Customer Reviews

The African Genius: An Introduction to African Social and Cultural History

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I see another person has put forth their opinions on Africa,and let me quess pre roman europe was so great also. People fail to realize that in pre islamic Africa they have found evidence to urbanization that people once thought was prouduced by the interaction of arabs and tuaregs. They discovered an African city called djenne. Djenne actually had a population bigger than medevil england. Islamic Africa also was a great civlization that boasted many libaries and Quranic schools such as Sankore, Katsina in Kano. The Agrican genius comes from the fact that African black smiths had a cure for small pox way before the europeans. The Yoruba,Edo, other cultres lived in cities with walled cities,moats and doors with locks. I mean sure they never had a reinassance nor a Scientific age,but they were not savages running around in the jungle with no political organization.

Mr. Davidson has written a very disappointing, very flawed book. He seems to think that we, the readers, will fall all over ourselves to ascribe greatness and "genius" to African civilizations merely on his say-so and the fact that it's African. Uh-uh; no way. We are past the point (though admittedly not by far) where we blindly accept something African as necessarily, without more, worthy of high regard. Examine Mr. Davidson's own book critically and the truth becomes obvious: pre-Islamic African cultures in general fall well short of the cultures of Europe, Asia, and even the New World. Proof of this includes:

(1) yesterday's Africa was "anti-scientific" (p 59);

(2) knowledge was not accumulated from generation to generation (p 59), mainly because pre-Islamic Africans were illiterate (pp 28-9, 222, 257);

(3) the ideal tribal organization was "static" (p 55);

(4) beliefs and actions of the Africans were "irrational" and "ghost-ridden" (p 80);

(5) new African dynasties rewrote or suppressed their histories (p 115)(European, Asian, and New World dynasties did this too, but it's hardly the mark of genius);

(6) "the moral order was robustly collective" (p 70) and "individuals might have rights, but they had them only by virtue of the obligations they fulfilled to the community" (p 57).

All this points to a people who had no basis in science, no scientific method, no permanent knowledge or institutional learning, and no path to progressive betterment.

Moreover, Davidson glosses over uncomfortable aspects of African culture. For example:

(1) he willingly omits descriptions of rituals for "female circumcision" (p 172);

(2) he makes no mention of infanticide as a birth control practice or the widespread practice of twin infanticide (see "Things Fall Apart" for an interesting discussion on this point);

(3) he makes no mention of the frenzy of human sacrifice, often by horrible means, that accompanied some of Africa's larger civilizations (for a brief discussion of this in the Nigerian-Benin context, see "Lugard--Years of Adventure").

And after failing to mention all this, Davidson claims that pre-Islamic Africa was "materially simple but not morally defenceless" (p 67). Oh?

Additionally, Mr. Davidson turns from scholar to apologist in this book. Apparently to show that African cultures are not so far off from European cultures, he gives us a mini-exegesis on the witch frenzies in England and Scotland (pp 124-5), then shows us the irrationality of Italian Catholics (p 176). He bemoans the fact that European (and I suppose American) culture invented nuclear weapons (pp 114-5) and degrades the importance of science in the modern world (p 115). This is part of "The African Genius"? Nonsense--it's pure apology, and contributes nothing to Mr. Davidson's supposed thesis of the greatness of Africans. Are we to believe that Africans are geniuses because they failed to build complicated weapons? If so, then Mr. Davidson will have an uncomfortable time explaining Rwanda 1994, when low-tech weapons like sticks and machetes were used to kill more people than all nuclear weapons ever have.

Mr. Davidson needs to realize and then address the problems that existed, and still exist in African culture--kleptocracy, low standard of living, human rights abuses, tribalism. He cannot sweepingly say that because a culture is unique and ancient that somehow it is "genius." That is intellectually dishonest and paternalistic, and paternalism is only one step removed from racism.

Mr. Davidson has written a very disappointing, very flawed book. He seems to think that we, the readers, will fall all overselves to ascribe greatness and "genius" to African civilizations merely on his say-so and the fact that it's African. Uh-uh; no way. We are past the point (though admittedly not by far) where we blindly accept something African as necessarily, without more, worthy of high regard. Examine Mr. Davidson's own book critically and the truth becomes obvious: pre-Islamic African cultures in general fall well short of the cultures of Europe, Asia, and even the New World. Proof of this includes: (1) yesterday's Africa was "anti-scientific" (p 59); (2) knowledge was not accumulated from generation to generation (p 59), mainly because pre-Islamic Africans had no written records (pp 28-9, 222, 257); (3) the ideal tribal organization was "static" (p 55); (4) beliefs and actions of the Africans were "irrational" and "ghost-ridden" (p 80); (5) new African dynasties rewrote or suppressed their histories (p 115)(European, Asian, and New World dynasties did this too, but it's hardly the mark of genius); (6) "the moral order was robustly collective" (p 70) and "individuals might have rights, but they had them only by virtue of the obligations they fulfilled to the community" (p 57). All this points to a people who had no basis in science, no scientific method, no permanant knowledge or institutional learning, and no path to progressive betterment. Moreover, Davidson glosses over uncomfortable aspects of African culture. For example: (1) he willingly omits descriptions of rituals for "female circumscion" (p 172); (2) he makes no mention of infanticide as a birth control practice or the widespread practice of twin infanticide (see "Things Fall Apart" for an interesting discussion on this point); he makes no mention of the frenzy of human sacrifice, often by horrible means, that accompanied some of Africa's larger civilizations (for a brief discussion of this in the Nigerian-Benin context, see "Lugard--Years of Adventure"). And after failing to mention all this, Davidson claims that pre-Islamic Africa was "materially simple but not morally defenceless" (p 67). Oh? Additionally, Mr. Davidson turns from scholar to apologist in this book. Apparently to show that African cultures are not so far off from European cultures, he gives us a mini-exegisis on the witch frenzies in England and Scotland (p 124-5); then shows us the irrationality of Italian Catholics (p 176). He bemoans the fact that European (and I suppose American) culture invented nuclear weapons (p 114-5) and degrades the importance of science in the modern world (p 115). This is part of "The African Genius"? Nonsense--it's pure apology, and contributes nothing to Mr. Davidson's supposed thesis of the greatness of Africans. Are we to believe that Africans are geniuses because they *failed* to build complicated weapons? If so, then Mr. Davidson will have an uncomfortable time explaining Rwanda 1994, when low-tech weapons like sticks and machetes were used to kill more people than all nuclear weapons ever have. Mr. Davidson needs to realize and then address the problems that existed, and still exist in African culture--kleptocracy, low standard of living, human rights abuses, tribalism. He cannot sweepingly say that because a culture is unique and ancient that somehow it is "genius." That is intellectually dishonest and paternalistic, and paternalism is only one step removed from racism.