44 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
one of the best books on race mixing ever written, July 4, 2001
This review is from: Nature Knows No Color-Line: Research into the Negro Ancestry in the White Race (Hardcover)
This book was originally published in 1952 and then renewed in 1980. This book along with the author's three volume series "Sex and Race" are simply the best books ever written on the issue of race mixing.
The book consists of 11 chapters which are:
I. Where did the color problem originate? and why
Rogers investsigates the origin of black/white racism by looking at what has been written about black skin and black people in ancient times.
II. Color prejudice among whites and among darker peoples for their own kind.
Examples of racist beliefs in Greece, Ancient India and Europe. Numerous photos of sculptures are given along with references.
III. Negroes in Ancient Europe - Greece
The title of this chapter speaks for itself. There are numerous illustrations. The one flaw in this chapter that I found is the statement by the author that one finds the least race predudice in Europe. Maybe this was true in the 50s, but it certainly isn't true today. Iceland is perhaps the only European country with very little or no race predudice today. With the advent of immigration however, I wouldn't be surprised to see racism grow in Iceland just as it has grown in Europe since the 50s.
IV. Intermixture of whites and blacks in ancient Rome
As usual, Rogers provides numerous notes with references along with illustrations.
V. Racial intermixture in Spain and Portugal
The history of the moors in spain is discussed. It is a well known fact that the moorish scholars laid down the foundation of scientific thought in Europe.
VI. The negro as "moor" - negro ancestry in aristocratic european families
Coats of arms of eminent black English, French, Dutch, Beligian, Italian, Spanish, Polish, German and central european families is given. Many of the pictures show black people wearing jewels, crowns, and holding swords. Whatever they are wearing or doing, they are obviously people of very high status. There is no doubt that the royal family of England has blacks in their family. On the cover of the book, there is a picture of Queen Charlotte Sophia who obviously is woman of black ancestry.
VII. Mixtures of whites and blacks in Greece, Turkey, Italy and Central Europe
Pictures of the European slave market is given along with pictures of blacks in Russia, Belgium and Holland. There are also pictures German women with their interracial children. Interracial marriages in Norway and Denmark are also mentioned.
VIII. Negro ancestry in the French
IX. Negro ancestry in the Anglo-Saxon "race"
Throughout europe there are indeed many prominent people who are of black ancestry.
X. Negro ancestry in white america
XI. Some recent well-to-do mixed marriages mentioned in the press
A listing of interracial marriages (names and dates) in the US, some of which brought prison terms.
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21 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Greatest Historian I've Ever Read, September 2, 2000
This review is from: Nature Knows No Color-Line: Research into the Negro Ancestry in the White Race (Hardcover)
J. A. Rogers was an excellent historian and the greatest historian I've ever read. He gives information that no other historian has ever published in any book. Not only would the information shock you, the pictures will shock you as well. Example: pages 83-91, 94-107 (pictures of the Black-a-Moors of European noble families). J. A. Rogers goes into uncharted unexplored territory about the issue of race, including genetics, who was the first race, racial superiority and inferiority, and interracial mixing throughout human history. He also gives info not even white historians here in America have talked about. (Example; in his book "Sex and Race Vol. 1", page 87 he has a painting by French painter Jean Paul Laurens of the "Black" Roman Emperor Honorius). Especially, the pictures of the "Black" a.k.a. "Negroid" photographs of the Black Madonnas, Black Christs, Black Messiahs, Black Krishnas, and Black Buddhas. J. A. Rogers even mentions the lost manuscript of Flavious Josephus titled Halosis on page 40 of Rogers' book which Josephus describes Jesus as "...a man of simple appearance mature age, dark skin, with little hair...". These are just a few of the many facts J. A. Rogers gives in his works. Another awesome book he wrote is "100 Amazing Facts About The Negro" and the masterpiece "Sex and Race, Vol 1, II, & III" Even "Nature Knows No Color-Line" is a master work, an examination of world history at it's finest. Rogers is indeed a master historian who deserves more attention and credit.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nature Never Had It So Good as Rogers!, July 24, 2006
This review is from: Nature Knows No Color-Line: Research into the Negro Ancestry in the White Race (Hardcover)
The redoubtable J.A. Rogers, the preeminent Black historian/anthropologist of his generation. His name is synonymous with reeducation in Black America. Yes, there were other notable Blacks of erudition in Rogers's time, but what gave him an edge was his courage to uncover, in stark detail, a history that the others were either too cowardly or unqualified to address or didn't address with the same fervor as Rogers. This made him a pioneer in his field. The literary triumph of Nature knows No Color-Line, much like the author's masterpiece Sex and Race, is that although its pages abound with amazing truths about Black people, it evokes minimal friction from White people. This, in part, could be due to the unique nature of Rogers's bold examination of miscegenation as a cohesive element of race harmony, despite its historical divisive implications.
Here is a real page-turner for the conscious mind, and an eye-opener for the sleeping one. Great reading and easy on the noggin, considering the topic. The book is strewn with rare pictures (most are probably daguerreotypes) and illustrations that are so spellbounding and mysteriously intriguing, they entrance you into an intuitive realization that, while you cannot recall a previous installation of them in your mental gallery, you are somehow aware of a spiritual familiarity with them and the times from which they emerge. You actually come face-to-face with truth. Thus, through art and photographs and his restless narrative, Rogers shows Black people (and some White people) a world they never knew existed, and yet, especially as it concerns Black people; it is a world in which they prominently exist--and a world in which both people appear to coexist. He lifts the curtain on the world stage to expose Americans to the true drama behind the "play."
Nature's "color-line" dividing White and Black is certainly illusory, as only one line--a bloodline, connects humanity. But racism and discrimination are real creations of mankind, which they perpetuate through their governmental, religious, economical, political and educational systems to sustain the racial disconnect. Through this work, Rogers reminds us that Mother Nature has never established such demarcations for the human family, and has never given birth to "niggers" or slaves, but to one humanity in all its wonderful varieties.
I recommend Sex and Race, and everything else by J.A. Rogers.
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