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Rating: 
Summary: A masterful illumination of forgotten history
Review: "Snowden approached...all of the writings of the 'classical writers' of Greece and Rome for the actual references made to Africa and Africans...Ethiopians were the yardstick by which blackness was measured...European family crests showing black faces and coarse hair are accompanied frequently by such African derivatives as Mawr, Moore, Moorehead, Morris, Morrison, Mora, Maurice, Mareau, Moretti, Muir, Mohr, meaning a person from Mauritania [the Moors]. Sometimes the label is more indirect with names such as Schwartz, Schwartzkopf, and Schwartzmann, which are German for Black, Blackhead and Blackman... "...the physical evidence for a [Black African] presence in Greece and Rome is compelling and extensive...including photographs of carvings, pottery, paintings and coins...it is only because the racism of the present is projected by today's authors into an ancient world that did not know racism as we do, that we have become so misinformed about Africans, and therefore misinformed about history." from AFRICAN PRESENCE IN EARLY EUROPE
"Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience"
A review by Asa G. Hilliard "A SCIENTIFIC revolution, according to Kuhn [the scientist/linguist author of THE THEORY OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS], 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 PRECLUDE ANY DISCUSSION OF THESE PROBLEMS AT ALL." Dr. Chris Knight, London
From BLOOD RELATIONS:
MENSTRUATION AND THE ORIGINS OF CULTURE "Unable to detect any contradiction in the formal statements of the Ancients after an objective confrontation with total Egyptian reality, and consequently unable to disprove them, they either give them the silent treatment or reject them dogmatically and indignantly. They express regret that people as normal as the ancient Egyptians could have made so grievous an error and thus create so many difficulties and delicate problems for modern specialists. Next they try in vain to find a White origin for Egyptian civilization. They finally become mired down in their own contradictions...after performing intellectual acrobatics as learned as they as unwarranted. They then repeat the initial dogma...the White origin of Egyptian civilization. "...Egyptians themselves--who should surely be better qualified than anyone to speak of their origin--recognize without ambiguity that their ancestors came from Nubia and the heart of Africa." Chek Anta Diop
THE AFRICAN ORIGIN OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION
From Chapter Three, "Modern Falsification of History"
and
Chapter Seven, "Arguments for a Negro Origin" The more years go by since the African physicist and anthropological linguist Dr. Chek Anta Diop wrote his books (mostly in the late 60s and early 70s in Africa and Europe), the more ecclesiastically rational do they sound. I discovered his work as a college undergrad in New York in the late 80s, but never actually read them until buying them for my teenage son recently. Diop writes of Egypt as being a country, geographically speaking, in the northeast area of the African continent. Fair enough; no scholar or even rational person above the age of six will argue that. Given this as an obvious reality, why is it, really, that there are no comparative linguistical studies of African languages throughout the rest of the continent and Coptic, Demotic, or the most ancient Egyptian written in hieroglyphs? (The results of such will shock you; some Diop reveals to be as closely related to ancient Egyptian as Latin is to Italian.) Why are the startling to the point of comical similarities of the Greek mythological pantheon and the older Egyptian systematically ignored in ancient literature studies (like, for example, the names Athena and Athens [Athene] proven to be derived from the Egypitan goddess Neith ["Nth"], the sophisticated worship of whom predates Greece as a culture by more than a thousand years)? How did it come to be that the very existence of the Pharonic system of governance in ancient Ethiopia and the Sudan, discovered recently to be PREDATING pre-dynastic Egypt, is ignored by Classical academia and much of traditional Egyptology to this very day? The answer is simple: these questions, or the proper use of the academic/scientific disciplines that answer them, have not been ignored by everyone. The implications of the bibliography of THE AFRICAN ORIGIN OF CIVLIZATION are as controversial as the majority of the book's contents. Diop breaks this book, a summary collection of a number of speeches and essays given over several years, into the following chapters: a) Preface: The Meaning of our Work 1) What were the Egyptians? 2) Birth of the Negro Myth 3) Modern Falsification of History 4) Could Egyptian Civilization have originated in the Delta? 5) Could Egyptian Civilization Be of Asian Origin? 6) The Egyptian Race as Seen and Treated by Anthropologists 7) Arguments Supporting a Negro Origin 8) Arguments Opposing a Negro Origin 9) Peopling of Africa from the Nile Valley 10)Political and Social Evolution of Ancient Egypt 11)Contribution of Ethiopian-Nubia and Egypt 12)Reply to a Critic 13)Early History of Humanity: Evolution of the Black World b) Conclusion This includes and is followed by a significant portion of photos of ancient art, artifacts, brief biographical notes on (purposely ignored and irrationally discredited) authors upon which much of his work is built and references, and a host of modern tribal African photos to compare to the art and artifacts and sarcophagi of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece that make his points in surprising ways.
