Black Athena comes of age : towards a constructive re-assessment

This book reflects the intellectual encounter over the years between a group of Dutch scholars studying the relations between Ancient Greece, Egypt and Africa and Martin Gardiner Bernal who, from the 1980s onwards, has claimed that the roots of Western civilization are to be sought not in Ancient Greece but outside Europe, in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia and, ultimately, in sub-Saharan Africa. Deriving from the conference 'Black Athena: Africa's contribution to global systems of knowledge', held in Leiden in 1996, with three original contributions by Bernal, and greatly expanded and updated, this collection does not call for canonization of the Black Athena thesis as a mainstream achievement of empirical research. However, it calls for recognition of Bernal as the visionary initiator of an inspiring and timely research programme. Contributions by Wim van Binsbergen, Martin Bernal, Jan Best, Arno Egberts, Josine H. Blok, and Fred Woudhuizen. [ASC Leiden abstract]