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Western civilization has long sought its cultural roots in the classical civilizations of the Aegean. During the twentieth century, however, it has been made increasingly clear that it owes a great debt to the civilizations of the Fertile Crescent. In the thick of the debate as to how much classical civilizations were influenced by the Levant has been the question of the date of the transmission of the alphabet. In this monograph, Bernal takes up the question anew and marshals persuasive arguments that the date of transmission of the alphabet should be moved considerably earlier than generally has been thought, to the middle of the second millennium B.C. Growing out of his work on Black Athena, the intricate matters of alphabetic history and transmission are dealt with, both in terms of the history of the investigation of the topic and also with regard to the specific working out of his own new proposal.
In this important contribution to the comparative study of legal systems the author examines a sample of some sixty pre-industrial societies from around the world in an attempt to explain why their legal institutions vary.
"In Sentinel Musicians of the Ethiopian American Diaspora, Kay Kaufman Shelemay shares more than forty years of research among Ethiopian musicians in the midst of a widespread and evolving diaspora. Beginning on the eve of the Ethiopian revolution in 1974 all the way up to the present day, Shelemay follows musicians as some leave Ethiopia for the US, setting up essential networks of support in cities such as New York, Boston, and Washington, DC. Throughout this profound transition, Shelemay shows how Ethiopian musicians serve a critical function in social and political life by both safeguarding community identity and challenging authority within Ethiopian society. She coins the term "sentine...
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Religion is one of the most important elements of Afro-Caribbean culture linking its people to their African past, from Haitian Vodou and Cuban Santeria—popular religions that have often been demonized in popular culture—to Rastafari in Jamaica and Orisha-Shango of Trinidad and Tobago. In Afro-Caribbean Religions, Nathaniel Samuel Murrell provides a comprehensive study that respectfully traces the social, historical, and political contexts of these religions. And, because Brazil has the largest African population in the world outside of Africa, and has historic ties to the Caribbean, Murrell includes a section on Candomble, Umbanda, Xango, and Batique. This accessibly written introduction to Afro-Caribbean religions examines the cultural traditions and transformations of all of the African-derived religions of the Caribbean along with their cosmology, beliefs, cultic structures, and ritual practices. Ideal for classroom use, Afro-Caribbean Religions also includes a glossary defining unfamiliar terms and identifying key figures.
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The Ethiopian-Eritrean federation, a product of a United Nations resolution, came into existence in 1952 and was abolished ten years later. The primary objective of this book is to examine the rise and the fall of the federation in the nght of present-day realities. This central theme is placed in context by a reconstruction of Eritrean political organizations during the crucial postwar years. The work includes a short account of the war between Eritrean nationalist forces and the Ethiopian government, which led up to the emergence of Eritrea as a sovereign state. Based primarily on archival sources at the Public Record Office in London, Eritrea and Ethiopia argues that no other group in the...
A provocative investigation into the root causes of the Ethiopian political upheavals in the second half of the twentieth century. During the 1960s and early 1970s, a majority of Ethiopian students and intellectuals adopted a Marxist-Leninist ideology with fanatic fervor. The leading force in an uprising against the imperial regime of Emperor Haile Selassie, they played a decisive role in the rise of a Leninist military regime. In this original study, Messay Kebede examines the sociopolitical and cultural factors that contributed to the radicalization of the educated elite in Ethiopia, and how this phenomenon contributed to the country's uninterrupted political crises and economic setbacks s...