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Rating: 
Summary: the golden age of the moor
Review: a must have for any library
Rating:
Summary: Labored, but valuable
Review: Funny as it sounds, I had no idea of a "Moor" until I saw "Black Knight" with Martin Lawrence. I was wondering why they constantly kept calling him "Moor", was this the equivalent of "Nigger"??? So naturally I went to my Encylopedia (sooo dated by the way) and looked up the term "Moor". Some truth was in their descriptions of Moorish Spain but of course there were lies. One of the most shocking was "Moors were NOT black. Moors come from a European stock". tsk tsk Wouldn't you say that's a tad bit misleading? Well I used common sense and didn't take this seriously, and started looking elsewhere. Eslewhere you also hear "Moors were not Black, they were Arab" or "Moors were of a mixed Arab & European race"...pretty much anything besides Black. I'm guessing if you perpetuate such nonsense it WILL stick. Dr Ivan Sertima is trully a force in Academia. This book is a perfect example of that authority. This is my 2nd book by the world reknowned scholar & I must say he's outdone himself again. Since a Historian like Dr. Ivan van Sertima is practically forced to emphasize skin color in his work, a Historian with such drive shall prevail. I'm very tempted to long hand certain commentary from this book but that wouldn't be fair to the Doctor or future readers. What we call Eurocentric Academia, I feel, has left a gigantic void in World History. This allows Historians like Ivan van Sertima to easily destroy accepted rhetoric in Academia. With the help of Runoko Rashidi, James E. Brunson, Scobie & others, they cover every angle from language to Shakespeare to Spanish Music. Along with convicing photos & credible sources, Arab/African/European, I would say Moors shouldn't be a mystery to anybody, especially what race they were in this time period. Anybody trully interested in History should own this book, as well as any Ivan van Sertima book you could get your hands on.
Rating:
Summary: Case Closed
Review: Funny as it sounds, I had no idea of a "Moor" until I saw "Black Knight" with Martin Lawrence. I was wondering why they constantly kept calling him "Moor", was this the equivalent of "Nigger"??? So naturally I went to my Encylopedia (sooo dated by the way) and looked up the term "Moor". Some truth was in their descriptions of Moorish Spain but of course there were lies. One of the most shocking was "Moors were NOT black. Moors come from a European stock". tsk tsk Wouldn't you say that's a tad bit misleading? Well I used common sense and didn't take this seriously, and started looking elsewhere. Eslewhere you also hear "Moors were not Black, they were Arab" or "Moors were of a mixed Arab & European race"...pretty much anything besides Black. I'm guessing if you perpetuate such nonsense it WILL stick. Dr Ivan Sertima is trully a force in Academia. This book is a perfect example of that authority. This is my 2nd book by the world reknowned scholar & I must say he's outdone himself again. Since a Historian like Dr. Ivan van Sertima is practically forced to emphasize skin color in his work, a Historian with such drive shall prevail. I'm very tempted to long hand certain commentary from this book but that wouldn't be fair to the Doctor or future readers. What we call Eurocentric Academia, I feel, has left a gigantic void in World History. This allows Historians like Ivan van Sertima to easily destroy accepted rhetoric in Academia. With the help of Runoko Rashidi, James E. Brunson, Scobie & others, they cover every angle from language to Shakespeare to Spanish Music. Along with convicing photos & credible sources, Arab/African/European, I would say Moors shouldn't be a mystery to anybody, especially what race they were in this time period. Anybody trully interested in History should own this book, as well as any Ivan van Sertima book you could get your hands on.
Rating:
Summary: Sertima relys on physical artifacts not here say.
Review: I own this book and it is one of the greatest pieces of literature that I have read. Ivan van Sertima tells it like it is. The Moors were African people who hailed from the northwestern part of Africa. No other people would come out of that continent but BLACK people. They were many, many years ahead of their time and everybody else's time, too. An advanced, superior civilization of Africans that was the center of culture, education, and arts/crafts to the entire world made their presence felt. And when it came to war with France and England, even the greatest of warriors from those places couldn't stand up to the powerful onslaught of these people. Many intelligent African/Arabic/Ethiopic men were a huge part of this era (i.e. Abd-er-Rahman II-III, Ibn-Aby-Amir). These rulers were very powerful and not even the biggest of Christian rebellions led by extreme, hypocritical bigots could put a dent in Morrocan rule. From the Abbisade to the Ummeyyad, Almoravide, and Almohade dynasties everything is covered from the Moors superior knowledge of irrigation and astrology to their lavish lifestyles. The Europeans sat at the feet of African Moorish scientists and teachers (both men and women) and learned everything there was to learn. That's why I look at the Renaissance Period as a time frame when Europeans finally learned to think and do for themselves. Something that African-Morrocan descendents like myself have been doing for eons. This information is the last thing America wants its black citizens to know about as a whole. It's the reason why big, strong, and intelligent black men like me are easily intimidating to whites. This book is a must for all African-Americans nationwide. Pick up this book and KNOW THYSELF. Peace.
