ISBN | 9780992236366 |
Pages | 552 |
Dimensions | 210 x 148 mm |
Published | 2016 |
Publisher | African Perspectives, South Africa |
Format | Paperback |
A Giant Tree has Fallen
Tributes to Ali Al'Amin Mazrui
edited by Seifudein Adem, Jideofor Adibe, Abdul Karim Bangura, Abdul Samed Bemath
This book memorialising the life and work of Ali Al’Amin Mazrui comprises more than 130 tributes written by people ranging from heads of state to journalists. Presented here are those tributes for which copyright permissions were received from among the hundreds that appeared online and print. In preparing this book, it was made very clear that, unlike other books of tributes to great men and women, there would be no segmentation of the sections based on writers’ and speakers’ positions in life. Instead, it was decided that the tributes be presented in alphabetical order based on writers’ and speakers’ last names. The decision hinged on the fact that Mazrui would have apposed any segmentation of people by class, race, ethnicity, gender, etc. Nonetheless, out of great respect for Mazrui’s immediate family members, their tributes are presented first, followed by those from his global family members. Also included in the book are three chapters that comprise an introductory essay, a brief biography of Mazrui, and an essay on a metaphorical linguistic analysis of the tributes. The book also has a preface by the co-editors and a foreword by Salim Ahmed Salim, the former Prime Minister of the United Republic of Tanzania and Secretary-General of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), now known as the Africa Union. Salim, who served as the Secretary-General of the OAU from 1989 to 2001, was Mazrui's friend and contemporary. Mazrui once described Salim as “Mr Africa” and the “first real postcolonial Secretary-General of the OAU."
About the Editors
Dr. Seifudein Adem is Associate Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies and Associate Professor of Political Science at the State University of New York in Binghamton in the United States. Dr. Adem's books include Paradigm Lost, Paradigm Regained: The Worldview of Ali A. Mazrui (2002), Anarchy, Order and Power in World Politics (2002) and Hegemony and Discourse (2005). He is currently working on Professor Mazrui's intellectual biography. Dr. Adem is also the Vice President of the New York African Studies Association.
Abdul Karim Bangura is a researcher-in-residence of Abrahamic Connections and Islamic Peace Studies at the Centre for Global Peace at American University and Professor of Research Methodology and Public Policy at Howard University, Washington
Abdul Samed Bemath is a South African based library Consultant and the compiler of three annotated bibliographies of Ali Mazrui’s writings covering the period 1962-2015.