Western literature has long portrayed Africa as the antithesis of Europe, or as V.Y. Mudimbe puts it, "a paradigm of difference." For centuries, Europeans have viewed Africans as embodiments of all that they disdained: foreigness, savagery, and irrationality. In other words, to use an academically voguish phrase, Europeans "otherized" Africa and Africans.

In "The Idea of Africa," Mudimbe explores the origins and development of this negative conception of Africa. His approach is unique in that it attempts to synthesize a diverse body of sources, including Greek histories, 20th century primitive art, contemporary African artists and the structuralist theory of Michel Foucault.

The reliance on Foucault is a warning that we're headed into the murky realm of postmodern philosophy. In his preface, Mudimbe writes that he hopes to tackle the "simple issue" of how he would explain the idea of African otherness to his two "Americanized" children. This presumption of simplicity highlights the sheer unreadability of this otherwise interesting work. Mudimbe's writing is so cluttered with flashy jargon and inscrutable theory so as to be practically inaccessible, even for readers who are comfortable with his topic. As one academic reviewer put it, "Mudimbe has produced a work that is as ambitious in concept as it is impenetrable in style." Even when Mudimbe's ideas are strong, they are obscured by his plodding style and pedantic tone.

First of all, this book doesn't quite live up to its title - I expected Mudimbe to write about the invention of the concept of Africa, which he chose as a topic for his book 'The Idea of Africa.' It also doesn't really attempt to establish any sort of theory of how African philosophy has developed and exists today. Rather, he draws heavily on Foucault (as to be expected, of course) plus Levi-Strauss and others to critically examine eurocentric approaches to African philosophy and point out how African philosophy emphasizes the 'alterity of the subject' and 'the passion of subject-object that doesn't vanish.'

Yet this method is faulty in several ways. First, as the above quotes reveal, Mudimbe is a big fan of academic jargon. His writing could be a lot clearer when he's trying to get a point across as opposed to merely skewering eurocentrists.

Second, Mudimbe could have spent more time surveying African philosophy rather than just criticizing eurocentric misinterpretations and misreadings. He does devote a chapter to the pan-Africanist Edward Blyden but is unwilling to delve into a systematic history of native African philosophies prior to colonialism. Indeed, part of the problem of this book is an unwillingness on Mudimbe's part to move away from European-educated Africans and their application of Marxim, post-modernism and other European philosophical movements to African philosophy. If he did examine more native philosophies like he does with Alexis Kagame's work on Bantu philosophy, the reader might actually gain some insight into the varieties and diversity of African philosophy. Of course, such a discussion might (and probably would) invalidate any use of the word 'African' to describe one system of thought as Mudimbe continually uses here.

Third, Mudimbe seems to be critical of everyone except his heroes like Levi-Strauss and, especially, Foucault. While very important for anyone writing about contemporary philosophy, Foucault has his faults as well, yet Mudimbe has no interest in critically examining Foucault's use of epistemes to describe the history of knowledge. I as a reader would have enjoyed an African criticism of Foucault, especially one that deals with Foucault's relentless reliance upon French sources with little regard for non-Europeans' own native or original epistemes.

This is all unfortunate because Mudimbe obviously has the skills to write a great book on African philosophy (or philosophies). Too bad this is not that book.