Civilization or Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology
with Marjolijn De Jager, Harold J. Salemson (Editor)
Pub. Price $35.00
ISBN#: 1556520492
Publisher: Lawrence Hill Books
Format: Hardcover
Publication Date: March 1991
Edition Description: 1st ed
Pub. Price $17.95
Format: Paperback
Publication Date: April 1990
Edition Description: 1st ed Edition Number: 1 Read a review of
Civilization or Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology
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. -Library
Journal |