Afia is a young girl who dreams of being a princess but she doesn't know of any princesses who look like her. As she travels to her motherland, Ghana, Afia is about to find out something truly extraordinary about her family history. Maybe, after all, princesses like Afia do exist and their stories still inspire.This is the debut story in the Ashanti Princess and Prince book series. The purpose of this series is to:1. Emphasize the importance of Black representation in children's books;2. Introduce young girls and boys of African descent to stories which allow them to relate to the main characters;3. Empower children to develop confidence and a sense of pride in their African heritage;4. Encourage children to learn about their family history and cultural heritage; and5. Inspire readers to develop an interest in learning about Ghanaian history and cultureAbout the Author Crystal Boateng was born and raised in Kumasi, Ghana. She moved to Massachusetts at a young age with her family.She is a proud alumna of Mount Holyoke College and holds a law degree and MBA from the University of Connecticut. Crystal has two children, Whitney and Leo, who are her inspiration behind Afia the Ashanti Princess: A Visit to the Motherland. She wrote this book to introduce young readers of African descent to a non-traditional princess story so that they can identify with the main character. Her hope is to inspire young readers of her Ashanti Princess book series to develop an interest in further learning about Ghanaian culture and history.

For the first time, anthropologist Robert Edgerton tells the story of the Hundred-Year War—from 1807 to 1900, between the British Empire and the Asante Kingdom—from the Asante point of view. In 1817, the first British envoy to meet the king of the Asante of West Africa was dazzled by his reception. A group of 5,000 Asante soldiers, many wearing immense caps topped with three foot eagle feathers and gold ram's horns, engulfed him with a "zeal bordering on phrensy," shooting muskets into the air. The envoy was escorted, as no fewer than 100 bands played, to the Asante king's palace and greeted by a tremendous throng of 30,000 noblemen and soldiers, bedecked with so much gold that his party had to avert their eyes to avoid the blinding glare. Some Asante elders wore gold ornaments so massive they had to be supported by attendants. But a criminal being lead to his execution - hands tied, ears severed, knives thrust through his cheeks and shoulder blades - was also paraded before them as a warning of what would befall malefactors. This first encounter set the stage for one of the longest and fiercest wars in all the European conquest of Africa. At its height, the Asante empire, on the Gold Coast of Africa in present-day Ghana, comprised three million people and had its own highly sophisticated social, political, and military institutions. Armed with European firearms, the tenacious and disciplined Asante army inflicted heavy casualties on advancing British troops, in some cases defeating them. They won the respect and admiration of British commanders, and displayed a unique willingness to adapt their traditional military tactics to counter superior British technology. Even well after a British fort had been established in Kumase, the Asante capital, the indigenous culture stubbornly resisted Europeanization, as long as the "golden stool," the sacred repository of royal power, remained in Asante hands. It was only after an entire century of fighting that resistance ultimately ceased.

The Asante World provides fresh perspectives on the Asante, the largest Akan group in Southern Ghana, and what new scholars are thinking and writing about the "world the Asante made." By employing a thematic approach, the volume interrogates several dimensions of Asante history including state formation, Asante-Ahafo and Bassari-Dagomba relations in the context of Asante northward expansion, and the expansion to the south. It examines the role of Islam which, although extremely intense for just a short time, had important ramifications. Together the essays excavate key aspects of Asante political economy and culture, exemplified in kola nut production, the kente/adinkra cloth types and their associated symbols, proverbs, and drum language. The Asante World explores the Asante origins of Jamaican maroons, Asante secular government, contemporary politics of progress, governance through the institution of Ahemaa or Queenmothers, epidemiology and disease, and education in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Featuring innovative and insightful contributions from leading historians of the Asante world, this volume is essential reading for advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, and scholars concerned with African Studies, African diaspora history, the history of Ghana and the Gold Coast, the history of Islam in Africa, and Asante history.