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Introduction: Ali A. Mazrui's The Africans
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12731 |
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BOOK WORLD
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3 / 1987 |
1,275 Words |
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Ali Mazrui's book The Africans is, as he puts it, "both the mother and the child of the television program": the book was developed to accompany his television series. The Africans, and related course (which consists of cassettes of the television series, plus Mazrui's book, a study guide, a faculty guide, and a reader that contains a collection of essays). The faculty guide begins: "The American broadcast of The Africans, a series of nine one-hour television programs, provides you with a dynamic teaching resource and an unusual opportunity to support your teaching efforts about the continent of Africa." The package is being heavily promoted and is likely to be used in classrooms from junior high on up.
According to the faculty guide, the basic content areas include: environment, geography, families, culture, ancient history, history, colonialism, slavery, religion, technology and development, natural resources, agriculture, climate, government, economics, international affairs, and a host of other goodies. Sounds straightforward enough.
But The Africans has provoked enormous controversy.
In case you missed it when it aired last fall, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer aptly described the series this way:
"The Africans" is nine hours of historically ambitious, technically superb (the sound track alone is worth the price of admission), visually arresting political tendentiousness. The subtitle is "A Triple Heritage." The theme (I simplify only slightly): indigenous heritage, good; Islamic, better; Western, worst....Is there any
... (1998 of 7903 Characters)
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