The West and the Rest of Us: White Predators, Black Slavers and the African Elite

by Chinweizu

Examines the five-hundred-year history of white expansion and imperialism in Africa, colonial policy and rule, African complicity, and the contemporary consequences of colonial oppression and betrayal.

Genres: History, Africa, Nonfiction, Race, Post Colonial, Politics, Current Affairs

520 pages, Paperback

First published March 12, 1975

About the author

Chinweizu is an institutionally unaffiliated Afrocentric scholar. A historian and cultural critic, his books include The West and the Rest of Us (1975), Second, enlarged edition (1987); Invocations and Admonitions (1986); Decolonising the African Mind (1987); Voices from Twentieth-century Africa (1988); Anatomy of Female Power (1990). He is also a co-author of Towards the Decolonization of African Literature (1980). His pamphlets include The Black World and the Nobel (1987); and Recolonization or Reparation? (1994) He lives in Lagos, Nigeria.

He was was educated at Government Secondary School, Afikpo and later attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and SUNY, Buffalo. While studying in America, during the civil rights era, Chinweizu became influenced by the philosophy of a black arts movement. He is commonly associated with Black orientalism.

Reviews

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't think I'll finish this book. In a way that is unfortunate, as I truly appreciate the alternate history it provides. Important and rare is the book, like this one, which shows the reader another side of history, one not told by European victors or misinformed by their perceptions and myths. Chinweizu takes us through the history of African colonization and resistance. I am leaving the book after 125 pages, however, because it seems to me to be, despite its positive qualities, too informed by materialist and patriarchal worldviews. While the book is a good alternative to the metanarrative of European progress, it falls short for me because I demand a radical reenvisioning of the world. The vision that I require is one where humans and the rest of nature are not opposed. Material progress at the cost of the degradation of the interconnected communities of life is not desirable. This book, as so many, fails to address that concern. I've done enough reading of similar materials to know that this book, excellent though it may be, cannot address my needs.

[Ty G · Rating 5 out of 5]

The consistency of European aggression to gain power which is the control of people in all 9 activities of life ideological core of the culture the seed of the culture that continues it to develop can be understood as one thing.

[Emilie]

Decided not to, for now at least, because of the author's other work, in which it is all too clear that he believes women should be subservient to men.