What do you think?
Rate this book
Civilization or Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology
Challenging societal beliefs, this volume rethinks African and world history from an Afrocentric perspective.
464 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1988
126 people are currently reading
1533 people want to read
About the author
Cheikh Anta Diop
24 books369 followersCheikh Anta Diop was an Afrocentric historian, anthropologist, physicist and politician who studied the human race's origins and pre-colonial African culture.
Diop's first work translated into English, The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality, was published in 1974. It gained a much wider audience for his work. He proved that archaeological and anthropological evidence supported his view that Pharaohs were of Negroid origin. Some scholars draw heavily from Diop's groundbreaking work, , while others in the Western academic world do not accept all of Diop's theories. Diop's work has posed important questions about the cultural bias inherent in scientific research.
Diop showed above all that European archaeologists before and after the decolonization had understated and continued to understate the extent and possibility of Black civilizations.
The Swiss archaeologist Charles Bonnet's discoveries at the site of Kerma shed some light on the theories of Diop. They show close cultural links between Nubia and Ancient Egypt, though the relationship had been acknowledged for years. This does not necessarily imply a genetic relationship, however. Mainstream Egyptologists such as F. Yurco note that among peoples outside Egypt, the Nubians were closest ethnically to the Egyptians, shared the same culture in the predynastic period, and used the same pharaonoic political structure. He suggests that the peoples of the Nile Valley were one regionalized population, sharing a number of genetic and cultural traits.
Diop argued that there was a shared cultural continuity across African peoples that was more important than the varied development of different ethnic groups shown by differences among languages and cultures over time.
His books were largely responsible for, at least, the partial re-orientation of attitudes about the place of African people in history, in scholarly circles around the world.
Diop's first work translated into English, The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality, was published in 1974. It gained a much wider audience for his work. He proved that archaeological and anthropological evidence supported his view that Pharaohs were of Negroid origin. Some scholars draw heavily from Diop's groundbreaking work, , while others in the Western academic world do not accept all of Diop's theories. Diop's work has posed important questions about the cultural bias inherent in scientific research.
Diop showed above all that European archaeologists before and after the decolonization had understated and continued to understate the extent and possibility of Black civilizations.
The Swiss archaeologist Charles Bonnet's discoveries at the site of Kerma shed some light on the theories of Diop. They show close cultural links between Nubia and Ancient Egypt, though the relationship had been acknowledged for years. This does not necessarily imply a genetic relationship, however. Mainstream Egyptologists such as F. Yurco note that among peoples outside Egypt, the Nubians were closest ethnically to the Egyptians, shared the same culture in the predynastic period, and used the same pharaonoic political structure. He suggests that the peoples of the Nile Valley were one regionalized population, sharing a number of genetic and cultural traits.
Diop argued that there was a shared cultural continuity across African peoples that was more important than the varied development of different ethnic groups shown by differences among languages and cultures over time.
His books were largely responsible for, at least, the partial re-orientation of attitudes about the place of African people in history, in scholarly circles around the world.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
March 14, 2013
Dr. Diop's great work CIVILIZATION OR BARBARISM is a very technical and sophisticated scholarly work.
It must be remembered that Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop never said he was an "Afrocentist". Afrocentrism is more properly associated with Dr. Molefi Asante of Temple University. Dr. Asante popularized the term "Afrocentrism". As far as I know Dr. Diop never used the term in any of his works or his lectures.
So those who call him an "Afrocentrist" have most likely never read his works in French nor English. Dr. Diop's protege Dr. Theophile Obenga has never used the term to describe Dr. Diop or his work.
In fact in one lecture Dr. Obenga referred to using "Afrocentrism" as a "perspective".
It is also important to keep in mind that Dr. Diop was not talking about modern Egypt. Modern Egyptians had nothing to do with ancient Egypt and the cultures and civilizations of the Pharaohs. The modern Muslim Egyptian populations are very largely the results of numerous invasions and numerous Arab, Greek, Persian, Turkish and other settler populations who arrived en mass well after the collapse of ancient Kmt(The Black Land) or Egypt.
This fact bears repeating again and again.
