Cheikh Anta Diop: An Intellectual PortraitMolefi Kete Asante

Cheikh Anta Diop: An Intellectual Portrait is an essential contribution to our criticalunderstanding of the intellectual and practical work of the historian, physicist,sociologist and linguist, Cheikh Anta Diop. Professor Asante identifies and clarifiesthe key components, concerns and evolutionary contours in Diopian thought andweaves them into a richly textured pattern and composite portrait of thisdistinguished scholar of astounding erudition and extraordinary insight. TracingDiop's intellectual and political evolution, Professor Asante opens critical vistas onhis multi-disciplinary competence and approach and his constant concern withputting knowledge and science in the service of the dignity and development ofAfrica. Moreover, he reaffirms Diop's towering position as a founding figure inAfrican-centered scholarship and his expansive and enduring influence in the worldAfrican community. Professor Asante presents an engaging synthesis of well-lacednarrative, careful reasoning and interpretive insight. And he has written in a styleaccessible to the general reader and also of equal value to the scholar interested inAfrican and general intellectual history.

"Professor Asante's intellectual portrait of Cheikh Anta Diop, one of the first inEnglish, captures the complex intellectual ideas of this great scholar and probes themeaning of his work to the continent and the diaspora. It is a gem for seriousintellectuals and the ordinary reader. It is simply fascinating and a true pioneeringmasterpiece worthy of effusive praise by true Pan-Africanist and general scholars."Dr. A.B. Assensoh, Professor of African American and African Diasporan StudiesIndiana University - Bloomington

"Cheikh Anta Diop's importance resides in his pivotal position as the Africanintellectual who confronted the most powerful myth the Europeans had createdabout African people and our history. In 1948 he had written an explosive article forPresence Africaine, "When Shall We Be Able to Talk of an African Renaissance?"...Diop hadalready seen the implication of a new birth for the continent, a new beginning afterthe Europeans, a renaissance of ideas, ideals, concepts, images, symbols inventionsand relationships." page 7

"Diop can be said to have been one of the first historians to articulate a decidedlyAfrocentric point of view. He was clear is his belief that in order to write Africanhistory one had to allow Africans to write their own story. An Afrocentric view ofAfrican history is written from the standpoint of African peoples as subjects ofhuman experiences." page 81

About the AuthorDr. Molefi Asante is Professor of African American Studies at Temple University andthe founding theorist of Afrocentricity, explicated in his seminal work, The AfrocentricIdea. Considered one of the most distinguished and prolific contemporary scholars,Professor Asante is an Imhotepian scholar with a wide intellectual range, havingwritten over 300 articles and published 61 books. Among his most recent books areThe History of Africa (2007), Handbook of Black Studies (2006), co-edited with AmaMazama; Race, Rhetoric and Identity: The Architecton Soul (2005); Erasing Racism: TheSurvival of the American Nation (2003); Ancient Egyptian Philosophers (2003); Scattered tothe Wind (2002); Customs and Culture of Modern Egypt (2002); and The Painful Demise ofEurocentrism (1999). The second edition of high school text, African American History:Journey of Liberation (2001), is used widely throughout North America and hisAfrocentric theory and methodology have worldwide range and impact.