Asante, Molefi Kete: "The History of Africa: The Quest for Eternal Harmony."(Healthcare Policy in Africa: Institutions and Politics from Colonialism to the Present, The Roots of Ethnic Conflict in Africa: From Grievance to Violence) (Book review)

• Author: Matanga, Frank

Asante, Molefi Kete. The History of Africa: The Quest for Eternal Harmony (second edition). New York: Routledge, 2014.

Gros, Jean-Germain. Healthcare Policy in Africa: Institutions and Politics from Colonialism to the Present. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2015.

Nasong'o, Wanjala S., ed. The Roots of Ethnic Conflict in Africa: From Grievance to Violence. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

The common thread in the three books under review is an examination of contemporary themes in the social, economic, and political history of Africa. The issues of ethnic violence, healthcare policies, and political and economic systems are critically examined from an Afrocentric perspective, rather than a Eurocentric perspective. The three authors, from Africa, Latin America, and the United States, respectively, all teach at American universities and, collectively, have produced a significant amount of scholarship. Consequently, the three books under review succeed in shedding new light on Africa's problems and challenges, while proposing exciting and innovative solutions to such issues. These books are a must-read for Africa's theorists, practitioners, and policy makers as well as university students who seek to comprehend and interpret contemporary African issues.

Molefi Kete Asante is a professor at Temple University who is well known for his works based on Afrocentricity, a cultural ideology that focuses on the history of black Africans and that rejects Eurocentric and Orientalist attitudes about African people. Asante, who was born Arthur Lee Smith in Georgia, legally changed his name because he believed that his birth name was a slave name. The second edition of The History of Africa: The Quest for Eternal Harmony is divided into seven parts. Part 1, "The Time of Awakening," is used by Asante to demonstrate the extent to which Africa is the home of both humanity and civilization. He opines that "one could not write a complete history of humanity without delving into the prehistory of Africa" (p. 9). Part 2, "The Age of Literacy," traces the roots of issues and events such as modern science and technology, agriculture, architecture, philosophy, mathematics, and writing skills to Africa.

In Part 3, "Moment of Realization," and Part 4, "The Age of Construction," Asante critically traces the origins of the great rivers in Africa and the respective river kingdoms and empires. Part 5, "The Time of Chaos," examines the two principal...