Have you ever wondered what missionary life is really like? Congo Vignettes offers an intimate and honest glimpse into three generations of one family. Lived out against the backdrop of the Democratic Republic of Congo, author Shawn Lantz invites you into the triumphs and tragedies of her grandparents, parents, and siblings. For anyone needing a reminder that God can do exceedingly abundantly above all one could ask or imagine, Congo Vignettes is a joyful collection of stories encompassing seventy years of God's faithfulness to his children. - Back cover.

The author lived seven years in the Congo as a servant of the Belgian government. He fostered deep bonds with the primitive Sonde tribe and gained the full confidence of Kianza, their illiterate tribal chirf, who inspired this book. The deep knowledge of the earliest African life is lost forever because those who knew it could not write and those who had learned to write never knew it. Primitive African life is now overshadowed by a brand new "Africa in transition". This development took less than 75 years. Original tribal life in Africa is covered with a handful of stories as told by the chief and his father. The social hierarchy of the tribe, their laws and enforcement, worship and witchcraft, slavery and the role of ghosts, initiation processses into manhood and various secret societies get to the glue that secured the social order of a tribe that was only one step beyond the original hunter-gatherer's way of life.

A "meticulously researched and comprehensive" (Financial Times​) history of the devastating war in the heart of Africa's Congo, with first-hand accounts of the continent's worst conflict in modern times. At the heart of Africa is the Congo, a country the size of Western Europe, bordering nine other nations, that since 1996 has been wracked by a brutal war in which millions have died. In Dancing in the Glory of Monsters, renowned political activist and researcher Jason K. Stearns has written a compelling and deeply-reported narrative of how Congo became a failed state that collapsed into a war of retaliatory massacres. Stearns brilliantly describes the key perpetrators, many of whom he met personally, and highlights the nature of the political system that brought these people to power, as well as the moral decisions with which the war confronted them. Now updated with a new introduction, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters tells the full story of Africa's Great War.

Congolese Social Networks: Living on the Margins in Muizenberg, Cape Town is a closely researched ethnography that focuses predominantly on the lives of three Congolese transmigrants (self-identified as such). This monograph situates them in a cosmopolitan South African space amongst dissimilar South African others, and similar national others. Unlike other contemporary international texts on transnational migrants, this book discusses entrée into the immigration country, and the diverse attempts of Congolese men to situate themselves within social networks. In the intellectual move to focus on transnational spaces and transnationality, the reality of migration in a specific socio-political context—a focus on place—has been ignored. Migration on the African continent is more similar to the early migrations of Italian, Polish, and Jewish immigrants to the United States in the initial phases of arrival, adaptation, and reproduction of the national self. While these Congolese transmigrants maintain contact with those back home through various social media applications, their very real survival needs force a day-to-day living that secures survival needs, whilst those of a higher class maintain a focus on lola (paradise)—onward migration out of South Africa. An important aspect of securing one’s survival needs is the creation of diverse social networks. Through these networks, Congolese transmigrants access information regarding employment, information on appropriate educational opportunities for children, information regarding safe residential areas, and a number of other forms of information that support their existence in an oftentimes alienating South African space.

Brāhmanic Vignettes is a boon to readers of all ages interested in India's past, its traditions, as well as its possible future. The author's erudition in Sanskrit, English, and French has been used to illuminate his varied experiences first as student, then teacher, later as career diplomat, and after retirement, founder of a unique school in Mysore, India. The school emphasizes Sanskrit teaching; its students participate in a unique experiment called Dharmamananam (described in the book), introducing them to Vedantic values of ancient Indian culture. Glimpses of other countries, leaders, benefactors, and common folk are vividly brought to light, prompting the reader's intellectual and moral involvement. His meetings with Dr. S. Radhakrishnan (scholar and former president of India), Jawaharlal Nehru (first prime minister of India, who chose him as a diplomatic recruit in the new Indian Republic), and many events and encounters with fascinating people from varied cultures have many interesting insights. The author's unique Brāhmanic perspective of India's foreign policy, Shakespeare, the Indian epic Ramayana, and the need to revamp society and education using the Gurukula model of ancient India and the Kibutzims of Israel makes for compelling reading. His personal involvement with and the account of the Portuguese enclaves and Goa becoming integral with the nascent Indian republic, describes the pulls and pressures of history and political reality with his own clarity of vision and immediacy. There are many such sketches meriting study and reflection.