Book Review: Writing Timbuktu

Shamil Jeppie, Writing Timbuktu: the book in West African history. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2026. ISBN: 9780691273853. 

Genre: history, books

Subgenre: African Studies

Format: hardback

Source: Hutchins Library, Berea College.  

 

This book is a history of books and scholarly book culture in West Africa. Though much of the focus is on Timbuktu, the author makes clear that other cities in the region were book centers as well. One important detail I learned is that printed books did not arrive in West Africa until the early 20th century. Books in this context are handwritten books. Written by hand, these books for the most part were unbound pages held together by leather covers. Even with the availability of print books today, this manuscript culture still survives and thrives. 

The book features an introduction, eight chapters, and an epilogue. It also includes notes and a bibliography. In addition it features a few illustrations that I found helpful to visualize the kinds of books the author discusses. 

Most of these books were written by religions, i.e. Muslim, scholars writing for other scholars. Topics include religious commentary, doctrine, and legal opinions. Along the way, the author also discusses the book culture and how these scholars were educated by scholars who came before them. They formed a healthy scholarly community. Many students were taught in person by a scholar, but we do get at least one case of a student learning via letter writing, an early case of a correspondence course. 

I appreciated that the author acknowledges limitations. If a detail is known, he explains how we know. If not, he acknowledges we just don't know at this time. Overall, what we do know he documents well and cites sources. 

The book as a whole is interesting, especially if you enjoy books about book culture. It is an academic book, so it can be a bit dry on the narrative here and there. The author does a good job of starting at Timbuktu then expanding into the region to the writers of today. I learned a part of book history that is not widely known. I do hope more people read it and learn too. 

This book is mainly for academic libraries, especially those with strong African studies programs and/or humanities and history. Some LIS programs may find it of interest. It may be a bit too esoteric for public libraries. 

In the end, I liked it. 

3 out of 5 stars. 

 

Signs the economy is bad: August 30, 2019 edition

Welcome to another edition of "Signs the Economy is Bad" here at The Itinerant Librarian. This is the semi-regular (as in when I have time and/or feel like doing it) feature where I scour the Internet in search of the oh so subtle hints that the economy is bad. Sure, pundits may say things are getting better, but what do they know? And to show not all is bad, once in a while we look at how good the uber rich have it.


It is another Friday, and my four blog readers know it is time to look at the signs of the bad economy. Let's see what we got this week.

Education News

•  As if the testing companies' racket was not bad enough, now a company has a way of detecting when students are not making effort on standardized tests, i.e. when they are just doing "rapid guessing", i.e. just marking answers to get it over with. Story via The Hechinger Report. Here is a radical suggestion: maybe educational institutions should cut back on their obsession with assessment and multiple choice tests that do not really mean anything.

Rural News

•  The headline pretty much says it all: "21 states have no local newspaper with dedicated reporter to cover their representatives and senators in D.C." Story via The Rural Blog.Not that newspapers overall get read that much anyhow, but there you have it. They can barely keep track of the shenanigans in D.C.

Health and Medical News

•  This week, another story of seniors not being able to afford their prescriptions, so they are skimping or outright just not taking their needed medications, this time out of Oregon. Story via Public News Service.

Meanwhile back in the US colony

•  Two years later, Puerto Rico is still struggling to recuperate from Hurricane Maria. Story via Mother Jones.

The Bad Economy  Around the World

•  I always pay attention to economic news out of the African continent, specially ones about foreign investors because often they  just reflect a new version of the big colonial game. This time, we have news that Japan is one of the top investors to expand solar power there. From the story, "Mitsubishi joins a host of top investors, including European power utilities, that are exploring off-grid technology as a way of expanding their exposure to renewables and tapping new pools of customers." Story via African Stand.

