The African Awakening (1955)
The Lost Cities of Africa (1959)
The African Slave Trade (1961)
Which Way Africa? The Search for a New Society (1964)
A History of West Africa, 1000–1800 (1965)
(with F. K. Buah)
African Kingdoms (1966)
(with the Editors of Time-Life Books)
A History of East and Central Africa to the Late 19th Century (1967)
(with J. E. F. Mhina)
Africa in History: Themes and Outlines (1968)
The Liberation of Guiné (1969)
The African Genius (1969)
In the Eye of the Storm: Angola’s People (1972)
Black Star: A View of the Life and Times of Kwame Nkrumah (1973)
Can Africa Survive? Arguments Against Growth Without Development (1974)
Let Freedom Come: Africa in Modern History (1978)
No Fist Is Big Enough to Hide the Sky (1981)
The People’s Cause: A History of Guerrillas in Africa (1981)
The Story of Africa (1984)
The Long Struggle of Eritrea (1988)
(edited with Lionel Cliffe)
The Fortunate Isles (1989)
Modern Africa (1990)
African Civilization Revisited (1991)
The Black Man’s Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State (1992)
The Search for Africa: A History in the Making (1994)
The African Genius
BASIL DAVIDSON
James Currey OXFORD
Ohio University Press ATHENS
James Currey Ltd
73 Botley Road
Oxford OX2 0BS
Ohio University Press
Scott Quadrangle
Athens
Ohio 45701
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
© Basil Davidson, 1969
First published as The Africans by Longmans 1969
First distributed in Europe and Commonwealth by James Currey 1996
First published by James Currey 2004
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 5 4 3
ISBN 0-85255-799-X (James Currey paper)
ISBN 0-8214-1605-7 (Ohio University Press paper)
BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Davidson, Basil
The African genius
1. Africa - Civilization 2. Africa - History I. Title
960
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
available on request
ISBN 978-0-82144-565-5 (Ohio University Press eBook)
ISBN 978-1-78204-791-9 (James Currey ePub eBook)
ISBN 978-1-78204-991-3 (James Currey ePDF eBook)
To Amilcar Cabral for the past yet less than for the future
Civilisation is the humanisation of man in society
Matthew Amold in The Oxford English Dictionary
Contents
1. ‘Just plain nonsense . . .’ and after
9. Elaborations II: Secret Societies
PART THREE. STRUCTURES OF BELIEF
10. A Science of Social Control
13. Explanation and Prediction
PART FOUR. MECHANISMS OF CHANGE