Stephen Ellis – författare

Two thousand years ago, Madagascar was probably uninhabited. An island twice the size of Great Britain, it was home to unique species of flora and fauna that were undisturbed by humanity until the first navigators landed on its shores. Since then, the changes imposed by humans on the wide range of environments to be found in this mini-continent have formed one of the threads of Madagascar's history. No one knows where the island's first inhabitants came from, but there was a strong connection from the earliest period to the islands of South East Asia - today's Indonesia.Austronesians, Arabs, Portuguese, and Dutch sailors and traders successively dominated the sea-lanes around Madagascar, some of the world's oldest long-distance shipping routes. Over the centuries, Madagascar developed its own distinctive language and cultural systems, absorbing migrants from every shore of the Indian Ocean. In the nineteenth century, Britain and France projected a new type of global power that had a major effect on the island, which became a French colony from 1896 to 1960. Throughout this colourful and often turbulent history, the tension between the formation of a highly original culture and the absorption of immigrants, the development of strong social hierarchies, a long experience of slavery and the slave trade, have all had effects that are still felt today. Now home to 17 million people, Madagascar is one of the world's most fascinating and least-known societies.

With Christian revivals (including Evangelicals in the White House), Islamic radicalism and the revitalisation of traditional religions it is clear that the world is not heading towards a community of secular states. Nowhere are religious thought and political practice more closely intertwined than in Africa. African migrants in Europe and America who send home money to build churches and mosques, African politicians who consult diviners, guerrilla fighters who believe that amulets can protect them from bullets, and ordinary people who seek ritual healing: all of these are applying religious ideas to everyday problems of existence, at every level of society. Far from falling off the map of the world, Africa is today a leading centre of Christianity and a growing field of Islamic activism, while African traditional religions are gaining converts in the West.One cannot understand the politics of the present without taking religious thought seriously. Stories about witches, miracles, or people returning from the dead incite political action. In Africa religious belief has a huge impact on politics, from the top of society to the bottom. Religious ideas show what people actually think about the world and how to deal with it. Ellis and Ter Haar maintain that the specific content of religious thought has to be mastered if we are to grasp the political significance of religion in Africa today, but their book also informs our understanding of the relationship between religion and political practice in general.

The growth of fraud and smuggling on a major scale, the plundering of natural resources, the privatisation of state institutions, the development of an economy of plunder, the growth of private armies—all of these features of public life in Africa suggest that the state itself is becoming a vehicle for organised criminal activity. The three authors propose criteria for gauging the criminalisation of African states and present a novel prognosis. Have we moved on from "classical" corruption? There is a difference between the corruption of previous decades and the criminalisation of some African states now taking place. Major operators are now able to connect with global criminal networks. What are the political origins of official implication in crime? The notion of "social capital" has become fashionable among commentators in recent years. What aspects of Africa's past have contributed to current attitudes towards the use of public office for personal enrichment, or even systemic illegality? The new frontiers of crime in South Africa. South Africa has a decades-long tradition of association between crime and politics. South Africa is now the centre of important international patterns of crime, notably in the drug trade. It has both Africas largest formal economy and the continent's largest criminal economy. What are the economic origins of official implication in crime? New forms of corruption have been unintentionally helped by liberal economic reforms.African Issues, edited by Alex de WaalFebruary, 1999 192 pages 8 x 5 Index

Liberia has been one of Africa's most violent trouble spots. In 1990, when thousands of teenage fighters, including young men wearing women's clothing and bizarre objects of decoration, laid siege to the capital, the world took notice. Since then Liberia has been through devastating civil upheaval. What began as a civil conflict, has spread to other West African nations. Eschewing popular stereotypes and simple explanations, Stephen Ellis traces the history of the civil war that has blighted Liberia in recent years and looks at its political, ethnic and cultural roots. He focuses on the role religion and ritual have played in shaping and intensifying this brutal war. In this edition, with a new preface by the author, Ellis provides a current picture of Liberia and details how much of the same problems still exist.

An introductory text.This overview of Africa is intended as an introduction for people who have a professional contact with the continent, such as workers in NGOs and international organizations, investors in emerging markets, bankers and people in business, diplomats, as well as teachers and students.