Diop is truly a Galileo of modern anthropology and ancient history-which again, should go far in explaining the usually visceral and often irrational reactions to his work in academia. And his deeply scientific, logical to the point of humorous and--indirectly but inevitably--politically revolutionary approach is at turns exciting, disturbing, and always refreshing. I highly recommend this.
Rating:
Summary: A masterful illumination of forgotten history
Review: "Snowden approached...all of the writings of the 'classical writers' of Greece and Rome for the actual references made to Africa and Africans...Ethiopians were the yardstick by which blackness was measured...European family crests showing black faces and coarse hair are accompanied frequently by such African derivatives as Mawr, Moore, Moorehead, Morris, Morrison, Mora, Maurice, Mareau, Moretti, Muir, Mohr, meaning a person from Mauritania [the Moors]. Sometimes the label is more indirect with names such as Schwartz, Schwartzkopf, and Schwartzmann, which are German for Black, Blackhead and Blackman... "...the physical evidence for a [Black African] presence in Greece and Rome is compelling and extensive...including photographs of carvings, pottery, paintings and coins...it is only because the racism of the present is projected by today's authors into an ancient world that did not know racism as we do, that we have become so misinformed about Africans, and therefore misinformed about history." from AFRICAN PRESENCE IN EARLY EUROPE
"Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience"
A review by Asa G. Hilliard "A SCIENTIFIC revolution, according to Kuhn [the scientist/linguist author of THE THEORY OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS], 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 PRECLUDE ANY DISCUSSION OF THESE PROBLEMS AT ALL." Dr. Chris Knight, London
From BLOOD RELATIONS:
MENSTRUATION AND THE ORIGINS OF CULTURE "Unable to detect any contradiction in the formal statements of the Ancients after an objective confrontation with total Egyptian reality, and consequently unable to disprove them, they either give them the silent treatment or reject them dogmatically and indignantly. They express regret that people as normal as the ancient Egyptians could have made so grievous an error and thus create so many difficulties and delicate problems for modern specialists. Next they try in vain to find a White origin for Egyptian civilization. They finally become mired down in their own contradictions...after performing intellectual acrobatics as learned as they as unwarranted. They then repeat the initial dogma...the White origin of Egyptian civilization. "...Egyptians themselves--who should surely be better qualified than anyone to speak of their origin--recognize without ambiguity that their ancestors came from Nubia and the heart of Africa." Chek Anta Diop
THE AFRICAN ORIGIN OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION
From Chapter Three, "Modern Falsification of History"
and
Chapter Seven, "Arguments for a Negro Origin" The more years go by since the African physicist and anthropological linguist Dr. Chek Anta Diop wrote his books (mostly in the late 60s and early 70s in Africa and Europe), the more ecclesiastically rational do they sound. I discovered his work as a college undergrad in New York in the late 80s, but never actually read them until buying them for my teenage son recently. Diop writes of Egypt as being a country, geographically speaking, in the northeast area of the African continent. Fair enough; no scholar or even rational person above the age of six will argue that. Given this as an obvious reality, why is it, really, that there are no comparative linguistical studies of African languages throughout the rest of the continent and Coptic, Demotic, or the most ancient Egyptian written in hieroglyphs? (The results of such will shock you; some Diop reveals to be as closely related to ancient Egyptian as Latin is to Italian.) Why are the startling to the point of comical similarities of the Greek mythological pantheon and the older Egyptian systematically ignored in ancient literature studies (like, for example, the names Athena and Athens [Athene] proven to be derived from the Egypitan goddess Neith ["Nth"], the sophisticated worship of whom predates Greece as a culture by more than a thousand