The African Genius: An Introduction to African Cultural and Social History

Basil Davidson’s books have played a leading role in changing the whole climate of informed opinion about African culture. The African Genius is likely to be the most influential, the most popular, and the most widely read. What did the slaves bring with them from Africa? What are the foundations for modern African civilizations? What can black Americans take and use from the African experience? What kinds of civilizations have thrived in Africa, and what were their dynamics of achievement and change? Basil Davidson asks and answers these questions, among others, in this new volume in a series that includes the highly acclaimed Lost Cities of Africa (which won the Anisfield-Wolf Award), Black Mother: The Years of the African Slave Trade and The African Past. The latest book takes another step forward seeking to put flesh on the chronological bones of African experience, the names and dates and lists of kings. The book is divided into five sections: Africa’s World: the social structures of a number of traditional African societies (nomadic, trading, agricultural) and how their members have lived in harmony with their social regulations. Social Charters: the mechanisms which have kept these societies in tune with their past and with what African society has conceived to be the ruling forces of nature. Structures of Belief: the ways in which African religions exercise social control. Mechanisms of Change: the varieties of governmental structure in Africa, and how these systems withstood the coming of European colonialism. The Deluge and Today: the most topical section — dealing with Africa’s contemporary aspirations to independence from European control and how modern attitudes and social change have been incorporated with the ancient life-ways. Basil Davidson is the author of five novels and four books of nonfiction, as well as his twelve books on Africa, many of which are required reading in courses in Britain, Africa, and the U.S.A. He visits Africa at least once a year but makes his home in. London. He has lectured on African history at American universities from coast to coast. The African Genius Contents List of Illustrations Prologue: A Scattered Wisdom PART 1 Africa’s World 1 'Just plain nonsense ...' and after 2 Formative Origins 3 The Physical Problem 4. Unity and Variation PART 2 Social Charters 5 Founding Ancestors 6 The Balance with Nature 7 A Moral Order 8 Elaborations I: Age Sets 9 Elaborations II: Secret Societies PART 3 Structures of Belief 10 A Science of Social Control 11 Of Witches and Sorcerers 12 Upside-Down People 13 Explanation and Prediction 14 The Danger Within 15 Useful Magic 16 Answers to Anxiety 17 Art for Life's Sake 18 The Dynamics of Reality Illustrations (between pages 176—177) PART 4 Mechanisms of Change 19 From Elders to Kings 20 The Nature of Kingship 21 Conquest and Clientage 22 Trade and Islam 23 Power, Rank and Privilege 24 The Crisis Opens PART 5 The Deluge and Today 25 From a Guerrilla Diary 26 The Great Transition 27 The Kings Resist 28 Twilight of the Old Gods 29 New Redeemers 30 The Modern Context 31 The Masses React Epilogue: African Destinies Acknowledgements Notes and References Select Bibliography Index Depicts the true genius of the many peoples of Africa and explores their cultures. It is a history of a society and culture shattered by the slave traders and the imperialists and only now painfully reconstructing itself.