Diop assumed his readers would have strong backgrounds in African ancient Nile Valley history, Aegean history, linguistics, Classical European writers, archaeology, ethnology , anthropology and so on.
People who have never seriously studied the cultures and civilizations of Africa will find this book hard to understand, especially if one is unfamiliar with the great river valley cultures of Africa or the large group of peoples who make up "la communaute' poularophone", an extremely large group of African peoples who speak Peul, Serer, Wolof or any of the many related languages and share related cultures.
"Ancient Egypt" was a child of this dynamic indigenous Black African cultural complex that developed along the four thousand mile long Nile river which has its sources in the heart of Africa.
Furthermore, if you can not read the ancient Egyptian language or have not studied linguistics, there is no way you can fully understand or fully appreciate the the genetic linguistic relationships that exist between ancient Egyptian and modern day black African languages. So pages 358-361 and all other linguistic information may appear meaningless or hard to follow.
People who know nothing about the centuries old migration routes across the African continent can not be expected to fully understand this book.
The Euro-centic version of Egyptology has always attempted to separate "Ancient Egypt" from the rest of Africa. The aim was to fabricate a history of ancient Egypt that placed the origins of ancient Egyptian culture in the "East", the Orient" or somewhere in Mesopotamia.
According to the standard European /American intellectual framework setup, in part by Hegel,Black Africans had no history and the so-called spirit of history never visited Africa...Egypt was a part of Oriental culture, even a part of the European Spirit. Many people are still influenced by this falsification of human history, and far too many still cling to it for emotional,nationalistic or ideological reasons.
Many times Diop is attacked by those who have been taught the standard Euro-centric view of the world, especially the history of "Ancient Egypt."
These people have a very real problem when confronted with the fact that ancient Egypt was a series of black African civilizations that reached its highest development in what is commonly called "Ancient Egypt". The fact that the language is a typical black African language causes some to retreat into silence or rage.
Others attempt to hide their lack of understanding by ad hominem attacks, ridicule ,slander and name-calling.
But none answer his scholarship with equal scholarship!!
The book is difficult in the English translation and in the original French.
This book is no easy read. Study African art and the cultures that produced it. Study the place of cattle in many African societies. Study the religions and social customs of Black Africa. Learn about African totemism and Egyptian totemism. Study an African language.
Give yourself several years to gain a better understanding of this masterful piece of scholarship!
This is a book that takes a lot of time and study to fully understand...but I urge you to give it a try. Its well worth the tremendous effort.
It must be remembered that Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop never said he was an "Afrocentist". Afrocentrism is more properly associated with Dr. Molefi Asante of Temple University. Dr. Asante popularized the term "Afrocentrism". As far as I know Dr. Diop never used the term in any of his works or his lectures.
So those who call him an "Afrocentrist" have most likely never read his works in French nor English. Dr. Diop's protege Dr. Theophile Obenga has never used the term to describe Dr. Diop or his work.
In fact in one lecture Dr. Obenga referred to using "Afrocentrism" as a "perspective".
It is also important to keep in mind that Dr. Diop was not talking about modern Egypt. Modern Egyptians had nothing to do with ancient Egypt and the cultures and civilizations of the Pharaohs. The modern Muslim Egyptian populations are very largely the results of numerous invasions and numerous Arab, Greek, Persian, Turkish and other settler populations who arrived en mass well after the collapse of ancient Kmt(The Black Land) or Egypt.
This fact bears repeating again and again.
Diop assumed his readers would have strong backgrounds in African ancient Nile Valley history, Aegean history, linguistics, Classical European writers, archaeology, ethnology , anthropology and so on.
People who have never seriously studied the cultures and civilizations of Africa will find this book hard to understand, especially if one is unfamiliar with the great river valley cultures of Africa or the large group of peoples who make up "la communaute' poularophone", an extremely large group of African peoples who speak Peul, Serer, Wolof or any of the many related languages and share related cultures.
"Ancient Egypt" was a child of this dynamic indigenous Black African cultural complex that developed along the four thousand mile long Nile river which has its sources in the heart of Africa.
