Overview
Region
Central Africa
DRC
Era
Contemporary
Language
English
Genre
Non-fiction
About This Work
A philosophical inquiry into how Africa was invented by colonial discourse through missionary accounts, anthropology, and philosophy. Mudimbe shows how the colonial library created a distorted knowledge of Africa that Africans themselves have often had to inhabit.
Literary Significance
Foundational text in postcolonial and African studies; shaped an entire generation of scholars