In Other News of the Bad Economy

•  The Atlantic has an expose article on the immigrants in the United States who really do the meatpacking. The article is by Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation. Here is one of the article's quotes by the author: "Over the years, I’ve spent time with countless farmworkers and meatpacking workers who entered the United States without proper documentation. Almost all of them were hardworking and deeply religious. They had taken enormous risks and suffered great hardships on behalf of their families. Today workers like them are the bedrock of our food system. And they are now being scapegoated, hunted down, and terrorized at the direction of a president who inherited about $400 million from his father, watches television all day, and employs undocumented immigrants at his golf resorts." A hat tip to Food Politics blog. On a side note, I read Fast Food Nation a while back; no review on the blog since I did it before I started reviewing books formally.
• Inc. noticed that Facebook did a subtle change that could suggest they may (or not) charge for their social media site down the road. So naturally the magazine asked "would you pay for Facebook?" After a laugh, I said fuck no, which I get the impression many would also say. As I have said before, were it not for the fact I have some family there that are not likely to move elsewhere if I move, plus the fact my library has a Facebook page I help maintain, I would have deleted Facebook a long time ago. Who knows? Day can still come I do delete them and forget them. 
• So a question for readers out there: would YOU pay for Facebook if they decided to start charging you for it? Even if, maybe for example, they charge and you get no advertising.
• Meanwhile, Google is yet again shutting down another product that does relatively well because, well, fuck you, because they can mostly. By their own admission, "While Hire has been successful, we're focusing our resources on other products in the Google Cloud portfolio." Story via UPI. For me, I am reminded of when they shut down Google Reader, which was a good product, but again, they were "focusing [their] resources on other products. . . ". Hire was basically one of those things Google bought with other products of a small start up, and I guess now they are done playing with it, so shut it down. Oh well. 

Hustlin' in the Bad Economy

•  "Hustlin' in the Bad Economy" is meant to highlight folks who have to get creative somehow to make a buck in the bad economy. So this story, via HBS Working Knowledge, about influencers in the beauty market would qualify. However, I have mixed feelings since, to be honest, I find the whole "influencer" stuff  (not just for makeup, but for just about anything) on YouTube and Instagram to be mostly a crock. But hey, you gotta give the devil their credit, if they can make something more than just getting some product for compensation and exposure, if they can actually make a buck or two, hey, that is hustlin' in the bad economy. The article does note the brands do pay (no specifics on numbers, i.e. what they would pay an individual, but they do mention how much is spent overall). By the way, in the case of this makeup and beauty market, it is mainly a women's market, and a powerful market it is if you look at the numbers.

Hold My Beer (Serious fuckery in the bad economy)

• And in some more tech company fuckery, Amazon is opening one of their retail stores right across the street from the venerable and independent Parnassus Books in Nashville, TN. Story via LitHub. Why? Again, because fuck them and fuck you, that is why. 

Uber Rich

• P.Z. Myers of Pharyngula sums up well the issue of relying on the uber rich for funding good things like education, science research, and services.  This is specially evident in places like higher education. He writes in part, "Look around your university. See all those fancy buildings named after well-off alumni? That’s the problem, that we rely on the whims of assholes who inherited or stumbled into or stole great wealth, and they use science as Epstein did, as a cosmetic to cover up their crimes and make themselves look better than they are." This reminds me of the old quote attributed to Balzac, that also serves as the epigraph opening Mario Puzo novel The Godfather: "Behind every great fortune, there is a crime."

Finally, this week we have one of the

Great Debates of Our Time

• Via the BBC, do you dip or smother your food in ketchup? Feel free to comment on this great issue of significance (or anything else in this weeks post).

Signs the economy is bad: April 6, 2018 edition

Welcome to another edition of "Signs the Economy is Bad" here at The Itinerant Librarian. This is the semi-regular (as in when I have time and/or feel like doing it) feature where I scour the Internet in search of the oh so subtle hints that the economy is bad. Sure, pundits may say things are getting better, but what do they know? And to show not all is bad, once in a while we look at how good the uber rich have it.

I was not sure that I was going to have enough stories for this week, but the news were more than happy to provide. So here we go.

