The West will begin to understand Africa when it realizes it's not talking to a child?it's
talking to its mother.?So writes Jeff Pearce in the introduction to his fascinating
groundbreaking work African Ideas: How a Continent and Its People Changed the World.We learn
early on in school how Europe and Asia gave us important literature science and art and how
their nations changed the course of history. But what about Africa? There are plenty of books
that detail its colonialism corruption famine and war but few that discuss the debt owed to
African thinkers and innovators. In African Ideas we meet Zera Yacob an Ethiopian philosopher
who developed the same critical approach and several of the same ideas as René Descartes. We
consider how Somalis traded with China and we meet the African warrior queens who still
inspire national pride. We explore how Liberia's Edward Wilmot Blyden deeply influenced Marcus
Garvey and we sneak into the galleries and theaters of 1920s Paris where African art and
dance first began to make huge impacts on the world. Relying on meticulous research Pearce
brings to life a rich intellectual legacy and profiles modern innovators like acclaimed griot
Papa Susso and renowned economist George Ayittey from Ghana. From the ancient Nubians to a
Nigerian superstar in modern painting and sculpture from the father of sociology in the
Maghreb to how the Mau Mau in Kenya influenced Malcom X African Ideas is bold engaging and
takes the reader on a journey of thousands of years up to the present day. Past works have
reinforced misconceptions about Africa from its oral traditions and languages to its
resistance to colonial powers. Other books have treated African achievements as a parade of
honorable mentions and novelties. This book is different?refreshingly different. It tells the
stories behind the milestones and provides insights into how great Africans thought and how
they passed along what they learned. Provocative and entertaining African Ideas at last gives
the continent its due and it should change the way we learn about the interactions of cultures
and how we teach the history of the world.