years)? How did it come to be that the very existence of the Pharonic system of governance in ancient Ethiopia and the Sudan, discovered recently to be PREDATING pre-dynastic Egypt, is ignored by Classical academia and much of traditional Egyptology to this very day? The answer is simple: these questions, or the proper use of the academic/scientific disciplines that answer them, have not been ignored by everyone. The implications of the bibliography of THE AFRICAN ORIGIN OF CIVLIZATION are as controversial as the majority of the book?s contents. Diop breaks this book, a summary collection of a number of speeches and essays given over several years, into the following chapters: a) Preface: The Meaning of our Work 1) What were the Egyptians? 2) Birth of the Negro Myth 3) Modern Falsification of History 4) Could Egyptian Civilization have originated in the Delta? 5) Could Egyptian Civilization Be of Asian Origin? 6) The Egyptian Race as Seen and Treated by Anthropologists 7) Arguments Supporting a Negro Origin 8) Arguments Opposing a Negro Origin 9) Peopling of Africa from the Nile Valley 10)Political and Social Evolution of Ancient Egypt 11)Contribution of Ethiopian-Nubia and Egypt 12)Reply to a Critic 13)Early History of Humanity: Evolution of the Black World b) Conclusion This includes and is followed by a significant portion of photos of ancient art, artifacts, brief biographical notes on (purposely ignored and irrationally discredited) authors upon which much of his work is built and references, and a host of modern tribal African photos to compare to the art and artifacts and sarcophagi of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece that make his points in surprising ways.
Diop is truly a Galileo of modern anthropology and ancient history?which again, should go far in explaining the usually visceral and often irrational reactions to his work in academia. And his deeply scientific, logical to the point of humorous and--indirectly but inevitably--politically revolutionary approach is at turns exciting, disturbing, and always refreshing. I highly recommend this.
Rating: 
Summary: ADD THIS TO YOUR LIBRARY TODAY!!!
Review: A brilliant work! Cheikh Anta Diop provides the truth-seeking student with a well documented, balanced, intelligent writing that refutes the mis-information perpetuated by too many European/western "scholars". His delivery of information and historical fact enables the reader to formulate a viable understanding of the true origins and racial make-up of not only African peoples, but Arabs, Greeks, Asians and others. Diop also delves into certain aspects of Biblical and Quranic history, dispelling many of the misnomers concerning both and presenting an analysis that is both factual and logical. This book is easy to read, addresses the falsification of history, as mis-taught in certain learning institutions, and provides the student with a solid foundation upon which to continue ones studies of TRUE African history. I highly recommend it!
Rating:
Summary: Nothing but the truth
Review: All one has to do is to read this great piece of literary work to see what Diop is talking about. For thousands of years we have been cheated and lied to about our history, it is only through research that the truth can be revealed. There has never been a positive book about African history until African history is written by it's own...the African...Thank you Diop for daring to do what no man has ever done before. From the very onset of written history, the black has always been depicted as a simpleton, someone incapable of thinking for himself, someone dependent on 'massa' for dear life. Cheikh Anta Diop not only dispels these lies, he also brought to light the truth about black history...the glorious history of our ancestors from time unknown. Reading the book is so uplifting and so educating that one has to read it to experience our history. It is only normal to receive criticism on this wonderful piece. It is with great difficulty and pain that 'they' have to respond to save face. Even though Dr Cheikh Anta Diop is no more with us, his writings will do the talking. To all people of African decent, please read this book and find out what you have never been taught in school. To all the negative critics that hate to see anything positive about black people I'd say...EAT YOUR HEARTS OUT!!.