Furthermore, if you can not read the ancient Egyptian language or have not studied linguistics, there is no way you can fully understand or fully appreciate the the genetic linguistic relationships that exist between ancient Egyptian and modern day black African languages. So pages 358-361 and all other linguistic information may appear meaningless or hard to follow.
People who know nothing about the centuries old migration routes across the African continent can not be expected to fully understand this book.
The Euro-centic version of Egyptology has always attempted to separate "Ancient Egypt" from the rest of Africa. The aim was to fabricate a history of ancient Egypt that placed the origins of ancient Egyptian culture in the "East", the Orient" or somewhere in Mesopotamia.
According to the standard European /American intellectual framework setup, in part by Hegel,Black Africans had no history and the so-called spirit of history never visited Africa...Egypt was a part of Oriental culture, even a part of the European Spirit. Many people are still influenced by this falsification of human history, and far too many still cling to it for emotional,nationalistic or ideological reasons.
Many times Diop is attacked by those who have been taught the standard Euro-centric view of the world, especially the history of "Ancient Egypt."
These people have a very real problem when confronted with the fact that ancient Egypt was a series of black African civilizations that reached its highest development in what is commonly called "Ancient Egypt". The fact that the language is a typical black African language causes some to retreat into silence or rage.
Others attempt to hide their lack of understanding by ad hominem attacks, ridicule ,slander and name-calling.
But none answer his scholarship with equal scholarship!!
The book is difficult in the English translation and in the original French.
This book is no easy read. Study African art and the cultures that produced it. Study the place of cattle in many African societies. Study the religions and social customs of Black Africa. Learn about African totemism and Egyptian totemism. Study an African language.
Give yourself several years to gain a better understanding of this masterful piece of scholarship!
This is a book that takes a lot of time and study to fully understand...but I urge you to give it a try. Its well worth the tremendous effort.
September 14, 2013
The definitive text in African history that you are not taught in schools. This effectively destroys the myths about African people never being civilized and covers every African civilization from the Nile Valley to Medieval West Africa and beyond. A must read for everyone in the diaspora and even those not. It will change your perspective on history and make you realize you have to go out and seek the truth for yourself. Excellent work, Dr. Diop. You are one of the respected elders now.
Read
June 6, 2015I've read part of Diop's debate at the 1974 UNESCO Conference, when him and Obenga destroyed nearly 30 so called scholars on the subject of whether the Egyptians were black. recessive versus the dominant, the Europeans would've looked better if they'd just told the fucking truth, how educated are you if you can't deal with the truth!!!!
November 4, 2011
Full of information. Scientic proof of melanated mummies from Khemet (Egypt. Very scientific. ?Best read in a group. Dense, dense, dense. Baba Cheikh Anta Diop was indeed brilliant!
September 26, 2008
an amazingly informative trip to the origins of humanity and the foundations of knowledge
September 17, 2016
It's a good easy to read and understand book.
Well researched and scholarly.
Recommended reading for history and anthropology students
Well researched and scholarly.
Recommended reading for history and anthropology students
November 12, 2021
“The negation of the history and intellectual accomplishments of Black Africans was cultural, mental murder, which preceded and paved the way for their genocide…” With this assertion at the very beginning of the book, the illustrious Cheikh Anta Diop sets the tone for this book dedicated to exploding white supremacist mythology concerning the identity of the ancient Egyptians and the origin of civilization.
Diop asserts that the whitewashing of ancient Egypt was a deliberate falsification intended to support and facilitate the imperial aims of Europe. He sets out to dismantle the lies of white “Egyptologists,” firmly and persuasively recentering Egyptian history as a part of the history of Africa and African people.
While the book at times loses focus and can be vague in its language and short on explanations, it is an important contribution to the historiography of Africa and world civilizations.
Diop asserts that the whitewashing of ancient Egypt was a deliberate falsification intended to support and facilitate the imperial aims of Europe. He sets out to dismantle the lies of white “Egyptologists,” firmly and persuasively recentering Egyptian history as a part of the history of Africa and African people.
While the book at times loses focus and can be vague in its language and short on explanations, it is an important contribution to the historiography of Africa and world civilizations.
