posting both a direct and a visible link for this one:

http://www.powerhousebooks.com/blackgold.pdf

You will notice, immediately the stunning photographs courtesy of Ed Kashi of National Geographic.

There are some useful support materials, including articles written by Watts at the books website here:

http://www.curseoftheblackgoldbook.com/

NPR's story on the book, including at interview with Ed Kashi, is hereand National Geographic coverage is here

Michael Watts, of course, published that fine work Silent Violence: Food, Famine, and Peasantry in Northern Nigeria in 1983.

If you scroll down, you will find I have added a new blog roll entitled:

Voices of Kenya's Vulnerable Children and Youth

Thanks to the Kenyan Pundit for alerting us all to this remarkable work (asante sana, ndugu). As part of an Advocacy Project endeavor in conjunction with the Undugu Society of Kenya (USK), 17 Kenyan studentssupply--this in the capital city. Life in the villages was, obviously, much more difficult. Crops couldn't get to market and life was very, very localized. (In some cases, this made things better but that is a different discussion.) I returned again in 1986-87 for my full dissertation research during a time of IMF restructuring. And then in 1994, I returned, again, this time picking up a consultancy job with USAID and the International Red Cross conducting a "rapid assessment survey" of the condition of children orphaned by the HIV/AIDS virus. It was a transformative experience as all fieldwork experience should be. Dealing with the daily poverty and the pain and guilt it induced in me was, in many respects, more than I could handle. I came to recognize