West African history buffs will have a field day with any of the following titles: Contemporary West African States by Donald Cruise O'Brien, West Africa: an Introduction to its History by Michael Crowder, A History of West Africa, 1000-1800 by Basil Davidson, West Africa Since 1800 by JB Webster and AA Boahen, and Topics of West African History by Adu Boahen.For would-be pundits in the political and economic arenas, there's meat to be dished in Democracy in Translation: Understanding Politics in an Unfamiliar Culture by Frederic C Schaffer, West African States by John Dunn and The Economies of West Africa by Douglas Rimmer.Tracy D Snipe's Arts and Politics in Senegal, 1960-1996 is a solid, multi-dimensional work on the subjects and their interrelation.Watch out, all you greenies and tree huggers out there: The Seeds of Famine: Ecological Destruction & the Development Dilemma in the West African Sahel is just as cheery as it sounds.Africa South of the Sahara and the Resource Guide to Travel in Sub-Saharan Africa, Vol 1 are both widely respected and highly detailed reference works for the region.A Field Guide to Birds of The Gambia and Senegal by Clive Barlow, Tim Wacher and Tony Disley is just what the ornithologist in you needs to really take flight.Geoffrey Gorer's African Dances is less a study of African dance than it is a tale of a colonial-era white man's adventures travelling from Senegal to Benin in 1935.Senegalese author Sembéné Ousmane's God's Bits of Wood is his most widely acclaimed to date and tells of the struggles of strikers on the Dakar-Niger train line in 1948. Other novels by Ousmane include The Last of the Empire and Money Order with White Genesis.Florence Ladd's first novel, Sarah's Psalm, deals with a young, black Harvard student who travels to Senegal to interview a famous writer and ends up falling in love with both the country and the writer.Susan Lowerre's Under the Neem Tree tells a vivid and accurate story of a Peace Corps volunteer in the region.