June 15, 2024
DIOP’S “MAGNUM OPUS”
Cheikh Anta Diop (1923-1986) was a historian, anthropologist, physicist, and politician who was involved in the freedom and nationalization movements in Africa.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 1981 book, “[This book] is a further contribution to the work that allowed us to elevate the idea of a Black Egypt to the level of an operational scientific concept. For all the writers who preceded the ludicrous and vicious falsifications of modern Egyptology, and the contemporaries of the ancient Egyptians (Herodotus, Aristotle, Diodorus, Strabo, and others), the Black identity of the Egyptian was an evident fact that stood before their eyes, so obvious that it would have been superfluous to try to demonstrate it… for us the new, important fact is less to have stated that the Egyptians were Blacks, as one of our principal sources, the ancient writers, already did, than to have contributed to making this idea a conscious historical fact for Africans and the world, and especially to making it an operational scientific concept: this is where our predecessors did not succeed.” (Pg. 1-2)
He explains, “those desiring to learn more of the ethnicity of the ancient Egyptians should look for the above-mentioned factors in the truly autochthonous ancient population, and not in foreign mummies, Ptolemaic, Greek, or others… A pure race does not exist anywhere, but one eagerly refers to the Whites of Europe and the Yellows of Asia: in the same way we refer to the Blacks of Egypt.” (Pg. 3)
He adds, “Insofar as Egypt is the distant mother of Western cultures and sciences, as it will emerge from the reading of this book, most of the ideas that we call foreign are oftentimes nothing but mixed up, reversed, modified, elaborated images of the creations of our African ancestors, such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, dialectics, the theory of being, the exact sciences, arithmetic, geometry, mechanical engineering, astronomy, medicine, literature … architecture, the arts, etc.” (Pg. 3)
He comments, “this is not a value judgment: there is no particular glory about the cradle of humanity being in Africa, because it was just an accident. If the physical conditions of the planet had been otherwise, the origin of humanity would have been different. Hence the interest of this exposé resides solely in the necessity to show, with the most possible scientific rigor, the unfolding of the facts relative to the human past, in order to restore to them all their meaning and also to extricate from them the foundation of both science and civilization.” (Pg. 16)
He asserts, “Race does not exist! Is it to say that nothing allow me to distinguish myself from a Swede, and that, a Zulu [and White]… both are of the same genetic stock, and … at the genotypical level, they are almost twins, even if their phenotypes, meaning their physical appearances, are different? Certainly, the dilution of the human species’ genes during prehistoric times is very important; but from there to deny race, in the sense that it impacts on history and on social relations, meaning at the phenotypical level, which is of interest solely to the historian and to the sociologist, is a step that the daily facts of life prohibit anyone from taking.” (Pg. 17)
He observes, “In ‘Nations nègres et culture’ (1954), I posited the hypothesis that the Yellow race must be the result of an interbreeding of Black and White in a cold climate… This idea is widely shared today by Japanese scholars and researchers. One Japanese scientist, Nobuo Takano… maintains, in substance, that the first human being was Black; then Blacks gave birth to Whites, and the interbreeding of these two gave rise to the Yellow race.” (Pg. 55)
He acknowledges, “it is remarkable that one of the fads of today’s Senegalese women, with their use of … ‘lightening the complexion’ … cosmetics… has helped to solve a four-thousand-year-old enigma: the fact that in the representations on ancient monuments Egyptian bourgeois women sometimes had lighted complexions than those of the men, was only the result of an affectation absent in their male counterpart. The urban bourgeoisie in Dakar and in Saint-Louis, with their neo-antique hair styles, are reproducing before our very eyes the exact profile of the Pharaonic Egyptian woman.” (Pg. 68)
He states, “The model of the Egyptian AMP state was thus adopted from the Ancient Empire onward, the period of the pyramids, almost everywhere in the rest of Black Africa. But it is perhaps in the neo-Sudanese zone and in the region of the Upper Nile that one finds a quasi-complete replica of Egyptian civilization… While the model of the most organized black state has been exported almost everywhere in the world … some misinformed ideologues did not hesitate to wonder if all models of he Black African state were not of foreign import… The analysis of the Cayorian constitution contained in the archival document below shows that the AMP state model of Black Africa, with its laws and peculiarities, is a purely indigenous creation related only to Pharaonic Egypt.” (Pg. 172-173)