Rating:
Summary: Denying Black Africas Contribution to Humanity-
Review: Diop is debating the racist ideological beleifs that has plagued Black Africa peoples in modern times 17th century-Present. The debate on whether the Egyptians our of Black African origin is a new debate, exploited by denying many Black African contributions to humanity. The question is why deny Black Africa? This possibly stems from the idea that no one will recognize the true origins of Black African peoples because it denies their claims of no contributions to humanity. Will the slave master ever acknowledge the achievements and contributions of his slave he has justified enslaving? Obviously no, so the debate for humanity continues... (25 yr old college student beginning in studies of Diop).
Rating:
Summary: An excellent book
Review: Diop's book is an excellent historical work.
The writer has made it clear that ancient Egypt was part of Africa and that the ancient Egyptians were Blacks just like all other Africans. Some Europeans like Volney and Gerald Massey have said the same thing.
The Sphinx of Egypt (Horus I.) bears the face of a Black man. It has not been altered as some people think.
That prominent Greeks like Pythagoras, Plato, Democritus etc. were all in Egypt to learn from Black professors is true. These educated Greeks later on passed their knowledge to and awakened Europe from its deep slumber.
I also recommend the works of Ivan Van Sertima, J.A. Rogers, as well as "Retake Your Fame," by Aylmer von Fleischer.
Rating:
Summary: The book is a JEWEL!!!! Thank You, Cheikh Anta Diop!!!!!
Review: I love Cheikh Anta Diop for writing this book! He has freed my mind by writing that civilization began in Africa, specifically EGYPT! Really the only bad reviews about this book come from racists unable to accept the fact that they are at the tail end of culture, and even today, have not become truly civilized at all. The ancient blacks of Egypt gave the world religion, mathematics, music, salt, spices, jewels, gold, silver, and all manner of gifts. It is the height of ingratitude to claim that Africa gave western people "slaves" and forget that there was a time, not so long ago, when whites (having been formed from blacks) were slaves. Everyone has a place of origin to give them a place to stand in history. Black people have Egypt, and from her come all other cultures. The truth will set you free, as it has me. I never believe another thing the "teachers" say in history class, or any other class for that matter. I see everything in a whole new light, and suddenly, life MAKES SENSE!
I encourage anyone, especially African-Americans to rush out and buy this book. IT IS ESSENTIAL FOR UNDERSTANDING CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION AS IT SHOULD BE TAUGHT!!!!!!!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Very well done
Review: I read this book as required reading for an African studies course that I took in college. I found it to be incredibly eye opening as did many of my fellow students, many of whom were white. I would like for the readers of this silly debate to understand only a few key points, unleadened with philisophical and heady banter of the 'I'm-better-than-you-and-will-prove-it,' agenda's on both sides, black or white. Our schools, in America, continue to teach nothing to young African-Americans, as far as thier origins. In fact there is no diversty in the telling of history in our country. When our nation moved forward in its infancy, the Europeans building it did not have Africans in mind, and how could they, for they were moving forward with thier own cultural model, the model held by them to be superior to any indigenous culture. With that, how could a eurocentric history of Africa, regardless of any documentation-- reported only within the confines of the eurocentric point of view-- ever be comeletley credible if at all. How could white historians NOT lie to thier own children in order to keep a sense of superiorty going. They had to, and they DID. Is anyone suprised that a lie was told during the more awful periods of history. Does anyone think that these lies were told only in America during the 17 and 1800's? It is so apparrent that this is the very pattern of any society that has ever sought to dominate another. Look at the old movies of American culture and you can see the hilarious and horrible assumptions of superiority that white people suffered as they tried to hold onto certain cultual beliefs, the edges of thier own propaganda. Would one be so utterly naive to believe that this behavioral pattern could not filter and fester into the arenas of history and science, and not pattern themselves so finely that the lie told became a sophisticated and yet only a commonly agreed upon belief?! Give me a Break!! I believe the greatest impact of this book is in exposing and further examining the lies, bringing them to light, and burning the ideas that are obviously (by reading this board) still filtering and festering, that the Africans and those descended from them have no history. Obviously this is a great lie of omission. Read this book, challenge your own cultural perceptions, and make up your own damned mind.