• The big news in the Bad Economy continue to be the Pendejo In Chief doing a game of chicken with the Chinese over tariffs. Nothing has been done yet. As of this writing, it is mostly threats, but things can escalate quite quickly, and the Chinese have made some moves.  In the meantime, all sorts of stories of collateral damage and natural consequences are surfacing, such as: 
• Red-State voters, i.e. Party of Stupid conservative supporters of the Pendejo In Chief are starting to panic. Story via AlterNet. All of a sudden, they are starting to realize that unlike their leader, the Chinese play long term and they actually know strategy. They are targeting their retaliatory tariffs to products and places made in Red USA. I do not know what they are complaining about. They voted for the guy on  the basis of him doing what he said he would do, and the  Pendejo In Chief is doing exactly what he said he would do. 
• However, not all the trade war is with  China. Who else gets their imports into the U.S. hit hard by tariffs? Pretty much a lot of South Asia. Story via Pew Research.
•  Wealth shock can send you to an early grave. Story via Inc. So what is wealth shock? According to the article, "Middle-aged Americans who experienced a sudden, large economic blow were more likely to die during the following years than those who didn't. The heightened danger of death after a devastating loss, which researchers called a 'wealth shock,' crossed socio-economic lines, affecting people no matter how much money they had to start." So, what could cause some "wealth schock"? Well, a sudden catastrophic medical emergency in the United States that, if you survived it, left you bankrupt and destitute would qualify. One of those pesky details of not having universal health care like the rest of the civilized world. 
• Meanwhile, in rural communities, hospitals continue to close. Story via The Rural Blog. Hmm, rural communities, a.k.a. the places that overwhelmingly voted for the Pendejo In Chief and keep voting for the Party of Stupid. I guess health care must not be that big a deal there. However, according to the article, these hospital closures could force some of those states to implement Medicaid expansions. We shall see. 
• In education news: 
• In Oklahoma and Kentucky, teachers are staging protests and walking out of classrooms to demand better pay and conditions. In Oklahoma, Kentucky, and many parts of the U.S., teachers face a choice: love your job or leave it to make living wage. Story via Reuters.
• Meanwhile, college students continue to starve and suffer food insecurity.Story via Inside Higher Ed.
• Inside Higher Ed also reports that the Urban Institute has a new tool to track student loan debt geographically. 
• The Food Politics blog reports and comments on the USDA releasing the 2018 U.S. Food Assistance overview (the document link is a PDF). 
• Meanwhile, we all know Walmart is notorious for paying their workers so badly that they have to take food assistance and other government help. Well, Amazon is pretty much just as bad and exploitative as illustrated by the fact that at least ten percent of their workers in Ohio rely on  SNAP. Story via Project Censored. So keep that in mind when you happily click buy on your latest Amazon purchase. Bezos may be beyond rich, but he did it on the  back of his barely fed and lowly paid workers. 
• Meanwhile, in Mexico, Coca Cola and junk food are messing up local diets and health. In fact, in Mexico, Coca Cola even owns and runs convenience stores. Story via AlterNet.
• And in news of U.S. military incompetence, it turns out the Pentagon has lost track of $496 million dollars for its African operations. How the fuck do you lose that much money? According to the article, "the Inspector General’s assessment implies that no IG, AFRICOM or CENTCOM personnel have any clue about how much money was spent, what the money was spent on, whether projects were completed, or if it made a difference in the fight against the illegal drug trade." Story via Project Censored. Ponder that one. No one who should know has a clue whatsoever. Personally, I am not surprised. This  is about consistent with U.S. military operations abroad and their financing. See also the book Arms and the Dudes (link to my review of the  book). 
• In news of what can be hit the Millennials with now, turns out that Millennials are missing out on life because they have more debt than savings. Story via VICE. All  I got to say is gee, I can't imagine why. According to the article, "Perhaps the weirdest, saddest part of today’s survey is the presumption millennials are currently having to “delay” commonly agreed life goals, as if debt is just a temporary blip and we’ll all get there in the end." At this point, just insert sad laughter here. 
• In a different story that I found interesting, turns out if your grandpappy fought the Nazis in World War II, he may have a few trophies and Nazi souvenirs in his home. Say he passes away, and his  descendants inherit the Nazi memorabilia. For whatever reason, they want to get rid of it and sell it maybe, but that is not as easy as easy as it sounds. Read on why. Story via VICE.
• Finally, I will end this week with some good news. It turns out the bigoted racist white supremacists assholes of the Stormfront website are having financial problems and difficulty keeping up their website. Story via Pharyngula. What can I say? It  could not happen to a nicer bunch of guys. Once in a while the Bad  Economy does have good news.