Challenging societal beliefs, this volume rethinks African and world history from an Afrocentric perspective. This last work of the well-known Senegalese scholar (1923-86) is a summation and expansion of his two previous volumes-- Precolonial Black Africa (1987) and The African Origin of Civilization (1974)--and offers a refined statement of his life's work, to prove the primacy of African culture by proving that ancient Egypt was a black society, first in many cultural achievements later claimed by the following Indo-Aryan cultures. To this end, Diop discusses the paleontology, sociology, anthropology, and intellectual history of the ancient Egyptians set against contemporaneous cultures and also the modern Wolofs. This is a fascinating and frustrating volume. The organization is patchy; one central section seems to have gone off-course into an apology for Marxist political theory; the translation stumbles badly, especially in the early chapters; and one feels that history is being stretched (a la Velikovsky) on the author's Procrustean bed of African genesis. But Diop's erudition is patent, his place in African letters is secure, and his major works should certainly be available. For academic and large public collections. -Jo-Ann D. Suleiman, SANAD Support Technologies, Rockville, Md. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. Cheikh Anta Diop is the author of The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality and Precolonial Black Africa . Civilization or Barbarism An Authentic Anthropology By Cheikh Anta Diop, Yaa-Lengi Meema Ngemi, Harold J. Salemson, Marjolijn de Jager Chicago Review Press Incorporated Copyright © 1981 Cheikh Anta Diop All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-55652-048-8 Contents Acknowledgments, List of Figures, Foreword by John Henrik Clarke, Introduction, PART ONE: Paleontological Approach, Chapter One: Prehistory: Race and History—Origin of Humanity and Racial Differentiation, Chapter Two: Critical Review of the Most Recent Theses on the Origin of Humanity, Chapter Three: The Myth of Atlantis Restored to Historical Science through Radiocarbon Analysis, Chapter Four: Latest Discoveries on the Origin of Egyptian Civilization, PART TWO: Laws Governing the Evolution of Societies: Motor of History in Societies of AMP and the Greek City-State, Chapter Five: Clanic and Tribal Organization, Chapter Six: Structure of Kinship at the Clanic and Tribal Stage, Chapter Seven: Race and Social Classes, Chapter Eight: Birth of the Different Types of States, Chapter Nine: Revolutions in History: Causes and Conditions for Success and Failure, Chapter Ten: The Different Revolutions in History, Chapter Eleven: Revolution in the Greek City-States: Comparison with AMP States, Chapter Twelve: Characteristics of Political and Social African Structures and Their Effect on Historical Movement, Chapter Thirteen: Critical Review of the Latest Theses on the AMP, PART THREE: Cultural Identity, Chapter Fourteen: How to Define Cultural Identity?, Chapter Fifteen: Toward a Method for an Approach to Intercultural Relations, PART FOUR: Africa's Contribution to Humanity in Sciences and in Philosophy, Chapter Sixteen: Africa's Contribution: Sciences, Chapter Seventeen: Does an African Philosophy Exist?, Chapter Eighteen: Greek Vocabulary of Black-African Origin, Notes, Bibliography, Index, CHAPTER 1 PREHISTORY RACE AND HISTORY: ORIGIN OF HUMANITY AND RACIAL DIFFERENTIATION The research conducted in humanistic paleontology, particularly by the late Dr. Louis Leakey, has helped to place the birthplace of humanity in East Africa's Great Lakes region, around the Omo Valley. Two ramifications that have not been sufficiently emphasized until now have come to light as a result of this research: 1. Humankind born around the Great Lakes region, almost on the Equator, is necessarily pigmented and Black; the Gloger Law calls for warm-blooded animals to be pigmented in a hot and humid climate. 2. All the other races derive from the Black race by a more or less direct filiation, and the other continents were populated from Africa at the Homo erectus and Homo sapiens stages, 150,000 years ago. The old theories that used to state that Blacks came from somewhere else are now invalid. The first Black who went out to populate the rest of the world exited Africa through the Strait of Gibraltar, the Isthmus of Suez, and maybe through Sicily and Southern Italy. The existence of a cave and parietal African art of the Upper Paleolithic period has confirmed this point of view ( figs. 1, 2, 3 ). The Djebel Ouenat carvings in Libya were dated as those of the Upper Paleolithic Age, according to Abbé Henri Breuil. In Egypt, the most ancient carvings are of the Upper Paleolithic period. In Ethiopia, near the Dire Dawa site, the paintings discovered in the Porcupine Cavern are of the type found in Egypt and in Libya. According to Leakey, the most ancient art form, in East Af