He asserts, “it is a typically Negro African language that has been the oldest written language in the history of humanity. It began 5,300 years ago, in Egypt… African linguistic research offers breathtaking possibilities to comparative linguistics and is about to reverse the traditional roles in this field. Be that as it may, is it through the study of the Egypto-Nubian languages that the historical dimension, up to now missing, is introduced in African studies; the comparison that derives from it allows… reinforcement of the feeling of linguistic unity of the Africans, therefore the feeling of cultural identity.” (Pg. 215)
He argues, “If the Egyptians were merely vulgar empiricists who were establishing the properties of figures only through measuring, if the Greeks were the founders of rigorous mathematical demonstration… they would not have failed to boast about such an accomplishment. It would have been important to find in the writing of a biographer of antiquity that the rigorous, theoretical, mathematical demonstration is of Greek origin and that the Egyptians had only been empiricists. There is nothing of the sort; all the statements… from the pen of the greatest Greek scholars, philosophers, and writers, glorify the theoretical sciences of the Egyptians… It must be strongly emphasized that the Greeks never said that they were the students of the Babylonians or of the Chaldeans; their most reputable scholars will always boast about having been the pupils of the Egyptians..” (Pg. 255-256)
He observes that “The Rhind Papyrus shows that the Egyptians were the inventors of arithmetic and geometric progressions.” (Pg. 270) Later, he adds, “Just as with geometry, the Egyptians were the exclusive inventors of the calendar, the very one which, barely changed, regulates our life today… They invented the 365-day year.” (Pg. 279) He also notes, “Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and Galen perpetually cite the prescriptions that they received from the Egyptian physicians… that they had learned by consulting the works conserved in the library of the Temple of Imhotep at Memphis, which was still accessible in the second century A.D., and where, seven centuries before, Hippocrates, the ‘father of medicine,’ was taught.” (Pg. 283)
He comments, “But can one speak of African philosophy when obviously this is an acclimation on African soil of Western thought, through the intermediary of the Arabs? We have said… that this thought was born first in Black Africa, then underwent a specific development in Greece and came back to Africa in the Middle Age. What then was Greece’s originality when she received, almost copied Egyptian thought? We will see the truly original stamp that Greece added to Egyptian philosophical thought.” (Pg. 326)
This book will be “must reading” for Afrocentrists, and other students of African history.
Cheikh Anta Diop (1923-1986) was a historian, anthropologist, physicist, and politician who was involved in the freedom and nationalization movements in Africa.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 1981 book, “[This book] is a further contribution to the work that allowed us to elevate the idea of a Black Egypt to the level of an operational scientific concept. For all the writers who preceded the ludicrous and vicious falsifications of modern Egyptology, and the contemporaries of the ancient Egyptians (Herodotus, Aristotle, Diodorus, Strabo, and others), the Black identity of the Egyptian was an evident fact that stood before their eyes, so obvious that it would have been superfluous to try to demonstrate it… for us the new, important fact is less to have stated that the Egyptians were Blacks, as one of our principal sources, the ancient writers, already did, than to have contributed to making this idea a conscious historical fact for Africans and the world, and especially to making it an operational scientific concept: this is where our predecessors did not succeed.” (Pg. 1-2)
He explains, “those desiring to learn more of the ethnicity of the ancient Egyptians should look for the above-mentioned factors in the truly autochthonous ancient population, and not in foreign mummies, Ptolemaic, Greek, or others… A pure race does not exist anywhere, but one eagerly refers to the Whites of Europe and the Yellows of Asia: in the same way we refer to the Blacks of Egypt.” (Pg. 3)
He adds, “Insofar as Egypt is the distant mother of Western cultures and sciences, as it will emerge from the reading of this book, most of the ideas that we call foreign are oftentimes nothing but mixed up, reversed, modified, elaborated images of the creations of our African ancestors, such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, dialectics, the theory of being, the exact sciences, arithmetic, geometry, mechanical engineering, astronomy, medicine, literature … architecture, the arts, etc.” (Pg. 3)
He comments, “this is not a value judgment: there is no particular glory about the cradle of humanity being in Africa, because it was just an accident. If the physical conditions of the planet had been otherwise, the origin of humanity would have been different. Hence the interest of this exposé resides solely in the necessity to show, with the most possible scientific rigor, the unfolding of the facts relative to the human past, in order to restore to them all their meaning and also to extricate from them the foundation of both science and civilization.” (Pg. 16)
