“当西方意识到自己不是在和孩子说话，而是在和母亲说话时，他们就会开始理解非洲。”
杰夫·皮尔斯（Jeff Pearce）在介绍他引人入胜的开创性著作《非洲的礼物：一个大陆及其人民如何改变世界》时写道。
我们在学校很早就了解到欧洲和亚洲是如何给我们重要的文学、科学和艺术，以及他们的国家是如何改变历史进程的。但非洲呢？有很多书详细描述了它的殖民主义、腐败、饥荒和战争，但很少有书讨论欠非洲思想家和创新者的债务。
在《非洲的礼物》中，我们遇到了埃塞俄比亚哲学家泽拉·亚科布，他与勒内·笛卡尔发展了相同的批判方法和一些相同的思想。我们考虑索马里是如何与中国进行贸易的，我们会遇到非洲勇士女王，他们仍然会激发民族自豪感。我们探索利比里亚的爱德华·威尔莫特·布莱登是如何深刻影响马库斯·加维的，我们潜入20世纪20年代巴黎的画廊和剧院，在那里，非洲艺术和舞蹈开始对世界产生巨大影响。凭借细致的研究，皮尔斯为人们带来了丰富的知识遗产，并介绍了著名的格里奥·帕帕·苏索（griot Papa Susso）和加纳著名经济学家乔治·阿伊蒂（George Ayittey）等现代创新者。
从古代努比亚人到现代绘画和雕塑领域的尼日利亚巨星，从马格里布的社会学之父到肯尼亚的茂茂如何影响马尔科姆十世，《非洲的礼物》大胆、引人入胜，带领读者踏上数千年的旅程，直到今天。
过去的作品强化了人们对非洲的误解，从口头传统和语言到对殖民权力的抵抗。其他一些书将非洲的成就视为荣誉提名和新奇事物的游行。这本书与众不同，令人耳目一新。它讲述了里程碑背后的故事，并深入了解非洲人的思想有多伟大，以及他们是如何传授所学知识的。
非洲的礼物具有挑衅性和娱乐性，终于给了非洲大陆应有的东西，它应该改变我们了解文化互动的方式，以及我们教授世界历史的方式。
The Gifts of Africa: How a Continent and Its People Changed the World
“The West will begin to understand Africa when it realizes it’s not talking to a child—it’s talking to its mother.”
So writes Jeff Pearce in the introduction to his fascinating, groundbreaking work, The Gifts of Africa: How a Continent and Its People Changed the World.
We learn early on in school how Europe and Asia gave us important literature, science, and art, and how their nations changed the course of history. But what about Africa? There are plenty of books that detail its colonialism, corruption, famine, and war, but few that discuss the debt owed to African thinkers and innovators.
In The Gifts of Africa, we meet Zera Yacob, an Ethiopian philosopher who developed the same critical approach and several of the same ideas as René Descartes. We consider how Somalis traded with China, and we meet the African warrior queens who still inspire national pride. We explore how Liberia’s Edward Wilmot Blyden deeply influenced Marcus Garvey, and we sneak into the galleries and theaters of 1920s Paris, where African art and dance first began to make huge impacts on the world. Relying on meticulous research, Pearce brings to life a rich intellectual legacy and profiles modern innovators like acclaimed griot Papa Susso and renowned economist George Ayittey from Ghana.
From the ancient Nubians to a Nigerian superstar in modern painting and sculpture, from the father of sociology in the Maghreb to how the Mau Mau in Kenya influenced Malcom X, The Gifts of Africa is bold, engaging, and takes the reader on a journey of thousands of years up to the present day.
Past works have reinforced misconceptions about Africa, from its oral traditions and languages to its resistance to colonial powers. Other books have treated African achievements as a parade of honorable mentions and novelties. This book is different—refreshingly different. It tells the stories behind the milestones and provides insights into how great Africans thought, and how they passed along what they learned.
Provocative and entertaining, The Gifts of Africa at last gives the continent its due, and it should change the way we learn about the interactions of cultures and how we teach the history of the world.
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