Related Vacation Book Subjects: VacationBookReview burkina faso cambodia
More Pages: burundi Page 1 2
Books to read if you're planning a vacation in "burundi", sorted by average review score:
Field Guide to the Reptiles of East Africa: All the Reptiles of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi
Published in Hardcover by Academy Pr (October, 2001)
Authors: Stephen Spawls, Kim Howell, Robert C. Drewes, James Ashe, and Harald Hinkel
Average review score:

Excellent Reptile Resource and Field Guide
The long-awaited field guide to the diverse reptile populations of East Africa. This book was everything I expected it to be and more. Comprehensive listings, excellent photography and detailed information on habitat/distribution, natural history, conservation status etc. I can't say enough good things about this book, the list of authors should speak for themselves! ;-)

No serious herper's library is complete without this book...

Perfect blend of science and user-friendliness
I was hoping to be able to buy this book before my trip to Kenya in August 01. Unfortunately, it wasn't yet published at that time. I thought I could pick up a decent field guide in Nairobi, but I was wrong. The best I could find there was a short paperback with fuzzy photos, anecdotes, and very incomplete list of species. Nonetheless, I had a great trip and identified some nice herps.
In December I saw that this Field Guide was out, so I bought it and found it to be outstanding. A nice fat book jam packed with beautiful and useful photos, great descriptions, habitat and range info, and natural history. There is so much precise and credible information in this book it is amazing. So much work must have gone into producing this thing! The species coverage is vast. For example, there is complete info on over thirty species of chameleon. The identification keys are also practical and simple. The writing is straightfoward -- minimal superscientist jargon -- but also precise and complete and consistent. Good sections on how to find herps, how to use the book, dealing with snakebite, etc.
I am very glad I bought this book. The authors have my admiration for this achievement.

Field Guide to the Birds of East Africa: Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi (A Volume in the Poyser Series)
Published in Hardcover by Academic Press (October, 2001)
Authors: Terry Stevenson, John Fanshawe, Brian Small, John Gale, Norman Arlott, and Terry Stevens
Average review score:

a good start - but a thorough review is in order
I used this field guide during my recent trip to Kenya and Uganda. Although it is by all means an excellent fieldguide I do have some remarks. A number of the plates contained errors, suggesting the artists didn't see these birds in the field. I realise it is virtually impossible for artists to see all species featured in a book such as this in the field, so that a lot of plates are drawn from skins. It is important however to use skins from the region itself, this may make a lot of difference. We came to the conclusion that for a number of species skins from west Africa were used. Especially the greenbuls had some misleading plates. For a number of species the Kenyan Zimmerman-book is probably better, although those plates lack in other respects.
In addition a number of the maps were incorrect, especially for Uganda.
Still, if you go to the region for birding, make sure to get this book, because it is definitely the best field guide around.

The perfect field guide!
This book really sets a very high standard and we can only hope other parts of the world's tropics will get similar guides in due time. The plates are just about as superb as one could possibly wish for. When you compare this book with the new field guides that have recently come out for South America, it seems like there are two worlds! Just compare the flamingos, the osprey, or the parrots with the pictures you find in "The Field Guide to the Birds of Peru" and you know what I mean! There is also an excellent lay-out, with helpful concise text and useful range maps all neatly placed together. And the book is still amazingly compact.

Fabulous new East African bird book.
After years of having one of the world's worst bird books, East Africa now has two of the best. The Zimmerman/Turner book on Kenya and Northern Tanzania, the work of 30 years, set a new standard of scholarship and illustration. This book draws on that one, but is even better for the tourist and field birder. It covers all of Uganda and Tanzania, as well as Rwanda and Burundi. It is smaller and lighter to carry. And the illustrations and their placement in related groups on the same page are simply outstanding. This is one of the best bird books in the world and will dominate the market for years to come.

Kinyarwanda and Kirundi Names: A Semiolinguistic Analysis of Bantu Onomastics (African Studies, Vol 7)
Published in Hardcover by Edwin Mellen Press (October, 1989)
Author: Alexandre Kimenyi
Average review score:

One of the Best Books on African Names and Naming Systems
Dr. Kimenyi uses academic application to prove his point that the study of names is a crucial aspect of understanding African society. Thorough explanations are accorded the personal as well as some place names of the Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa peoples of eastern and central Africa. Kimenyi ventures deep into the linguistics.This, to some extent, renders the book as very academic. Kimenyi exemplifies how the names get to be structured, including the prefixes used to form gender-specific names. Relationships of names to such aspects as war, clanship, proverbs, poetry, praises, royalty, and social class is examined. And the reader gets to absorb so much about the much highlighted issue of friction versus harmony between the ethnic groups. The main shortcoming of this master volume is the poor editing, illustrated by several typographical errors and unnecessary repetition.

