Wale Adebanwi, assistant professor for the department of African-American and African studies at the University of California, provides us with a review of professor Adebanji Akintoye’s A History of the Yoruba People. The article was presented originally at a presentation of the book at the Premier Hotel in Ibadan, Nigeria on the 22nd April 2010 (the same year as the book’s release). Here is an excerpt:
“Another significant thing about the book, […] is perhaps to remind the Yoruba of the duties they owe to the black race. As one of the largest ethnic-nationalities in Africa, one with the strongest surviving culture in the Diaspora, and one of the most progressive in the embrace of modernity, the Yoruba past will be immaterial if it does not constitute a pedestal and a resource that can be mobilized in the service of the historic task of confronting the worst collective racial density imposed on any race in human history. If we point to a rich past, it must be toward ensuring a richer future.”
The full review, ‘A Handle on History’, can be found here.