Rating:
Summary: Labored, but valuable
Review: It is a pity that in the 21st century a book about the Moors still is forced to take great pains over the question of their skin pigmentation. Nonetheless, it is apparently necessary to do so, and this book directs tremendous scholarly firepower on the issue. I hope that it establishes beyond the need for further debate that the Moors were black africans that conquered and civilized Spain, and then lost it again to a white European reconquista. If one can get that out of the way, there is so much more of interest in this book. The Moors were among the most civilized peoples of the world in their time. The book has a wealth of detail about that civilization. The most interesting thesis in my mind was that the Moors were a source of the knowledge that flooded Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and thus were coauthors of the renaissance, along with the Arabs and Turks on the other side of the Mediterranean. The book is occasionally turgid - of interest only to scholars, but there are so many ideas that will be unfamiliar to those of us raised on conventional wisdom, and there is so much detail about the contributions of the Moors to civilization, that this is a must-read for anyone with a serious interest in where we all came from.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Work
Review: Over the years I have both read and heard many different theories about the racial and ethnic identity of the people that history refers to as the Moors. According to history the Moors are the people who invaded and occupied southern Spain for some 400 years and made their presence felt thoughout Europe. However, the historians who give there theories on the racial identity of the Moors give very little, and in many cases no credible evidence at all to support them. In his book Golden Age Of The Moor, Ivan Van Sertima takes an entirely different approach to identifing the Moors. He dosen't atempt to explain the theories of others nor does he offer a theory of his own. Instead Van Sertima presents a compilation of historical information taken from the museums of Europe that describe the Moors. In his book Van Sertima presents Paintings, scuptors, coats of arms, and written records about the Moors that date back to the period that the Moors were in Europe. Van Sertima's approach is based his premis that the most accurate information about the Moors would be the information recorded by the European historians and the European people that lived during the period of time that Moors were in Europe. And I wholeheartly agree with Van Sertima. Yes, Golden Age Of The Moor is an excellent work highly recomended for anyone looking for factual information on the racial and ethnic identity of the Moors.
Rating:
Summary: An execellent work
Review: Over the years I have both read and heard many different theories about the racial and ethnic identity of the people that history refers to as the Moors. According to history, the Moors are the people who invaded and then occupied southern Spain for some 400 years and made their presence felt thoughout Europe. However, the historians who give us there theories on the racial and ethnic identity of the Moors give very little, and in many cases, no credible evidence at all to support them. In his book The Golden Age Of The Moor, Ivan Van Sertima takes an entirely different approach to identifing the Moors. He dosen't atempt to explain the theories of others nor does he offer a theory of his own. Instead Van Sertima presents a compilation of historical information taken from the museums of Europe that describe the Moors. In his book Van Sertima presents paintings, sculptures, coats of arms, and written records about the Moors, that date back to the period that the Moors were in Europe. Van Sertima's approach is based upon his premis that the most accurate information about the Moors would be the information recorded by the European historians and the European people that lived during the period of time that Moors were in Europe. I wholeheartly agree with Van Sertima. I feel that his book, The Golden Age Of The Moor is an excellent work, highly recomended for anyone looking for factual information on the racial and ethnic identity of the Moors.
Rating:
Summary: Sertima relys on physical artifacts not here say.
Review: To the usa reader who made the poor comment about the moroccans not identifying with sub sahara descent, yes this would be true of the berbers (the mulattos) who were a mixed breed of caucazoid nomadics and black africans (moors), who were the original indigineous ppl of north africa and through out the continent. The berbers and other caucazoid mixed ppl do not identify with their so called negroid roots because they were trained to be bigots about what they stole and took from the original ppl of the land. It is physically impossible for the caucazoids to have develop in north africa with the type of physical features and skin texture that is designed as it devlops in a cold icy region such as europe which is were these ppl came from as invaders ( the lost mutated black ppl). It would help in the future that when one who disagrees with ones views of historical events, provide something other than emotional baggage, evidence would be nice which is what Mr. Sertima presented and so should not be overlooked or taken out of context because you cannot handle the truth. For more evidence study the correlation between anthropology and physics and be forever humbled disturbed one, the oldest anthropological finding of human remains possessed 99.9 percent melanin in the recovered minute tissue remains and they also found tools which showed that these early humans were civilized beings, being that they had agricultural understanding. Show me what caucazoid has 99.9 percent melanin pigmentation, such a person does not exist and so this can only be what is described about black ppl(african moors) of our so called negroid features inwhich white scientist did admit to this( see discover magazine or the site )................... So please no more out crys from charlatans who cannot give evidence for evidence, hmmmmm very dishonest and immature. Also stop using the lame excuse of afrocentricity being some restoration of black pride, no pride was ever lost, for the blacks had no reason to iniate invasion upon others like the caucasions( the transformed blacks), so how is that for pride?! On your part, foolish pride for overlooking and trying to find a way around the laws of physical science especially in the area of how melinin develops on the pigmentation level, tsk tsk to your foolish pride! The original humans went through three physiological changes as it pertains to nature/nurture 1. development duration 2. climatical influence 3. human nurture influence. But anyway i give The Golden age of the Moors 5 stars for what it supports ( EVIDENCE ) not empty speculation which is what the cowardly usa reader cryed about with no detailed reference of his or her supposably more inclined authors.
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