Civilization or Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 464 pages
• Published by: Lawrence Hill Books April 1, 1991
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1556520484
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1556520488
• Book Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Weighs: 1.4 pounds

From Library Journal
This last work of the well-known Senegalese scholar (1923-86) is a summation and expansion of his two previous volumes-- Precolonial Black Africa (1987) and The African Origin of Civilization (1974)--and offers a refined statement of his life's work, to prove the primacy of African culture by proving that ancient Egypt was a black society, first in many cultural achievements later claimed by the following Indo-Aryan cultures. To this end, Diop discusses the paleontology, sociology, anthropology, and intellectual history of the ancient Egyptians set against contemporaneous cultures and also the modern Wolofs. This is a fascinating and frustrating volume. The organization is patchy; one central section seems to have gone off-course into an apology for Marxist political theory; the translation stumbles badly, especially in the early chapters; and one feels that history is being stretched (a la Velikovsky) on the author's Procrustean bed of African genesis. But Diop's erudition is patent, his place in African letters is secure, and his major works should certainly be available. For academic and large public collections.
-Jo-Ann D. Suleiman, SANAD Support Technologies, Rockville, Md.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description
Challenging societal beliefs, this volume rethinks African and world history from an Afrocentric perspective.


Reader Reviews
This review is from: Civilization or Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology (Hardcover) I'd suggest this book to anyone who is reading recent books on the origins of civilization. What I liked about it is that Diop was bringing a wealth of research that was otherwise inaccessible to me to the this issue--and I found that I could connect this history to that of Europe and Britain using other resources that I have. the issue I have with is is that some of the work struck me as oriented to handling one set of politically motivated forms of anthropology that he found objectionable-but he didn't consider the work of a lot of other major authors (i.e. the work of Lewis Spence on connections between North Africa and Ancient Britain). I thought Diops criticisms of Gimubutus were especially interesting.