Come again?

This book and its various companion volumes are edited by Ivan van Sertima, a particularly extreme Afro-centrist. Now, I'm not against historians unearthing early (or late) African presences in Europe. Such a book could indeed be very illuminating. If no such books exist, Black scholars should write them. Or White scholars, for that matter.

But the books by Van Sertima are, I'm afraid to say, utter nonsense. Sorry, Ivan! The author is an extreme hyper-diffusionist, who believes that civilization started in Africa, and that Africans then spread it all over the world. Apparently, everyone was Black African: Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Krishna, the builders of Angkor Wat, even the Olmecs in Central America. Come again? This is presumably the Black nationalist alternative to White supremacist hyper-diffusionism, where everyone is White instead: from Quetzalcoatl to the ancient Chinese, even the Zulu (I kid you not). However, it is a very bad alternative, simply reversing Euro-centrism.

"African presence in Early Europe" is very disconcerting. One example is its discussion of Herodotus, who claimed that Pharao Sesostris conquered "Europe" and "Asia". From this, one contributor draws the conclusion, that Sesostris actually did conquer what we today call Europe and Asia, including northern Europe with Scandinavia! This is rather like suggesting, that since Dubya is "American" president, he's in charge of everything from Greenland to Patagonia. (Well, maybe he thinks he is?) Of course, Herodotus was refering to Asia Minor and the European Black Sea region.

Further, the book claims that Pygmies lived in Scandinavia in ancient times. The proof? Legends about trolls! I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that statement. Frankly, it would make any Scandinavian laugh. The authors also believe that some Norsemen must have been African, since one of them was nicknamed "the Black". But other Norsemen were nicknamed "the Red", for instance the discoverer of Greenland, Erik the Red, or the Swedish king Hakan the Red. Yet, nobody claims they were American Indians.

This book may be interesting to those who study extreme forms of "alternative history", being essentialy a Black version of it, a sort of Black "Da Vinci Code". But those seriously interested in whatever impact Blacks might have had on Europe, should look eleswhere.