This exquisitely illustrated study takes us into the traditionally built dwellings of African society. This "life-in-architecture" material culture reveals the socioeconomic and cosmological organization and the world views of these societies. Bourdier and Trinh connect structural patterns - setting, design, decoration, orientation - to factors such as kinship, gender, history, religion, poetry, and oral traditions. The authors focus on a variety...

In Dangerous Liaisons, eminent contributors address the issues raised by the postcolonial condition, considering nationhood, history, gender and identity from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Excerpts from novels by writers, giving their comments on what they wanted to achieve. For example, in How to Tell a True War Story, a novel on the horror and grandeur of war, Tim O'Brien sought "to arrive at some kind of spiritual truth that one can't discover simply by recording the world-as-it-is." "The editors' lucid Introduction sets the backdrop of profound political, technological, and cultural change in postwar America that gave rise to postmodern...