Rating:
Summary: The White Man's Kryptonite
Review: The African Origin Of Civilization is a dagger in the heart of the white man. Cheikh Anta diop has exposed the Great White Liar for what he truly is, a thief of our history and our life. The White Man has in terrifying succession, robbed the Black Man of his manhood, his past, his present and the knowledge that every black has deep down that he is the Creator of Civilization. White people will either lean towards the truth, saying "Yes, perhaps he had a few valid points but still, the Greeks were the Turning point of modern technology and this and that. We invented modern medicine, we invented the telescope!" White people came from a mutant generation of black people who were living in the ice cold moutains and dark caves of the Antarctic and the Cold North. This is why today, the White still loves his cold places. White people are the degenerate of the Black, the other side of us, the Child within, the Angry Child, throwing a tantrum whenever something doesn't go his way. He has the astonishing ability to conquer, as he has done so with most of the world, only because he is too afraid to allow his arch nemisis, his black brethren, the True King, to take his rightful place as Adam, as Eve, As the Mighty undeniabley Black Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, which, despite the White Man's best efforts, we still know to be in the Cradle of Humakind, Africa. He will not let us retake our home until we open out eyes and understand; we are not the slobbering [...] of a time long ago when he could step on us and make us do whatever he wanted. Even then, he knew he was in the precence of a King, of his Equal, of his Uber Equal, of his Master. The White Man will scream, stomp and pout. He will say things to anger us, he will even go as far as to say that the Egyptians were white, when a blind bat can see the truth. He hates us and in that, He hates himself because, even as he kills and robs and does other things that only the White Man could do, he knows the blood of the Black runs through his veins and nothing he can do will remove it because without it, without us, he cannot survive. At the same time he hates us but he cannot live without us, which makes him foam at the mouth. So, to compensate, he steals out History and tries to call it his own, even while we notice, those lips on that Statue of King Zozer (a typical negro) looks alot like your ghetto cousins down the street, whom, even if at the moment he is ignorant as to the great things he could be doing, is still an ancient, one of the many decendenats of a great people. The White Man angered, keeps us back in school, tries to separate fact from fact and turn it into his own little fiction. No longer will we fall for his lame tricks. This Book, getting back on subject, is a thorn in the White Man's side. If he could, he would burn every copy and leave us forever blind and mentally challenged, thinking that Whitey is the founder of civilization when in Medieval Europe, he couldn't even wipe his [...] for sanitation.(then the Muslims came along and showed hom how to do it right then all of a sudden he invented the bidet) We wouldnt learn that interesting little fact in high school. No we learn he invented lightbulbs, speakerphone, the wheel, tissue paper (ha ha) astronomy, psychology, science, mathematics, the anatomy of the human body and religion as we know it even though he hates the whole lot and couldn't master it on his own even if he wanted to. The last but most definately not least most intriguing fact is that the White Man is missing some vital DNA; It is called Junk DNA, strands of what makes us human, MISSING from his body. This would pique curiosity as to what traits could be missing from him from this strange, Junk DNA. his morality perhaps? The way to control his temper? His sanity? His ... humanness? Nevertheless, he his still, unfortunatly, one of us, of The Black. Now, Cheikh Anta Diop will not have as angry words as I, but what he will say with touch nerves, Black and White, like never before. He tells the Truth, the whole Truth, so help us all the coming when The Black will know who and what he truly is. We are all Black, whether Hispanic, Greek, Croation, Mexican, Indian, European, Native American and yes, White.
In closing, every Black should know this is the White Man's Kryptonite. (10 stars)
Rating:
Summary: Another great one I loved it.
Review: This book has obviously angered (a few) people, so much so that they have gone above and beyond the call of duty as reviewers to invent several screen names and post their ire-filled opinions over and over. The fact is that this book is well written, well researched, and well referenced. The author does not ignore contrary opinions, but in fact takes great steps to address and dispel seemingly legitimate arguments. As a dedicated historian, and skeptic of nearly all Afro-centric writings, I can honestly say that this book is far more than the sublimated racism some readers would have you believe it to be. Those with a willingness to read the book and do their own un-biased follow-up research will find it well worth the effort.
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