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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The Mystification of African History: A Critique of Rodney's 'How Europe Underdeveloped Africa'
Author:Mishambi, G.T.
Year:1977
Periodical:Utafiti
Volume:2
Issue:2
Pages:201-228
Language:English
Geographic term:Africa
Subjects:colonial history
sociology
historiography
External link:https://d.lib.msu.edu/utafiti/46/OBJ/download
Abstract:In his book 'How Europe underdeveloped Africa' (1972), Walter Rodney falls into the category of nationalist historians who look at African history from an 'Afro-centric' point of view. However, this kind of approach to African history leads to mystification of reality. Rodney '... is all out to disprove that Africa had no history, culture of civilisation of its own before contact with Europe'. But the result is that 'he reduces history to a balance sheet of the African achievements before contact with Europe' and he lapses into bourgeois moralism and romanticism. What Rodney develops is a 'structural explanation of history' and not an explanation based on historical and dialictical materialism. Notes.
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