Preface: Technology and the Black Peoples
Part One
Africa: A Continent without History, Progress, or Native Genius:
The Origins of a Legend
Chapter :1 Narratives on Precolonial African Material Culture and
Technology: A Lesson in the Evolution of an Idea in the Cauldron of
Modern Race Theory
Chapter 2: Perceptions of Technological Backwardness in Precolonial
Africa in the Late Twentieth Century: Some Africanist Views
Chapter 3: Africans in the Eyes of Others Across Time: From the
Ancient World to the Enlightenment
Chapter 4: The Origins of Modern Race Theory and the Theory of
Socio-cultural Evolution, c. 1680–1800: The Enlightenment
Chapter 5: The Convergence and Crystallization of Modern Race
Theory and Socio-Cultural Evolution: c. 1800–1900
Chapter 6: Racial Models of African History and Culture in the
Twentieth Century: c. 1900–1975
Chapter 7: A Critical Look at Some Theories of Precolonial African
Technological Development
Part Two
Aspects of Technology and the Material Conditions of Life in
Tropical Africa
Chapter 8: Indigenous Systems of Tropical African Agriculture
Chapter 9: Metallurgy: African Traditions in Ironworking
Chapter 10: Textile Manufacture
Chapter 11: Indigenous African Building Construction: Some
Considerations of Building Materials and Techniques
Chapter 12: Subsistence Systems, Settlements, and Commerce: The
Trade in Foodstuffs and Its Relation to the Expansion of Systems of
Water Transport, Economic Growth, and the Proliferation of Cities.
The West African Evidence
Part Three
“All That Is Hidden in Darkness Will One Day Come to Light”: Africa
in America
Chapter 13
The African Impact on Technology and Material Culture in the
Americas: Evidence and Meanings
V. Tarikhu Farrar is professor of African American studies and history at City College of San Francisco.
Divided into three sections, this text examines early African
technologies and their impact, challenging old presumptions of
backwardness. In the first segment Farrar (City College of San
Francisco) critiques the ideology of several scholars, including
Eric Jones, John Morgan, and Jack Goody, emphasizing the evolution
of race theory and its influence on subsequent researchers. His
excursion into classical Greece and Rome further illuminates this
discourse. Farrar leaves no stone unturned in providing an
insightful analysis of the ideology emanating from the European
Renaissance and Enlightenment, referencing scholars such as David
Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Georg Hegel, whom he identifies as
“fundamental to the origins and unfolding of modern race theory.”
The author’s difficult journey across the intellectual horizon of
bigotry, arrogance, and supremacist ideology culminates in
challenges from Edward Blyden, Melville Herskovits, William
Hansberry, and Carter Woodson. This sets the stage for the rest of
the text, an in-depth historiographical and evidence-based
discussion of African technological accomplishments in agriculture,
metallurgy, textiles, and building technology. . . this scholarly
text provides a welcome corrective lens to view Africa’s material
culture. Summing Up: Recommended. All readership levels.
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