Great African Thinkers: Cheikh Anta Diop (Great African Thinkers, Volume 1) [Paperback]

Ivan Van Sertima (Editor), Larry Williams (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Great African Thinkers | Publication Date: January 1, 1986

This book, the first in a series of work on Africans, whose life and thought have left a major impact on the world, is devoted to the Senegalese physicist, historian and linguist, Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop, who was born in Diourbel, Senegal on December 29, 1923, and died in Dakar on February 7, 1986. No figure in the field of African civiliation studies has been more highly regarded in the French and English-speaking world than Diop. In 1966 the First World Festival of Arts and Culture attributed jointly to the late W.E.B. DuBois and Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop its "Award of the Scholar who had exerted the greatest influence on Negro thought in the 20th century." The book has nearly a hundred illustrations.

Great African Thinkers--Vol. 1., Chiekh Anta Diop features impressions of the man--"Conversations with Diop and Tsegaye" by Jan Carey; critiques of his major works "The Cultural Unity of Africa: the Domains of Patriarchy and of Matriarchy in Classical Antiquity" by Asa Hillard III, "The Changing Perception of Cheikh Anta Diop and his work" by James G. Spady, "Cheikh Anta Diop and the New concept of African History" by John Henrik Clarke; "The African Origin of Civiliation: Myth or Reality"--Review by A.J. Williams-Meyers; "Civiliation or Barbarianism: the Legacy of Cheikh Anta Diop" by Leonard Jeffried, Jr. and "Diop on Asia: Highlights and Insights" by Runoko Rashidi; interviews "Africa's Political Unity," "Emancipation and Unity," "Negritude and the African personality" and "Ethnicity and National Consciousness" by Carlos Moore; "Dr. Chiekh Anta Diop" by Shawna Moore, "Meeting the Pharaoh" and "Further Conversation with the Pharaoh" by Charles S. Finch; the first authoried English translation of the introduction and two opening chapters from his last major work "Civiliation or Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology" by Edward G. Taylor; a selection of essays by Diop--"Origin of the Ancient Egyptians;" "Iron Metallurgy in the Ancient Egyptian Empire" a translation by Darryl Prevost; "Africa's contribution to the Exact Sciences" and a selection of lectures made during his first and only visit to the United States.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Ivan Van Sertima (1935-2009) was professor of African studies at Rutgers University. He was visiting professor at Princeton University and lectured at more than one hundred colleges and universities. He edited the Journal of African Civiliations, which has greatly changed the way in which African history and culture are taught and studied.

Larry Williams is a co-convener and founding member of the Bennu Study Group of Atlanta Georgia. His articles have appeared in History, the Bible and the Black Man magaine, the Atlanta Voice newspaper, Return to the Source magaine, and Afrika Must Unite: A Journal of Pan-Afrikan Affairs. He is a frequent lecturer on Marcus Garvey and other subjects in the field of African history.

Product Details

• Paperback: 375 pages
• Publisher: Transaction Publishers; Morehouse College ed edition (January 1, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0887386806
• ISBN-13: 978-0887386800
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #90,415 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Introduction to The Life and Work of CHEIKH ANTA DIOP, September 19, 2008

By 

Donald Peyton (Ta Seti, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Great African Thinkers: Cheikh Anta Diop (Great African Thinkers, Volume 1) (Paperback)

This book , edited by Ivan Van Sertima, offers a fascinating, informative and erudite introduction to the life and work of Dr. Diop. This book contains a number of important essays by Dr. Diop. There are contributions from Dr. Charles Finch, Dr. John Henrik Clarke, Dr. Leonard Jeffries, and a host of others.
The book also gives us very useful summaries, assessments and reveiws of Diop's monumental life's work. There are numerous excellent extended interviews with Dr. Diop. We learn of Dr. Diop's visit to the US. There are numerous illustrations.

One is amazed, as Diop explains and demonstrates that his native language, Wolof, is genetically related to the language spoken by the ancient Black Africans we now call "ancient Egyptians". Diop also points out the underlying unity of African culture,which has for so long been denied and obscured by dogmatic European/American intellectual formulations.
The attempt to separate ancient Black Egypt from the rest of Black Africa
rest on a deliberately distorted and perverted use of the historical records. To take Egypt out of Africa is to engage in myth making and the setting up of modern intellectual taboos that can only be challenged by offending the Gods of Westen Orthodoxy. Diop took up this challenge and struck death blows to Euro-centrism.......and oh how they laughed,screamed,slandered, sneered and finally grew silent, tense and weary. Facts are stubborn things!
The book will allow you to study how African scholars, such as Dr. Diop, are telling their own story, free of any intellectual masters.
There is a lot of informatiom crammed into this book of 387 pages.
The contributors give various perspectives and interpretations of Diop's work and comment on how Diop's work has changed the writing of the history and culture of Africa .

I applaud the editors, Dr. Van Sertima and Larry Williams, for this master work in English on the life and work of Cheikh Anta Diop.
If studied seriously, one can learn a lot from this book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Master Thinker, August 29, 2009

By 

PYMaccabee (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Great African Thinkers: Cheikh Anta Diop (Great African Thinkers, Volume 1) (Paperback)

This book is a must have for those on the path to enlightenment, as it relates to the original people on the planet. You will not be disappointed. Both Dr. Diop and Dr. Hillard are sorely missed, but their spirits live on...

5.0 out of 5 stars The Most Influential Black Historian in the 20th Century and 21st Century!, October 5, 2010

By 

Harold L. Carter "lc5827" (Dayton, OH) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Great African Thinkers: Cheikh Anta Diop (Great African Thinkers, Volume 1) (Paperback)

Cheikh Anta Diop, recognized for his precedent-setting scholarship as an anthropologist, Egyptologist, historian, linguist, political statesman, physicist, and sociologist, is An astute,scholarly researcher and historian of the authentic anthropological history of people of African descent who was very much ahead of his times in the multi-disciplinary fields of anthropology, archaology, genetic anthropology, to name just a few. When honored at Morehouse College with an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters and speaking in the Chapel dedicated to Dr. King, Dr. Diop stated: I subscribe to the teachings of Martin Luthr King, Jr. wholeheartedly. They are teachings that are aimed at unifying and reuniting kindred peoples. What I have to say here today i to reinforce the links that unite us and all people across the world." And as indicated in the biographical notes, "Dr. Diop traveled incessantly, lecture4d widely, and was cited and quoted voluminously. He was the 'pharaoh' of African studies."