Review by Choice Review
Presenting seemingly as much a brief for the prosecution as a work of scholarship, Adeleke (African and African American studies, Iowa State Univ.) pretty much announces his intent in his book's title. The initial impetus for the book came from a conference presentation nearly two decades ago, in which Adeleke presented the earliest stages of his criticisms about Afrocentrism, which he finds to be essentialist, reductionist, and, perhaps most significantly, ahistorical. At the conference, Adekele found little but vitriol in response, which pushed him along his intrepid path of pursuing this project. And what a rigorous project it is! From start to finish, Adeleke finds little to redeem Afrocentrism, and his arguments, especially about the ways in which Afrocentrists either misunderstand or misrepresent both African history and its relationship to the diaspora, are compelling. Afrocentrists will likely accuse Adeleke of reducing their cause to men of straw. But his book provides a formidable rejoinder to the prevailing Afrocentric scholarship. This book will likely not work especially well in most undergraduate classes, but graduate students and scholars will find much in Adeleke's impassioned case with which they will have to engage. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students, faculty. D. C. Catsam University of Texas of the Permian Basin
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