Names of the Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa of East-Central Africa
Kimenyi, in this book, uses academic application to prove his point that onomastics (the study of names) is a crucial aspect to understanding African society. Detailed explanations are, in this book, accorded the names of the Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa who primarily live in Rwanda and Burundi, but are found in sizeable populations in the neighboring countries Uganda, Congo (Zaire), and Tanzania. Kimenyi ventures deeply into the linguistics, this to some extent making the book quite academic. He illustrates how the names get to be structured, including prefixes employed to form gender-specific names. The relationships of the names to such aspects as war, clanship, proverbs, poetry, praises, royalty, and social class is examined. At the same time, the reader gets to absorb so much about the much highlighted issue of friction versus harmony amongst the ethnic groups in Rwanda and Burundi. Indeed many see the violence between groups in Rwanda as a result of an artificial creation of classes in the colonial era in a racist classification and divide-and-rule technique. Kimenyi has a new book out that goes much deeper into that. The main shortcoming of Kimenyi's master volume on African names is the por editing as illustrated by the many typographical errors and unnecessary repetition. Furthermore, this hardcover book is library- and research-oriented, therefore it is not readily available to the general public. The book deserves to be rewritten and re-edited, given the magnitude of important information provided. But the book remains a must for those interested in African names. The Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa have a highly sophisticated and intriguing system of names and naming. No doubt, I made extensive reference to Alexandre Kimenyi's book in my books on names that include "Traditional African Names," "African Ethnics and Personal Names," and "African Names and Naming."

Burundi on the Brink 1993-95: A UN Special Envoy Reflects on Preventive Diplomacy (Perspectives Series)
Published in Paperback by United States Institute of Peace (April, 2000)
Authors: Ahmedou Ould Abdallah and Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah
Average review score:

Hard Reading for Hard Issues--Graduate Minds Only

This book is for graduate students and hard-core professionals whose lives might depend on really understanding the ugly complexities of places like Burundi where they will be sent again and again.

This book is depressing. One sees both the heroism and the futility of United Nations activities. Sadly, whereas the Texas Rangers might have gotten away with sending one great man to handle a major crisis, the United Nations, sending one great man and an assistant, is decades behind the times in terms of understanding what it is about and how to obtain results in today's world.

The lessons from Burundi summarized by the author at the end of the book are an excellent conclusion:

Problem Area #1: Shortcomings in UN Machinery and Culture, including no intelligence gathering and analysis; weak institutional memory; lack of accountability; and luxury and inefficiency.

Problem Area #2: Overreliance on Military Intervention

Problem Area #3: Unintended Consequences of Humanitarian Assistance

This book left me with a profound respect for the people that work for the United Nations, and with a continuing profound distrust and disrespect for the United Nations as an entity. It is not working. It needs a complete make-over, and one wonders if the time has not come for a new international gathering of governments and non-governmental organizations, to conceptualize a completely fresh start that harnesses distributed resources spanning the full range from civil economic assistance to police protection and training, to violent military intervention.

Let me say this again: this is a very good book, it is only for the best and the brightest, and it calls into question the entire United Nations structure and management. Instead of paying our dues to the United Nations, instead of Ten Turner giving them a billion dollar tax avoidance contribution, we should probably create a new international Fund for Peace that uses the Internet and the network effect to nurture "many small acts" instead of one large industrial-age monstrosity called the United Nations.

Do I Still Have a Life? Voices from the Aftermath of War in Rwanda and Burundi. (Publications in Anthropology)
Published in Paperback by Department of Anthropology, University of Kansas (15 June, 2000)
Authors: John M. Janzen and Reinhild Kauenhoven Janzen
Average review score:

Voices of Rwandan survivors
Among the many books about the Rwandan genocide, this is one of the first to give priority to the words and feelings of Rwandans. The authors spent several months in the region shortly after the massacre interviewing many survivors. John Janzen is an anthropologist, and his scholarship is thorough. But much of the book is a collection of people's stories. The drawings by children of what they witnessed is particularly haunting. While of interest to scholars, this book includes many illustrations and is easily accessible to the general reader.

Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory, and National Cosmology Among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania
Published in Library Binding by University of Chicago Press (July, 1995)
Author: Liisa H. Malkki
Average review score:

The formation of the Hutu identity
Liisa Malkki is an anthropologist who has done fieldwork within Africa. She writes of past adversities and destruction that the Hutu went through. Despite this, they still maintain an identity while adapting to situations. She discusses what lengths the Tutsi went to in order to elevate their status from minority to the majority (the mass killings/genocide of the Hutu). Malkki's main point in the book is that despite the violence and adversity that the Hutu encountered, they still have a central identity. It is this adversity and mass genocide that played an important role in shaping Hutu culture. At the beginning of the book, Malkki writes about the Hutu and Tutsi "mythico-history" or ethnic conflict. She gives great detail of past violence and reasons behind why it happened. She develops her argument as to why the Hutu who survived the mass killings fled. The identity of the Hutu is what still remains intact whether in Rwanda or Burundi. They are of the Hutu tribe.

Tracking Wild Chimpanzees in Kibira National Park
Published in Hardcover by Lothrop Lee & Shepard (March, 1988)
Author: Joyce Powzyk
Average review score:

Wonderful!
Tracking Wild Chimpanzees is a wonderful children's book. It really is a book about Burundi in central Africa, although, as the title suggests, the storyline is about tracking wild chimpanzees in the beautiful, but threatened Kibira National Park -- a high altitude rain forest in the mountains of Burundi.

The illustrations are wonderful and provide an accurate look at a slice of Burundian culture.

I'm sorry to hear that it is out of print -- but don't let that stop you from trying to find it.

Burundi : the tragic years
Published in Unknown Binding by Orbis Books ()
Author: Thomas Patrick Melady
Average review score:

Interesting if not wholly accurate
I read this book in 1988 just prior to arriving in Burundi as a Peace Corps volunteer.

The author, the former US Ambassador to Burundi during the 1972 massacre, suggests that Burundi would be better served if they geographically divided the country along ethnic lines: part Hutu and part Tutsi.

I chuckled at the notion, and after 3 years living in Burundi, I felt that the mere suggestion was riduculous.

With violence ongoing in Burundi, it seems that on a certain level, perhaps sub-division is a valid idea, but that would be akin to the US being two seperate countries: North and South.

Peace will only come to Burundi when the various warring factions realize that power must be shared.

Wild Boy of Burundi: A Study of an Outcast Child (188P)
Published in Hardcover by Random House (December, 1978)
Authors: Harlan L. Lane and Richard Pillard
Average review score:

Strange book
This book tells the story of how an urban myth played out in the hands of the two writers. A 1976 Johannesburg Times article about a Burundian boy raised by a band of monkeys fell into the hands of Harlan Lanes. Lane was recognized as an expert on feral children, having recently published a book on Victor of Aveyron, the well-documented feral child of nineteenth century France. When writing about Victor, Lane had naturally had to rely exclusively on the incomplete written records of the time. Given what he could discover from the written records, Lane speculated that Victor was not autistic, as some people claimed, and that his persistent communication and social disturbances had more likely come from a different source. As presented here, the story of a modern boy raised by animals in the wild was an opportunity for a potentially fascinating and awe-inspiring research project for Lane.

The book flips between a travel memoir and an ordinary prose discussion written for general audiences about the scientific research on feral children. As travel memoir, it also flips between the two authors, Lane and Pillard. About the first third of the book describes in detail the preparations for their expedition to Burundi, leaving some readers wondering when they will actually get on with the trip. However, as the book progresses, and it gradually becomes clear that the story is a hoax, and that the boy in question is an ordinary developmentally disabled boy who probably is autistic and had spent almost of all of his life in orphanages, we begin to see that there almost wouldn't be a story at all if the authors hadn't written so extensively about their preparations. After the stories of the pre-trip press conferences and talk show appearances, it almost seems as if the authors had to write the book. Whether the book was written to justify their expenditures and publicity, to satisfy a prior book contract, or to give the public closure to the tale, it's hard to judge at this point, some 25 years later.

What does this book offer us today? As a book for general readers on feral children, it's rather limited, especially since it doesn't contain citations to other work or a bibliography. Perhaps it's greatest value is the honest tale it tells of academics who were originally taken by an urban myth.

The 2000 Import and Export Market for Butter in Burundi
Published in Digital by ICON Group Ltd. ()
Author: The Butter Research Group
Average review score:
No reviews found.

Related Vacation Book Subjects: VacationBookReview burkina faso cambodia
More Pages: burundi Page 1 2