Behind the Eurocentric veils : the search for African realities /

Jean (University of Massachusetts, Boston) based this brief work on his doctoral dissertation. It is divided into three almost equal parts: assault on the liberal theory of cultural evolution as applied to the Third World; repudiation of the Marxist interpretation of Third World cultural identity and evolution; and emphasis on a correct, i.e., Afrocentric, view of history. The last means that "Africa is the cradle of the evolution and world dispersion of a cultural style different from the European one." Jean claims that "traditional Africa" enjoyed peace because of kinship relations. He presents a remarkable, largely homogeneous Africa that was undermined by European imperialism. Jean's treatment of this brilliant "primitive Africa" leaves open the question of its chronology. Does his dating, for instance, exclude the violence of South Africa's Mfecane? Jean stresses Cheikh Anta Diop's passionate advocacy of "Black Egypt's" foundation of civilization in his The African Origin of Civilization (CH, Jul'74). Jean might have used A.J. Arkell's The Prehistory of the Nile Valley (Leiden, 1975). Good print and binding, seven pages of notes. Advanced undergraduate; graduate; faculty; general. E. E. Beauregard; University of Dayton

In this academic polemic, Jean incisively argues that both liberals and Marxists wrongly assume that all Third World societies move along the same economic and cultural evolutionary path as the West. But his Afrocentric vision of history rests on shaky grounds. A lecturer in black studies at the University of Massachusetts, he arguably asserts that the first humans were black; that Paleolithic cave paintings in Europe were made by African peoples; that ancient Egypt was a black society; and that black inhabitants of Egypt, Sudan, Mesopotamia and India accomplished the Neolithic revolution. In upholding as a model ``the African form of society,'' purportedly characterized by egalitarianism, cooperation, sharing and all-pervasive kinship relations, Jean minimizes such negative features of traditional African societes as class and caste divisions and autocratic rule. His contention that after 1500 B.C. ``invading white and Semitic people'' destroyed peaceful, egalitarian black Africa is also debatable. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved