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2 books match the query 'Sahel'
Desert Frontier
Ecological and Economic Change Along the Western Sahel, 1600-1850James L.A., Jr. Webb
University of Wisconsin Press, 1994
Desert Frontier is a study of the ecological and economic impact of a long-term trend toward increasing aridity along the southern edge of the western Sahara. Beginning in the early seventeenth century, this climatological trend forced the desert approximately 200–300 kilometers to the south, transforming ethnic identities and ways of life along the length of the Sahel. Based on extensive archival research and on Saharan oral data, Desert Frontier argues that the principal historical dynamics of the precolonial Sahel were determined by this pervasive ecological crisis, rather than by the dynamics of a European-dominated world system.
The Dying Sahara
US Imperialism and Terror in AfricaJeremy Keenan
Pluto Press, 2013
In The Dark Sahara (Pluto, 2009), Jeremy Keenan exposed the collusion between the US and Algeria in fabricating terrorism to justify a new ‘Saharan front’ in Washington’s War on Terror. Now, in The Dying Sahara, he reveals how the designation of the region as a ‘Terror Zone’ has destroyed the lives and livelihoods of thousands of innocent people.
Beginning in 2004, with what local people called the US ‘invasion’ of the Sahel, The Dying Sahara shows how repressive, authoritarian regimes - cashing in on US terrorism ‘rents’ - provoked Tuareg rebellions in both Niger and Mali. Further, he argues that US activity has unleashed a new, narco-trafficking branch of Al-Qaeda.
Keenan's chillingly detailed research shows that the US and its new combatant African command (AFRICOM) have created instability in a region the size of western Europe.