Precolonial Black Africa
Cheikh Anta Diop
A comparative anatomy of African states, measured directly against medieval Europe.
First published in French in 1960 and translated into English in 1987, Diop examines the political, social and economic organization of precolonial West African states such as Ghana, Mali and Songhai, comparing them directly with medieval Europe. He argues these were coherent, well-administered societies with their own systems of caste, law and governance, not the formless groupings of colonial imagining, giving later nationalist and Afrocentric scholarship a comparative, evidence-based foundation.
Its legacy. It became a reference point for Afrocentric scholarship and debates on African civilization.
- Author
- Cheikh Anta Diop
- First published
- 1960
- Genre
- History
- Theme
- The Continent's Own History
A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution
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