The banning of the ANC and the SACP left them no other means of political expression but to fight.Examines the South African Communist Party and how it took over the leadership of the ANC between 1960 and 1990, during the time when both organisations were banned in South Africa and were forced to establish their headquarters in exile. It also concerns Umkhonto we Sizwe, the Spear of the Nation, the guerilla army set up jointly by both organisations under the overall command of Nelson Mandela.North America: Indiana U Press

Has Africa moved on from 'classical corruption? What are the political and economic origins of official implication in crime? What are the new frontiers of crime in South Africa?This book examines the growth of fraud and smuggling in African states, the plundering of natural resources, the privatization of state institutions, the development of an economy of plunder and the growth of private armies. It suggests that the state itself is becoming a vehicle for organized criminal activity.The authors propose criteria for gauging the criminalization of African states and present a novel prognosis: they distinguish between the corruption of previous decades and the criminalization of some African states now taking place. Major operators are now able to connect with global criminal networks. Also, the notion of social capital has led to current attitudestowards the use of public office for personal enrichment, or even systematic illegality.Looking at South Africa, the authors examine the decades-long tradition of association between crime and politics in this area. South Africa is now the centre of important international patterns of crime, notably in the drug trade. It has Africa's largest formal economy and the continent's largest criminal economy. Considering the economic origins of official implication in crime, the authors conclude that new forms of corruption have been unintentionally helped by liberal economic reforms.In association with the International African InstituteNorth America: Indiana U Press

Originally published in 1985, this book examines the rising of the menalamba, the Red Shawls, against French colonial rule in Madagascar in the 1890s. Using the words of the Malagasy themselves and the archives of the Malagasy kings and queens, as well as European records, it tells from the inside the story of an Afro-Asian society at a moment of crisis. In the century before the French conquest, rising tensions between modernising kings, self-seeking Christian oligarchs and reactionary guardians of the ancient talismans had weakened the capacity of the kingdom to resist. But just two months after the French occupation of the capital the menalamba revivalist movement sought to restore the customs of the ancestors and expel the French from the island. The civil war of 1895-9, which was fully described here for the first time, has cast a shadow on Malagasy politics ever since.

Nigeria and Nigerians have acquired a notorious reputation for involvement in drug-trafficking, fraud, cyber-crime and other types of serious crime. Successful Nigerian criminal networks have a global reach, interacting with their Italian, Latin American and Russian counterparts. Yet in 1944, a British colonial official wrote that 'the number of persistent and professional criminals is not great' in Nigeria and that 'crime as a career has so far made little appeal to the young Nigerian'. This book traces the origins of Nigerian organised crime to the last years of colonial rule, when nationalist politicians acquired power at a regional level. In need of funds for campaigning, they offered government contracts to foreign businesses in return for kickbacks, in a pattern that recurs to this day. Political corruption encouraged a wider disrespect for the law that spread throughout Nigerian society. When the country's oil boom came to an end in the early 1980s, young Nigerian college graduates headed abroad, eager to make money by any means. Nigerian crime went global at the very moment new criminal markets were emerging all over the world.

Most of what is written about Africa is framed in terms that have been out of date for years. Too often, it is seen as heading for either disaster or salvation; the realities are more subtle, more complicated than this binary opposition suggests. The continent has over the last century experienced the fastest population growth in the entire history of our planet. This brings pressures environmental and human, but it also changes the logic of Africa's economics. It suggests reasons for hope. Thanks to mobile phones, African retail markets are now becoming integrated; in South Africa, Nigeria and elsewhere, banking is penetrating society; foreign direct investment is higher than ever before. And Africa has 80 per cent of the world's empty agricultural land, which foreigners covet. Yet there is no reason to believe that Africa is heading for political stability. Its so-called 'failed states' are actually here to stay. After two centuries when Europeans and Americans thought of Africa as a continent struggling to catch up, it has arrived. It has developed, but in ways no one foresaw. Season of Rains explains how one billion Africans are changing their continent and changing the world. Stephen Ellis dissects how the postcolonial legacy has been overcome, how Africans are seizing the commercial and political initiative, and why this matters. Africans are reorienting-literally-as they connect to the East. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese, seeking minerals, oil and more, have settled in Africa; conversely the Chinese city of Guangzhou is home to as many as 100,000 Africans. In a series of short, pungently written chapters, Ellis surveys the continent today, offering the reader an indispensable guide to how money, power, religion and indigenous development will shape Africa's coming generations.

External Mission is the Winner of the Recht Malan Prize for Non-Fiction awarded by Media24 in South Africa. Nelson Mandela's release from prison in February 1990 was one of the most memorable moments of recent decades. It came a few days after the removal of the ban on the African National Congress; founded a century ago and outlawed in 1960, it had transferred its headquarters abroad and opened what it termed an External Mission. For the thirty years following its banning, the ANC had fought relentlessly against the apartheid state. Finally voted into office in 1994, the ANC today regards its armed struggle as the central plank of its legitimacy. External Mission is the first study of the ANC s period in exile, based on a full range of sources in southern Africa and Europe. These include the ANC s own archives and also those of the Stasi, the East German ministry that trained the ANC's security personnel. It reveals that the decision to create the Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) -- a guerrilla army which later became the ANC's armed wing -- was made not by the ANC but by its allies in the South African Communist Party after negotiations with Chinese leader Mao Zedong.In this impressive work, Ellis shows that many of the strategic decisions made, and many of the political issues that arose during the course of that protracted armed struggle, had a lasting effect on South Africa, shaping its society even up to the present day.

