent pastors, counselors and teachers. Some were businessmen, and others were diplomats. Thus both the negative and the positive influences must be acknowledged in a balanced assessment of the missionary impact in tropical Africa.”  
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Example Videotape/TV Program

Chinua Achebe: A World of Ideas.  Distributed by PBS Video, Public Affairs Television, WNET/New York and WWTTW/Chicago, Alexandria, VA; 1989. Films for the Humanities, 1994. 28 min. 
From The Moyers Collection comes this insightful videotaped interview with Chinua Achebe, originally filmed for Bill Moyers' PBS television series A World of Ideas (1989).  Achebe discusses the role of the African storyteller, one who hears the music of history and weaves the fabric of memory, one obliged to be the people's collective conscience--sometimes to offend "the Emperor" in so doing. "It is the storyteller... who makes us who we are, that creates history." A man caught between two worlds, Achebe discusses his observations and criticisms of both African and Western politics and culture, the stages in his awakening to inaccurate and demeaning depictions of black Africans in works such as Conrad's Heart of Darkness, to his closing advice that the West: "listen to the weak."  
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Example Web Site:

Hannah Valentine and Lethe Jackson: Slave Letters, 1837-1838.  An On-line Archival Collection from the Campbell Family Papers.  The Digital Scriptorium, Special Collections Library, Duke University, 1996. 11 March 2002 <http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/campbell/>. This website offers a collection of letters written by two U.S. house slaves, Hannah Valentine and Lethe Jackson.  Their owner, David Campbell, was the governor of Virginia from 1837-1840.  The letters cover topics including everyday life, issues surrounding the War of 1812, and other topics that give the reader an insight into the slaves' views.   You can view photographs of the actual letters, or you can view a text-style presentation of them.  This is a good source for those who are interested in African-American slave life and want to review original letters that have not been edited or filtered.  
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