Customer Reviews

Africana

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Upon opening this book, I realized I had stumbled on to the missing link in American History. Africana provides a glimpse of what traditional history books have been all to willing to ignore. As a person of Native American and European heritage, I have seen time and time again, the way American History Books have focused primarily on the accomplishments of Europeans, leaving out the rich history of all of her people of color. With it's amazing photographs and easily followed geographical references, Africana fills this gap, as it provides a much wider view of the true history of America. I hope someday that traditional American History Books will include this information in their pages and there will be no need for separated histories... but until that time, Africana is a book that every parent should buy for their child and every American should have in their home. The history that this book brings to the table of humanity, can help us heal and grow as a country... and a people.

I find myself online engaged in debates about African-Americans and Africa that only scholars on the topic can participate in. Now, with this Encyclopedia, it's not only good reading for knowledge and scholastic research, but also for validating facts. Now I'm ready for some good 'ol debatin'!

Another thing worth mentioning is that for each article there are regional references: African, African-American, South American, etc. and at the end of each article are references to other relevant readings in the book. When "The Century" was released last year, I was waiting for a "Black Century" so to speak. I had NO CLUE that this Encyclopedia was on the way! The photographs dispel myths of what "Black" looks like. The essays are captivating. The intro is interresting reading. It parallels DuBois' struggle to bring this book about in his day and Gates' efforts to do the same in our day!

I only wish that, if this is not an exact replica of the Encarta Africana CD-ROM in book form, it comes out on CD-ROM so that I can read it away from home & share it with others.

I recently purchased this massive volume as a gift to myself for a recent job promotion. It is wonderful. The African Diaspora is well represented in this volume. I am using this beautiful book as a valuable resource for an upcoming article I am working on for my graduate courses dealing with African and African-American writers. Although the price of this book is expensive, once you buy it and add it to your collection, price becomes irrelevant. Any student and/or lover of Africa should have this book in their home library.

This encyclopedia is a wonderful source of information on all aspects of the African experience, both on the African continent itself and in the diaspora. Without being ideological, it celebrates the Black experience by summing up the fruits of many decades of scholarly research into Black culture and history. The articles that I have read are well written and reliable in the information they provide, while also remaining accessible to a general audience. (I regret a bit that there are no bibliographies to direct the reader towards further readings on each topic.) The volume, lavishly illustrated, is so heavy that one could use it for advanced workouts... That the publishers have managed to publish it at such an extremely reasonable price is in itself an amazing achievement. This book should be on the bookshelf of every educated person of African descent, and of every American, whether black or white.

Finally, our beloved ancestor W.E.B.DuBois can rest in peace, for his dream has been realized. Over 2100 pages of text, maps, illustrations and photographs explicitly tell the world of the culture, diversity, heroes and heroines, and just plain folk who make up the African diaspora. I purchased the book, selfishly, for myself at first. But, upon receiving it, and glancing through it's many pages, I realized that this huge, 10-lb. encylopedia (yes, that's the proper word for it) will become an heirloom in this family. So, I dedicated it to my children, and signed it, "Love Dad". Anyone who purchases it should do the same, for our future generations. Furthermore, Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the chief editors of this bible of information need to be commended for their vision and their work in putting this all together...for us all. Thank you, gentlemen.

As a reference librarian, I have been waiting for this book for a long time. And this is one of the best reference sources on Africa that I have ever seen. Maybe even THE best. Africana is as comprehensive and scholarly a source on African history and culture, from ancient times to the present and on both sides of the Atlantic, as I guess is possible in one volume. And it is a wonderful source of biographical information on Africans and African-Americans, something reference librarians know can sometimes be hard to find. If your library doesn't have this book, strongly urge them to get it.

This is a fabulous, comprehensive and fascinating piece of work. Like most encyclopedias, you can open it anywhere and start reading for pure pleasure and knowledge.

It would be unfortunate if many of my fellow Whites dismissed this work as something only of interest to Blacks. You can learn a lot about Black people in Africa and America from this book but you can learn just as much about White history. Much of their history is our history, too, just as son much of our history is theirs. We are one people.

This book belongs in any home where knowledge, understanding and the simple joy of good reading are important.

Africana is an outstanding volume presented in a cardboard slipcase and providing a weighty encyclopedia documenting the African and Afro-American experience. Africana is an impressive single-volume 'black Britannica' which fills over 2,000 pages with facts and details: it's the first to cover the entire history of Africans and the Diaspora around the world and is a highly recommended library reference.

The Havard eminent professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. claimed sometime in 1998/99 in the Time Magazine that the Institute of African and Afriacn-American Studies in Havard will produce an encyclopedia on African and African-American history, culture and civilization that will be so powerful no one will be able to say any longer that Africa never had a culture or civilization before the foreign infiltration especially western intrusion. Considering the social historical construction and insults and assults on one's culture and aesthetic of what it means to be 'black` and the attitudes of europeans resulting from century old propaganda of white racial supremacy from various mass media, l thought that enterprise will be a mission impossible. Gladly enough, Africana is a fait accomplei! As an academic who always have to carry the "blackman's burden" i.e. defending my 'race` and African humanity, Africana is a database and a source of inspiration not only to people of African anscestry but to human race as a whole, since African history and contribution to human civilization have almost without a trace being bleached out of world history. The critical essay on W.E.B DuBois by Cornell West is a proof that this encyclopedia is not an exercise in hero worshiping. And even then,to slemnize people who have energetically and positively contributed to posterity is legitimate. This makes me wonder, if Wole Soyinka the Nigerian nobel laurete would ever have had the opportunity to contribute to this historical document had the late Nigerian military dictator Sani Abacha had the chance to butcher him to death like he did to Ken Saro Wiwa and many others. In other words, we as a people and a segment of human race also need to preserve our prophets and heroes. A friend of mine whom I showed this book to (a white man by the way, who belongs to a minority in Germany)remarked that we Africans have waited for too long and did too little to document our history unlike some other minority in diaspora, who also had a history of discrimination, oppression and suffering. In a way, this Africana makes plausible the demand for reparation for slavery as a token of justice for the desolation of Africa and its people both in Africa and in disapora, in the same manner that that united states of America and Europe deal with the injustice perpetrated against the Jews during the holocaust. With Africana, I do not have to be an advocate for Africans, we have now a powerful instance of reference for anyone who is interested. More grease to the elbows of the Havard dream team. Robert Ajani.

This is a comprehensive & valuable book. However, it does lack a proper index. It is set up in encyclopedia format in simple alphabetical listings. It needs to have a cross-reference index for the thousands of listings contained within because many of the listings are full articles that need to be cross referenced. Some of the articles have a reference at the end of the article that says "see also." However, this is not the same as having a comprehensive index available. This book has hundreds of maps, tables, charts, and photographs.