Mr. Morrow was brave and adventurous, no surprise given his earlier experiences described in his book "What's a Commie Ever Done to Black People." Having read dozens of travel narratives and having lived and worked in African countries myself, I can say I especially enjoyed this one, not only because of his unique perspective as a black artist, but because he is a fine story teller and a very honest, direct and observant writer. Let's have a sequel!

It was Marcus Garvey who spoke and wrote so eloquently about "love for self and kind." Bro. Kojo, your book, too, is an eloquent treatise that speaks of "love for self and kind."

First, we read about the love you had to have for yourself,-- enough to leave your immediate family and the comforts of home to embrace new experiences in a distant land. Then we are introduced to your love for your motherland, Africa, which is apparent when your observations and insights allow us to see, touch, taste, ear, smell, and feel all that you witnessed. Finally, love for black people is clearly evident, when you allow us to walk in your shoes and share your dreams.

Although I view this as a text that projects "love for self and kind," I see it as book that I would recommend to anyone who has ever wondered, "Who am I and where do I come from?". RETURN OF THE AFRICAN AMERICAN grabbed my attention from the very beginning and held me, enraptured, long after I had read the last word.

Congratulations!

Reading this book you will feel very present with the places and people Kojo adopts (and is adopted by) in his 11 years of traveling and living in West Africa. His writing is very immediate, intimate and personal, his observations keen and full of insight.

I just wanted to say how wonderful and inspirational Dr. Capehart's book was to me and my children. The book opened our eyes to how fortunate we really are and my children could really relate to the book. I think Dr. Capehart has the biggest heart I know and will be great in whatever he does. Thanks for writing the book. I know it's touched many people, but know that it has touched my family.

I read the book 4 times and everytime, I was amazed at Dr. Capehart's experiences. His illustrations were great and only enhanced the stories he was telling. I also do missionary work and can relate to his experiences. I loved the book and have recommended it to everyone I know. I think Dr. Capehart has a good heart and will be a great doctor. I love his writing style and hope that he writes again.

I'm currently a student at University of Southern California (USC) Go Trojans! I just read Capehart's, "My African Safari." I have to say that it is an inspiring book. If you want a book that makes you visualize what it would be like to be in Africa, this is the bok. It really made me appreciate America and what I have here. I highly recommend this book to anyone. I hope this review helps you to read this terrific book.

Contrary to the review of Oct. 16th, 2001, Adinkra is NOT a language of a secret society known by only a "select few." If it were, this dictionary should never have been published. I find this book to be a terrific resource (with a few minor errors that have been corrected by an addendum), full of meaning for everybody. I have owned a copy for a few years and highly recommend it.

This is an excellant resource book for graphic artists, designers, textile designers, illustrators, - anyone in the arts field. But the extra kick with this book is that it gives you
information on the background and history of the Adinkra symbology and even shows you how to make stamps so you can make and design your own fabric!

Many people don't know that the Western Africans had many secret scripts that are still used today in secret organizations. This is only one form of the script that is around Western Africa that only a select few have knowleadge of. I recommend if you happnen to run across this book to read it and study it,and it will guide you to the real heart and soul of Western Africa. I have learned so much from my reserch about Africa and it;s true culture that europeans have tired to hide.

I wanted to learn something about the traditional beliefs of the Akan people so I ordered this book. It was very readable and very informative. What interested me the most was that the author used structures developed by Fowler and Erikson. Since these two are foundational in the study of western faith and personality development, I felt right at home, even though the destination of the book was halfway around the globe. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in a "first book" about this subject.

I found this book a very quick read, but incredibly insightful especially with regards to the reasons behind the traditions described. It delves into the consciousness in a personal yet impartial way, which I appreciated.

This book is written by an African who was educated in the US -- rec'd his PhD from Emory U. This is real look at real life in Ghana among the Ashanti and their view of life and death. This book is the result of Dr. Donkor's research for his PhD. This text is suitable for classroom and research purposes or for those who would like to find about their African roots.

This book is absolutely brilliant for Ghanaians who have never lived in Ghana or who no longer live at home and want all mum's recipes and more in one easy to follow guide!!

I am married to a man who happens to be from ghana. We live here in the U.S. It is very hard to cook at times because i usually end up cooking the same things over and over again. Although I can cook some dishes from Ghana, there was so much more that I knew of, but never knew the recipe for. I wanted to be able to cook more than just a couple of dishes from Ghana, so I searched for a book like this. I could have asked family memebers, but there is a great language barrier, which made that attempt useless. Now that I have this book, it has helped me to make my husband feel like he's "back home" in his mom's kitchen. Had I done it on my own, it would have took me years to get these authentic recipes, but thanks to Mr. Oto and his wife, I could probably teach my husband a thing or two!

Mrs. Fenuku

I used this book as the text to give 28 6th Graders an introduction to the wealth of Africa's past--and they hung on every word. The mix of storytelling, political, economic, cultural and religious history served as the basis for several lively student presentations. In short, my only complaint about this book is the fact that its out-of-print status prevents me from ordering copies by the dozen for next year's class.

Publishers--Please get on the ball. With the addition of these African Kingdoms to the Virginia State Standards of Learning, you have an eager market and a product that beats anything else now on the market for this age group.

This book is gorgeously illustrated with lots of graphics taken from authentic textiles and pottery. The legends are written in an easy to read narrative style and take readers from ancient myths through to modern theories on the history of this region. Highly recommended

Stage-Shakers! Ghana's Concert Party Theatre
by Kwame Braun

A lively video documentary that brings Ghana's concert party theatre to life.

