The Myth of the Negro Past

by Melville J. Herskovits

Book Overview

Almost fifty years ago Melville Herskovits set out to debunk the myth that black Americans have no cultural past. Originally published in 1941, his unprecedented study of black history and culture recovered a rich African heritage in religious and secular life, the language and arts of the Americas.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807009059
• ISBN13: 9780807009055
• Release Date: March 1990
• Publisher: Beacon Press
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.3" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

cultural loss and cultural survival

Africans who were enslaved and taken to America suffered enormous and tragic cultural losses. Amazingly, slaves of very diverse background thrown together under the most adverse conditions managed to somehow reconstruct a great deal of their African culture and transmit it to American-born generations. This courageous cultural achievement has been a major factor in sustaining African-Americans through centuries of tribulations. The author wrote this in 1941 to celebrate the survival of Africanness in African-American culture. It was a pioneering work by someone who was not himself an African-American and subsequent scholars, particularly those from the African-American community, have gone far beyond it. But as you can see from the unfair way that some people disparage such legitimate outgrouths of African traditions such as rap and Ebonics, there is still much that can be learned from this book.