He asserts, “Race does not exist! Is it to say that nothing allow me to distinguish myself from a Swede, and that, a Zulu [and White]… both are of the same genetic stock, and … at the genotypical level, they are almost twins, even if their phenotypes, meaning their physical appearances, are different? Certainly, the dilution of the human species’ genes during prehistoric times is very important; but from there to deny race, in the sense that it impacts on history and on social relations, meaning at the phenotypical level, which is of interest solely to the historian and to the sociologist, is a step that the daily facts of life prohibit anyone from taking.” (Pg. 17)
He observes, “In ‘Nations nègres et culture’ (1954), I posited the hypothesis that the Yellow race must be the result of an interbreeding of Black and White in a cold climate… This idea is widely shared today by Japanese scholars and researchers. One Japanese scientist, Nobuo Takano… maintains, in substance, that the first human being was Black; then Blacks gave birth to Whites, and the interbreeding of these two gave rise to the Yellow race.” (Pg. 55)
He acknowledges, “it is remarkable that one of the fads of today’s Senegalese women, with their use of … ‘lightening the complexion’ … cosmetics… has helped to solve a four-thousand-year-old enigma: the fact that in the representations on ancient monuments Egyptian bourgeois women sometimes had lighted complexions than those of the men, was only the result of an affectation absent in their male counterpart. The urban bourgeoisie in Dakar and in Saint-Louis, with their neo-antique hair styles, are reproducing before our very eyes the exact profile of the Pharaonic Egyptian woman.” (Pg. 68)
He states, “The model of the Egyptian AMP state was thus adopted from the Ancient Empire onward, the period of the pyramids, almost everywhere in the rest of Black Africa. But it is perhaps in the neo-Sudanese zone and in the region of the Upper Nile that one finds a quasi-complete replica of Egyptian civilization… While the model of the most organized black state has been exported almost everywhere in the world … some misinformed ideologues did not hesitate to wonder if all models of he Black African state were not of foreign import… The analysis of the Cayorian constitution contained in the archival document below shows that the AMP state model of Black Africa, with its laws and peculiarities, is a purely indigenous creation related only to Pharaonic Egypt.” (Pg. 172-173)
He asserts, “it is a typically Negro African language that has been the oldest written language in the history of humanity. It began 5,300 years ago, in Egypt… African linguistic research offers breathtaking possibilities to comparative linguistics and is about to reverse the traditional roles in this field. Be that as it may, is it through the study of the Egypto-Nubian languages that the historical dimension, up to now missing, is introduced in African studies; the comparison that derives from it allows… reinforcement of the feeling of linguistic unity of the Africans, therefore the feeling of cultural identity.” (Pg. 215)
He argues, “If the Egyptians were merely vulgar empiricists who were establishing the properties of figures only through measuring, if the Greeks were the founders of rigorous mathematical demonstration… they would not have failed to boast about such an accomplishment. It would have been important to find in the writing of a biographer of antiquity that the rigorous, theoretical, mathematical demonstration is of Greek origin and that the Egyptians had only been empiricists. There is nothing of the sort; all the statements… from the pen of the greatest Greek scholars, philosophers, and writers, glorify the theoretical sciences of the Egyptians… It must be strongly emphasized that the Greeks never said that they were the students of the Babylonians or of the Chaldeans; their most reputable scholars will always boast about having been the pupils of the Egyptians..” (Pg. 255-256)
He observes that “The Rhind Papyrus shows that the Egyptians were the inventors of arithmetic and geometric progressions.” (Pg. 270) Later, he adds, “Just as with geometry, the Egyptians were the exclusive inventors of the calendar, the very one which, barely changed, regulates our life today… They invented the 365-day year.” (Pg. 279) He also notes, “Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and Galen perpetually cite the prescriptions that they received from the Egyptian physicians… that they had learned by consulting the works conserved in the library of the Temple of Imhotep at Memphis, which was still accessible in the second century A.D., and where, seven centuries before, Hippocrates, the ‘father of medicine,’ was taught.” (Pg. 283)
He comments, “But can one speak of African philosophy when obviously this is an acclimation on African soil of Western thought, through the intermediary of the Arabs? We have said… that this thought was born first in Black Africa, then underwent a specific development in Greece and came back to Africa in the Middle Age. What then was Greece’s originality when she received, almost copied Egyptian thought? We will see the truly original stamp that Greece added to Egyptian philosophical thought.” (Pg. 326)
This book will be “must reading” for Afrocentrists, and other students of African history.
