Choice Review

Well organized into three parts with five chapters and subdivisions that include study questions and concluding sections, this book is a compact introduction to African philosophy focusing on the ethnophilosophy debate on the nature and purpose of African philosophy. Part 1 briefly defines the issues, a central question being whether philosophy can develop in an oral culture. In part 2 Imbo (Hamline Univ.) critically examines Diop's Afrocentric historiography, Mbiti's religious ethnography, and Ogotemmeli's cosmology. A wide range of views held by African philosophers and writers, including Henry Oruka, Kwasi Wiredu, V. Y. Mudimbe, Chinua Achebe, and Ngugi wa Thiong'o, are surveyed. Leopold Senghor's Negritude is positioned against the universalism of Kwami Anthony Appiah and Paulin Hountondji. Mindful of the criticisms of ethnophilosophy, Imbo urges African philosophers to make a linguistic commitment to native languages, expressing scepticism toward African writers who work exclusively in French or English. In part 3 comparisons with African American and feminist thought are drawn in terms of "a convergence of interests" to show that African philosophy is also engaged in "the quest to dismantle the problematic hierarchies and binary oppositions of the dominant narratives." Recommended for lower-division undergraduates and above. T. L. Lott; San Jose State University