Afrocentricity
Molefi Kete Asante
See the world from an African center, not a European one.
Asante argued that people of African descent should interpret history and culture from an African-centered standpoint rather than through European assumptions that push them to the margins. The book launched Afrocentricity as an academic movement and framework for Black studies. Its claims, especially about ancient Egypt and its broad cultural generalizations, are contested by many scholars, though it strongly shaped debates over curriculum, identity, and knowledge.
Its legacy. A central and disputed text in African American studies.
- Author
- Molefi Kete Asante
- First published
- 1980
- Genre
- Cultural theory
- Theme
- Pan-Africanism, Race and the Diaspora
More from Pan-Africanism, Race and the Diaspora
- The Souls of Black Folk — W.E.B. Du Bois
"The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line."
- The Black Jacobins — C.L.R. James
The Haitian Revolution told as the only slave revolt to build a nation.
- The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality — Cheikh Anta Diop
A claim that the pharaohs were Black, and that Greece borrowed from Africa.
- The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness — Paul Gilroy
Black identity as a ship in motion, not a flag over one homeland.