November 3, 2010
I really liked like book. The amount of research that went into this is amazing. The two cradle theory is interesting. I can see evidence of the "cold cradle" in the Western value system and culture.
June 6, 2020
Finally, someone dare with scientific fact, proved that ancient Egyptians were indeed blacks and he did it unapologetically.
June 9, 2020
The truth is bitter and ugly, no matter how the world despises the black man, every living human being has a piece of black (negroid) in him. We came from one source and we are one, the prejudice perpetrated on the black is so pervasive in the world that we live. The black man being the original has never looked down upon any other race. But other races have put him as the lowest of all people and ridicule the intellect and creativity of this wonderful creation.
From the Neanderthal to the Grimaldi man are all black in their genetics, they travel around the whole thousands of years ago to populate the earth. Those in Europe undergo glaciation and melanin mutation to build an immunity against the adverse cold and the harsh snow. They grow hair to their shoulders to protect against the natural damage from nature, and at last result, in a caucasoid man. The skulls from all scientifical angles point to the black as the origin of man.
Ancient Egyptians are by far negroid, irrefutable evidence shown in scribes, papyrus, murals and bust of many pharaohs show a clear negroid origin.
From the Neanderthal to the Grimaldi man are all black in their genetics, they travel around the whole thousands of years ago to populate the earth. Those in Europe undergo glaciation and melanin mutation to build an immunity against the adverse cold and the harsh snow. They grow hair to their shoulders to protect against the natural damage from nature, and at last result, in a caucasoid man. The skulls from all scientifical angles point to the black as the origin of man.
Ancient Egyptians are by far negroid, irrefutable evidence shown in scribes, papyrus, murals and bust of many pharaohs show a clear negroid origin.
November 11, 2025
A different view on social and cultural development
Cheikh's "Civilization or Barbarism" challenges prevailing post-Renaissance historical paradigms by asserting the Black African origin of Ancient Egyptian civilization and redefines the fundamental trajectory of global social and cultural development.
Cheikh's "Civilization or Barbarism" challenges prevailing post-Renaissance historical paradigms by asserting the Black African origin of Ancient Egyptian civilization and redefines the fundamental trajectory of global social and cultural development.
January 24, 2019
this one is a masterpiece. it corrects the myths that the colonizer preached ever since he set out to conquer the world...all schools' curricula need to prescribe it to help to foster peace in the world.
January 23, 2015
Complex first chapter due to the scientific explanation of carbon dating..but it solidifies what was discussed in the next chapter. Diop is really blunt about his historical findings. With the ending of a chapter with the words "Ramses was black and may he rest in peace in his black skin"... he discusses concepts such as Atlantis, false skeletal carbon dating.
March 30, 2009
Very insightful and educational.
July 7, 2012
Some insightful points
Read
May 23, 2017An excellently written book. Diop used Anthropology and scientific data to prove the African origin of civilization. Read this book for the first time in 1990, it is still one of the most illuminating and life-changing books, that I have ever read.
Want to read
April 28, 2018THIS BOOK IS VERY GOOD
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews