Towards the African Renaissance: Essays in African Culture and Development, 1946-1960 by Cheikh Anta Diop
ISBN 0907015808 pb
US$15.95
CONTENTS
Studies in Valaf Linguistics, Part1
Studies in Valaf Linguistics, Part2
When can we Talk of an African Renaissance?
Towards an African Political Ideology
The Struggle in Black Africa
Essay on Vernacular Language
Alarm in the Tropics
Cultural Contributions and Perspectives for Africa
A Continent in search of its History
Africa's Cultural Unity
Intellectuals should study the past not for their pleasure but to learn useful lessons. :-*
Cheikh Anta Diop clearly fits into the category of a thinker who sought to expand the role played by history in the day-to-day life of all people, particularly those of African descent. He did not undertake the study of the African past in order to generate a mere collection of data to be used for contingent reference, or a catalog of persons and places and a picturesque list of political events... Rather, Diop saw history as a philosophy of transcendental ideals which took the researcher beyond the pale and scope of mere strict scientific method. A good historian must always deal with the higher structure implied by the philosophical interpretation of history, since it appears to be endemic in human nature to struggle to forge a higher meaning from experience in order to achieve in this world a richer and fuller society... What Cheikh Anta Diop called the African historical memory cannot be derived out of a chaotic past, that is, a past which exists in the minds of thinkers without a chronological sequence and cause and effect relationships among events...Historical memory is a force which by definition eliminates chaos and self-doubt. It is a dynamic stimulus which relates the present to the past and, in so doing, provides a continuum which stretches into the future...
Cheikh Anta Diop was a truly scientific-minded great African militant for the purposes of African Unity, progress and social justice. Reason and African genius must continue to gain in power in the wake of his physical absence from us. These are the main lessons of Cheikh Anta Diop's life and immortal work.
Ras Benjamine
Towards the African Renaissance: Essays in African Culture and Development, 1946-1960 by Cheikh Anta Diop
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