The Gifts of Africa Audiobook By Jeff Pearce cover art

The Gifts of Africa

How a Continent and Its People Changed the World

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The Gifts of Africa

By: Jeff Pearce
Narrated by: JW Hathaway
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About this listen

"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, The Gifts of Africa: 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 The Gifts of Africa, 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.

©2022 Jeff Pearce (P)2022 Rowman & Littlefield
Africa Middle East Iran Imperialism Self-Determination Social justice Imperial Japan Socialism Military Middle Ages Nepal
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I really enjoyed this. Anyone who enjoys history and culture will love this book. A fresh take on an old subject.

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