Mary Lefkowitz - Not Out Of Africa: How "Afrocentrism&quo torrent

Not Out Of Africa: How \"Afrocentrism\" Became An Excuse To Teach Myth As History

Not Out of Africa has sparked widespread debate over the teaching of revisionist history in schools and colleges. Was Socrates black? Did Aristotle steal his ideas from the library in Alexandria? Do we owe the underlying tenets of our democratic civilizaiton to the Africans? Mary Lefkowitz explains why politically motivated histories of the ancient world are being written and shows how Afrocentrist claims blatantly contradict the historical evidence. Not Out of Africa is an important book that protects and argues for the necessity of historical truths and standards in cultural education.

\"I am defending academic standards,\" declares Lefkowitz, expanding on a New Republic article that brought her praise from historians and criticism from Afro-centrists. Her methodical study, moderate in tone, does not survey the full flower of Afro-centrism in American curricula but takes potent aim at some of the basic claims of leading proponents of Afro-centrism. For example, she shows that influential Senegalese scholar Cheikh Anta Diop asserted the Greeks\' African heritage based on a single, highly dubious source. Similarly, she explains how claims tracing Greek religion and philosophy to Egyptian origins are based on clearly suspect Greek sources. Moreover, she shows how those Afro-centrists who say the Greeks borrowed an \"Egyptian Mystery System\" from Africa are actually relying on an 18th-century French novel. This book is a sobering rebuttal of those academics too spineless to challenge teachings based more on identity politics than on solid scholarship.

Author: Mary Lefkowitz
Publisher: Basic Books
Publication Date: January 25, 1996

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