Liberia was in the headlines in 1990 when thousands of teenage fighters, including young men wearing women's clothing and bizarre objects of decoration, laid seige to the capital, Monrovia. In response to the crisis, a West African peacekeeping force, ECONMOG, was sent to stabilize the country and prevent the main warlord, Charles Taylor, from coming to power. Seven years later, however, Taylor was elected President. The country had a fragile peace but the war had spread to its neighbour Sierra Leone. This book traces the history of the civil war that has blighted Liberia in recent years and looks at its roots in the way governments have been established in West Africa during the 20th century.

Radiological imaging is now accessible to a wide range of healthcare workers, many of whom are increasingly taking on extended roles. This book will equip all healthcare professionals, including medical students, chest physicians, radiographers and radiologists, with the techniques and knowledge required to interpret plain chest radiographs. It is not an exhaustive text, but concentrates on interpretive skills and pattern recognition – these help the reader to understand the pitfalls and spot the clues that will allow them to correctly interpret the chest X-rays they will encounter in their daily practice. The book features over 300 high quality images, along with a range of case story images designed to enable readers to test and develop their interpretation skills. Interpreting Chest X-Rays is a handy ready reference that will help you to avoid making errors interpreting chest X-rays and decide, for example:if a temporary pacing wire has been inserted correctlywhether the shadows you can see are real abnormalitiesif all chest tubes and lines are located appropriately in an ITU patientwhat further imaging may assist interpretation of an apparent abnormalitywhether a post-surgical chest is significantly abnormalwhat organism might be causing an infectionwhy a patient is short of breathwhether patient positioning accounts for an abnormal appearance on a chest X-raywhat impact radiographic technique has had on the appearance of pathology From reviews:'Interpreting Chest X-Rays is highly recommended for anyone wishing to acquire a basic yet relatively comprehensive approach to the chest radiograph. The book is affordable, and is particularly suited for trainees, including pulmonary medicine fellows, medical students on a radiology rotation, physicians' assistant students or nursing students on a critical care or pulmonary rotation, and first-year radiology residents on a thoracic radiology rotation. Dr. Stephen Ellis makes the difficult seem easy, with his instructive teaching style and helpful approach to the surprisingly difficult topic of chest radiography interpretation.'Clinical Pulmonary Medicine, November 2010'Interpreting Chest X-Rays is an excellent, simple book...[it] is reasonably priced and would be recommended to all healthcare professionals who are involved with the interpretation of plain chest radiographs.'RAD Magazine, December 2010'Interpreting Chest X-Rays was a delight to read and review. It is a concise text that covers the basics of chest radiography. This book would be perfect for the medical student, allied health care worker, or general physician.'American Journal of Roentgenology, May 2011

Mobilization against apartheid, the campaign against blood diamonds, the women's movement in Liberia where Africa's first female head of state was elected in 2005: these are all examples of socially based movements that have had a major effect on Africa's recent history. Yet the most influential theories concerning social movements worldwide have paid little heed to Africa, basing themselves more often on cases drawn from other continents. This volume draws together contributions from some leading writers on social movements in Africa, setting empirical studies alongside a couple of theoretical chapters. Africa’s social movements have distinctive features that are related to the continent’s specific history.

'Worlds of Power shows how religious and supernatural ideas dominate African politics and culture, how they shape the ways that Africans both rich and poor view the world. [...] This wide-ranging and thoroughly researched book is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand modern Africa.' --Professor Philip Jenkins, author of The Next Christendom: the Coming of Global Christianity 'Power in the material world, most Africans continue to believe, cannot be separated from its source in the spiritual. It is the singular genius of authors Stephen Ellis and Gerrie ter Haar that they understand the encompassing nature and centrality of this belief. [...] The clarity and accuracy of this analytical lens makes Worlds of Power one of the most important books on African religion - and, indeed, on African politics - to appear in many years.' --Professor R. Scott Appleby, University of Notre Dame Far from falling off the map of the world, Africa is today a leading centre of Christianity and a growing field of Islamic activism. African traditional religions are gaining converts in the West.Religious belief has a huge impact on politics in Africa, from the top of society to the bottom. Religious ideas show what people actually think about the world and how to deal with it. Stories about witches, miracles and people returning from the dead incite political action. Ellis and Ter Haar maintain that the specific content of religious thought has to be grasped if we are to appreciate the political significance of religion in Africa today, and this is what their book sets out to do. It also advances understanding of the relation between religion and political action in general.