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July 2015 Vol. 52 No. 11

Sociologist Patterson (Howard Univ.) makes a strong case for the multidisciplinary fields of Africana studies and environmental studies to interact more and articulate the concerns of their shared communities, especially given the unsurprising statistical tabulations correlating cities exhibiting environmental racism with cities housing Africana studies programs.  He appears to be more familiar with environmental studies paradigms than with Africana studies and displays some shortcomings that may detract from his welcome advocacy for increased interdisciplinarity in Africana studies.  First, he calls on Africana studies to offer more courses on environmental justice and to hire more environmentalist professors, but he does not call on environmental studies to offer any classes on people of African descent or to hire any Africana studies professors.  Second, the author wrongly asserts that Pan-African scholars were completely silent on the plight of black women at the beginning of the movement.  Third, he confuses Afrocentricity with what he calls “Afrocentrism,” which he tries to falsely equate with Eurocentrism.  Finally, Patterson cites the CIA as a reliable source of information on the environmental crisis in Africa but fails to cite the environmental justice scholar-activist Wangari Maathai, author of The Challenge for Africa (CH, Jul'10, 47-6499), or any major indigenous African knowledge sources.

--B. Agozino, Virginia Tech

Summing Up: Recommended. All academic levels/libraries, with the caveats noted above.