Rating: 
Summary: A brilliant work
Review: It must be commended as a brilliant piece. To go against the PC tide in both Europe and the states is difficult. Unless your facts are 100% correct, you will be labelled a racist. Luckily, the professor is 100% correct.
She is still labelled a racist based on pure emotion-just read the one star reviews below.
Rating:
Summary: A good intro to those who STILL beleive in Afrocentrism
Review: This is a great book, it examines each and everyone of the Afrocentric claims and proves them wrong, with so much evidence that it is undeniable. Afrocentrism like Eurocentrism has no basis in reallity, it is wishfull thinking, it is a myth, and a bad one too! Many people that are introduced to Afrocentrism are blinded by it, mosty because of the "pride" that it provokes among young impresionable Black youths. Lefkowitz never denies the greatnes of the Egyptians, that to this date is astounding, all she does is cerfully destroyes the arguement thtat many ofthe Afrocentrist make, that Greeks 'stole' philosophy/sciencefrom Egyptains and claimed it as their own. To anybody who really has studied this subject this should sound incredibly stupid, becase it really does not relay on any facts, and Lefkowitz showes this in her Book.
Rating: 
Summary: mary's view of little point
Review: for one, the history of Egypt goes back much further than 1,000 yrs when it was over thrown by its now populated caucasion occupants, for the uninformed ones the original ppl were black as they still do exist there in small remote areas, also for those who keep on assuming based on the lack of others that the Egyptians did not have a written language please try again, being that they had a verbal language for communicating just as they had a written language which would be the symbols and the meanings they conveyed. I guess some forget that the alphabets are just mere symbols that express meaning, unlike the Europeans the Africans put most of their symbolic meaning into pictorial writings and so had a different structure of what can be seen as alphabets, and since when if a group of ppl didnt have a written language this made them uncivilize? lol shame shame, it is so sad that mary has convinced everyone that she knows what she is talking about in her onesided point of view on afrocentricity inwhich she has no idea of what she speaks of, a true charlatan indeed, it would help in the future if ppl would investigate on their own instead of accepting the work of others which may hold very little merit!........so try again, lies will be lies, even the beloved charles darwin adimited to the truth, the past still precedes its inheritors along with the lies of the pass as well, what a shame for those who are victims of continuous racism, and we all know who are still the number 1 racist right? get a new hobby ppl, the history in the hands of right wingers will always be distorted you are better off watching reruns of mash laysa!
Rating:
Summary: tsk tsk u are dismissed!
Review: Actually the Egyptians, and the rest of africa did have written communications, but i wouldnt expect a bunch of charlatans to know the truth about others, they are only concern with their own fabrications. Mary's book is a educator for continuous racism she couldnt even cover her debates without making personal attacks on others lmao! so in the end mary projects empty information, which doesnt cover much ground.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic! Free!... But brave? nah
Review: Is there a dutch version of both these books. (Also "Black Athena revised")
I only read the reviews of both of them and again have to conclude how "diverse" (read: racist) american society must be.
You can tell by the review what the skin colour of the reviewer is. Fantastic!
Every white person suddenly is an expert on African history; Becouse they know nothing it just isn't there. Most of the time they quote the author, who on her turn, quotes the so called afrocentrics. But on the contrary every black person "has to" display their "keen knowledge" of greek and roman history.
Please, a dutch version. ASAP
Rating: 
Summary: A well argued and thoughtful book
Review: Prof. Lefkowitz provides the reader with a deaper understanding of the hisotrical phantoms PC academics provide their student in the guise of afro-pride. Her arguments and citations are so well documented that a direct rebuttal is vertually impossible. Dr. Lefkowitz should be in the pantheon of America's most repected academics; however, in her case, providing the truth about Greek philosophy and acheivement will make her a target of ultra-liberal scorn.
Rating:
Summary: Good stuff
Review: I read this book and silently cheered. I know it infuriates those militant africans who need to feel their cultures did something of significance. I know the truth hurts them. Hell, if my culture did not have a written language, I would lie too! But in the end, one must face the truth, chronic underachievers, or not.
Rating:
Summary: Praise the Greeks!
Review: Ignore those who would promote their own agenda by PC intimidation. It's hard to ignore facts, and Bernal's crowd has none. Hey, I guess the historians were correct: the Greeks are the bedrock of western civilization. Maybe the romans a little.
Rating:
Summary: learn it, love it, live it
Review: This book explodes the afrocentric myth. The earl hazells of the world can try to promote their propaganda as much as they like, but it is now common knowledge that Bernal merely tried to become famous. His "research" is pure drivel, and quoting him now brings on humiliation. He is not well respected, nor will he ever be. Black militancy is a short term issue. Ancient Greece and Rome will stand as the foundations of Western Civilizations for milenia.
Rating: 
Summary: A perspective lacking the courage of self-reevaluation
Review: "The fact that an opinion is widely held is no evidence whatsoever that it is not utterly absurd."
Bertrand Russell Mary Lefkowitz goes on the attack against Afrocentrism in NOT OUT OF AFRICA. In so doing she outlines, according to her training (and, though it remains unquestioned, her politics) the inherent methodological weaknesses, dubious literary origins and sociological biases of the perspective. Consider, however, the implications of Lefkowitz purposely saying little to nothing about the evolution of her own discipline in NOT OUT OF AFRICA. Then consider the implications of this more honest approach to the discipline of anthropology and its evolution by Elaine Morgan within her book THE SCARS OF EVOLUTION: "Darwin had predicted that the birthplace of our species would be found in Africa, but for a long time there was a peculiar reluctance, even among Darwinians, to follow up that lead. [19th and early 20th Century anthropologists] were not comfortable with it; they were seeking the origins of the lords of creation, and that conjured up a specific image in their minds. We cannot afford to be patronizing about this. Even today, when an illustrator is asked to draw a progressive line of creatures beginning with an ape, growing steadily more erect and intelligent, and ending with a human being, you can be fairly certain that the human being at the end of the line will be male, adult, and white." This candid report of the inherent biases apparent in the entirety of modern European/American scholarship cast a blanket of question marks over the ironically titled NOT OUT OF AFRICA, where Lefkowitz seems to be saying nothing but exclamation points of truth exist in it. Note also these words, not from an Afrocentrist, but the ancient Metrologist and scientist Dr. Livio Stecchini, former Professor at MIT, in his book, THE HISTORY OF MEASURES, regarding the sharing of his work with Classical scholars in the 1940s: "...To be more exact I should say that the criticism [against his thesis on the measurement principles of ancient Greece and their derivation from the more ancient Egyptian and Assyrian civilizations] was epistemological: it was a matter of deciding whether the Greeks or any other human beings could have thought the way I described...In this field [metrology: the scientific study of ancient measures] ONE CAN RELY ON EVIDENCE MORE RELIABLE THAN THAT USUALLY AVAILABLE IN ANCIENT SCHOLARSHIP, and as a result there is substantial agreement among specialists about all essential points; BUT OTHER SCHOLARS REFUSE TO ACCEPT THE CONCLUSIONS DRAWN FROM THE EVIDENCE BECAUSE THESE DO NOT SUIT THEIR WAY OF THINKING (emphasis mine)." The entire discipline of Metrology since that time has been totally ostracized from the University to avoid today's Classical scholarship--like Lefkowitz of NOT OUT OF AFRICA--from having to deal with its findings at all. Taking the stated raison d'Etre of NOT OUT OF AFRICA into account (essentially that it is Lefkowitz' bulwark against neo-Nazi mythology in Black Postmodernists' clothing), note this from Dr. Stecchini: "The historian Luigi Salvatorelli (...the most outstanding chronicler and analyst of the Fascist phenomenon in Italy) has written that fascism was, first of all, a reaction by the class of parasitic job holders with academic degrees against the involvement of Italy in the stream of international capitalism...this 'humanistic petite bourgeoisie' was the product of a classical education emphasizing only the rhetorical skills, and saw itself threatened by the possible rise of true bourgeois elites with all sorts of technical skills...Salvatorelli...points out that in Italy, classical education of the rhetorical type, connected with an ancient history that emphasized the political side, gave 'an artificial interpretation of the ancient world'.... IT MUST BE NOTED THAT IT IS IN THIS CONTEXT THAT ANTI-SEMITIC LITERATURE MADE ITS FIRST APPEARANCE IN ITALY (emphasis mine)." From this Ms. Lefkowitz can find not Afrocentrism (projection?), but much of her beloved Classicism's roots. There is a truism of all societies regarding groups who are fearing an oncoming economic, political and philosophical paradigm shift in their way of life: they will express that fear via projecting its causes onto the communities for whom acts of mindless violence and aggression against has been previously legitimized, and strike out accordingly. Racism is just one institutionalized expression of this dynamic. I cannot recommend NOT OUT OF AFRICA because this dynamic of focused violence in the name of paradigm shift-phobia is exactly the psychological and epistemological foundation upon which much of modern Classicism and the entirety of Lefkowitz' intellectual critique of Afrocentrism is built. Her well written, detailed arguments regarding the dubious quality of Chekh Anta Diop's work and the integrity of Herodotos in the end, given their foundation in this power-based paradigm of irrational fear, can only be of lasting value to those with the preexisting desire to unquestioningly believe her argument before it is even made. Many of the less educated reviewers singing her praises for merely attacking Black scholars and Black scholarship unapologetically--AND NO ONE ELSE (like the Zacharia Sitchin ancient astronaut school of cultural/religious origins to name but one example)--make this abundantly clear. The rants of Lefkowitz are, thankfully, eventually silenced by the quiet wisdom of Kuhn, the genius linguist who coined the phrase "paradigm shift" (as quoted by Chris Knight, anthropologist author of BLOOD RELATIONS): "A SCIENTIFIC revolution, according to Kuhn, is not simply an addition to pre-existing knowledge. It is, within any field, 'a reconstruction of the field from new fundamentals'; a complete demolition of an old theoretical and conceptual structure and its replacement by a new one based on entirely different aims and premises. The old paradigm...attacked from the outside...cannot be defeated on the basis of its own rules for, as we have seen...these rules are not only inadequate to solve new problems which have begun to arise--THEY ACTUALLY PRECULDE ANY DISCUSSION OF THESE PROBLEMS AT ALL." NOT OUT OF AFRICA is not a great book. Nor is it a book without serious--indeed, cancerous--unscholarly biases, regardless of Lefkowitz' pretense of it being otherwise.
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