Indiana University Press

For the first time, Western audiences have access to the power and intensity of Ghana's remarkable concert party theatre through Kwame Braun's 100-minute documentary video. Stage-Shakers! brings its festive atmosphere to life by showing backstage preparation - touring, making-up, and practicing - as well as live performance footage. Interviews with key performers, both pioneers and current practitioners, reveal the concert party as a dynamic form of entertainment that is in step with popular fashion, music, song, dance, and social issues. Researched and filmed in collaboration with Catherine M. Cole, this video companion is an important extension of her book, Ghana's Concert Party Theatre.

Cole's study of concert party, a traveling musical theater in Ghana, is nothing short of superb. Not only does she manage to show the history of these itinerant performers and the world they made and remade with every performance, but she uses her analysis of concert party as a way to talk about and problematize the theories and obsessions of our time that sometimes have overdetermined analyses of things African. That concert party performers imitated women, or wore blackface, all complicate our own academic ideas about the performance of gender, or of race, and how those might be different in Africa than in the US or Latin America. Cole's manuscript gives us a history of an African musical form in more detail than anything we have had before, and in so doing she gives us a history of class and culture in Ghana that I think will make a strong impact on African history. But it also challenges scholars to think anew about how to understand and interpret African cultural forms, and shows how limiting it is­for Africans and for academics­ to pidgeon-hole those cultural expressions into examples of buzz words and jargon. This is a book that doesn't just interrogate culture and pronounce it complicated. This is a book that looks the complications firmly in the eye and encourages them to stare right back­. Cole animates the complexities and contradictions of popular African culture to make us think more seriously, more carefully, about how race and gender take on meanings and shed connotations in societies increasingly aware of their place in the world.

I balked at paying $55 but this book has proved to be a bargain at the price. Bowditch has successfully distilled--in highly readable and enjoyable fashion--seven years of experience as a publicly financed developer of Ghana's newest national park. His insights are informed, not only by his impressive academic training (Harvard A.B. 1966; Princeton M.P.A. 1974), but by the obstacles he faced as a white American newcomer and the comparisons he can draw to his earlier endeavors in a number of countries in Asia and, before that, as Maine's Secretary for Economic Development. Bowditch's enthusiasm for Ghana is heartfelt and contagious. He gives many good reasons why Ghana is likely to be every bit as competitive in the new Millenium as the so-called Asian Tigers were at the end of the last. Whether or not Ghana will quite prove to be an African Lion, Bowditch is bullish on its prospects. His famous ancestor and namesake was known as "The Practical Navigator" of the open seas. Bowditch may well become that for American investor/entrepreneur or those just interested in Ghana. I therefore highly recommend this book!

I found this book to be very interesting and well organized. The author's personal experiences keep your attention. They make it much easier to follow and understand the points the author is making as he examines Ghana as a country of potential opportunity in the economically emerging continent of Africa.

While many studies on African rhythm approach this subject by focusing on its instrumental, percussive manifestation, this distinctively regional research assumes the centrality of the Ewe and Siwu languages at the basis of its characterization. Expanding on Nketia's general work on Ghanaian musics, Agawu combines anthropology, linguistics and European music theory as he takes the reader from the ethnography of a fictional soundscape (rhythmic physical activities in an Ewe community over the course of a day) to the rhythmic properties of the language itself (tone patterns, temporal spacing), concluding with accounts of two performances and conceptual models of Ewe rhythmic processes. He points out that the rhythmic qualities (stress, quantity and resultant pattern) of Ewe or Siwu languages so far have not received the same attention that tonal features have. A centerpiece of Agawu's presentation is his model of "Northern Ewe modes of rhythmic signification", a model that he introduces early on and later revises in its representative potential. It situates speech at the inception of rhythmic expression, yet allows "feedback-loops" and other generative impulses outside its domain to affect the musical process. Refreshing is Agawu's authoritative, yet similarly self-effacing and non-imposing writing style. His clarity of communication and lack of superfluous intellectualism makes this a very accessible and "alive" text, there is neither too much unduly self-referential pathos nor artificial scientific detachment in his descriptions. The book really seems to rest on Agawu's innate connection to this culture, and it is all the more interesting to see how he utilizes analysis and conceptualization of Western European origin to frame the issues in his discussion. At all times, while neither being afraid to honestly acknowledge compromise nor ideologically prevented from proceeding in such fashion, Agawu is aware of any attached implications that come hand in hand with this practice, yet doesn't deem them mutually exclusive.

My co-worker's brother wrote this book so I decided to support him and read it. Since I'm preparing for a trip to Ghana also I thought this book was interesting and Mr. Gaines' adventures were hilarious.

It is remarkable to think that this is Mr. Gaines first book! He has hit a homerun the first time at bat! After completing the book I was struck with a desire to experince Ghana for myself!

12 Days in Ghana is a superb publication! Once I started reading the book, I couldn't put it down. I was amazed that this was Mr. Gaines first publication. 12 Days in Ghana made me laugh and cry - he did an excellent job on incorporating emotions and humor throughout the book. His writing style made me feel that I was with him on his journey to Ghana. This book has inspired me to continue my research on my family history. I highly recommend this book to anyone planning a voyage to their Ghana or anyone who is planning to search their own roots. I am hoping Mr. Gaines will write a sequel to the book!