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Precolonial African Material Culture
Combatting Stereotypes of Technological Backwardness
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Publisher:
2020
Summary
The idea of an inherent backwardness of technology and material culture in early sub-Saharan Africa is a persistent and tenacious myth in the scholarly and popular imagination. Due to the emergence of the field of African studies and the upsurge in historical and archaeological research, in recent decades the stridency of this myth has weakened, and the overtly racist content of arguments mustered in its defense have tended to disappear. But more important are transformations in social, political, and cultural consciousness, which have worked to reshape conceptualizations of African peoples, their histories, and their cultures. Precolonial African Material Culture offers a thorough challenge to the myth of technological backwardness. V. Tarikhu Farrar revisits the early technology of sub-Saharan Africa as revealed by recent research and reconsiders long-possessed primary historical sources. He then explores the ways that indigenous African technologies have influenced the world beyond the African continent.
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Bibliographic data
Edition
1/2020
Copyright Year
2020
ISBN-Print
978-1-7936-0642-6
ISBN-Online
978-1-7936-0643-3
Publisher
Lexington, Lanham
Language
English
Pages
305
Product Type
Monograph
Table of contents
ChapterPages
Contents No access
Preface No access
1 Narratives on Precolonial African Material Culture and Technology No access
2 Perceptions of Technological Backwardness in Precolonial Africa in the Late Twentieth Century No access
3 Africans in the Eyes of Others across Time No access
4 The Origins of Modern Race Theory and the Theory of Socio-cultural Evolution, c. 1680–1800 No access
5 The Convergence and Crystallization of Modern Race Theory and Socio-Cultural Evolution No access
6 Racial Models of African History and Culture in the Twentieth Century No access
7 A Critical Look at Some Theories of Precolonial African Technological Development No access
8 Indigenous Systems of Tropical African Agriculture No access
9 Metallurgy No access
10 Textile Manufacture No access
11 Indigenous African Building Construction No access
12 Subsistence Systems, Settlements, and Commerce No access
13 The African Impact on Technology and Material Culture in the Americas No access
