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The African Origins of Democracy challenges the myth that democracy was born in ancient Greece. Drawing on archaeology, anthropology, and political science, Bernd Reiter shows that egalitarian African societies practiced self-rule tens of thousands of years earlier and that these traditions spread outward through migration and exchange. At the heart of the book is Botswana, where dikgotla village assemblies still embody living democracy today. Bold and provocative, this book rewrites democracy s story, centering Africa as its birthplace and urging us to imagine futures beyond elite-driven representative systems.
List of contents
GLOSSARY.-ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.-DEDICATION.-CHAPTER 1.-INTRODUCTION.-TRUE DEMOCRACY.-A COUNTER HISTORY.-LEARNING FROM BOTSWANA.-THE AFRICAN ORIGINS OF DEMOCRACY.-HUNTER-GATHERER EGALITARIANISM.-THE NEED TO LOOK FOR POSSIBILITIES BEYOND REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY.-POLITICAL SCIENCE EXPANDED.-METHOD.-INSTITUTIONS.-PLAN OF THIS BOOK.-CHAPTER 2.-LIMITING GREECE AND EXPANDING THE CLASSICS.-DEMOCRACY S IMMACULATE CONCEPTION IN ATHENS AND ROME?.-DEMOCRATIC THEORY.-GREEK DEMOCRACY.-SOLON.-CLEISTHENES.-EPHIALTES.-THE ROMAN REPUBLIC.-BEYOND ATHENS AND ROME.-CRETE.-CONCLUSION.-CHAPTER 3.-DEMOCRATIC HISTORY AND PRE-HISTORY AGAINST THE GRAIN.-DEMOCRACY AND THE STATE.-
CIVILIZATION.-WHERE EQUALITY ENDS.-ADVANCING CIVILIZATION.- KILLING NATIVES AND THEIR DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS.-ONLY TRIBES WILL SURVIVE (VINE DELORIA).-THE TIMELINE.-EGALITARIANISM.-CONCLUSION.-CHAPTER 4.-KGOTLA S ANCIENT ROOTS.-HUNTER GATHERER EGALITARIANISM AND DIRECT DEMOCRACY.-TSWANA HISTORY AND PREHISTORY.-THE NEOLITHIC REVOLUTION.-COLONIAL BECHUANALAND.-HUNTER-GATHERERS IN BOTSWANA.-AFRICAN COMMUNOCRACIES.-PRECOLONIAL KGOTLA .-CONCLUSION.-CHAPTER 5.-KGOTLA DEMOCRACY TODAY.-DEMOCRACY IN SOUTHERN AFRICA.-WHAT MAKES A CUSTOM CUSTOMARY?.-CONCLUSION.-Chapter 6.-Women as Democratic Champions.-THE AMAZONS.-WOMEN IN PRE-COLONIAL BOTSWANA.-IMPLICATIONS FOR WOMEN AND RULE.-CONCLUSION.-CHAPTER 7.-OUT OF AFRICA: SOME POSSIBILITIES ABOUT KNOWLEDGE TRANSMISSION AFRICA.-OUT OF AFRICA .-NUBIA AND EGYPT BEFORE THE PHARAOHS.-THE MEDITERRANEAN.-GÖBEKLI TEPE.-ÇATALHÖYÜK.- MINOAN CRETE.-THE PHOENICIANS.-CONCLUSION.-GENERAL CONCLUSIONS.-DEMOCRATIC HEROES.-A NEW HISTORY OF DEMOCRACY.-DEMOCRATIC GREECE AND ROME SEEN UNDER A NEW LIGHT DIKGOTLA.-DEMOCRACY S JOURNEY NORTH .-MODERNITY AND TRIBES.-THE CLASSICS RECONSIDERED.-THE NEW BIG PICTURE.-THE NEED TO LOOK BEYOND REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY .-LIMITATIONS.-BIBLIOGRAPHY.
About the author
Bernd Reiter
is a political scientist and a professor of Luso-Latin American Studies for the Department of Classical and Modern Languages and Literatures at Texas Tech University, USA. He served as a Fulbright Distinguished Chair of Public Policy and as a Fulbright Specialist in Brazil, as well as a Erasmus Mundus Visiting Professor at the Barcelona Institute for International Studies. In 2020-21, he was a research associate at the Afro Latin American Research Institute at Harvard University. From 2018 to 2020, he was the director of the Institute for the Study of Latin America and the Caribbean, at the University of South Florida. He is the editor of the
Routledge Decolonizing the Classics Special Book Series
and a section editor-in-chief for the journal
Social Sciences
.
Summary
The African Origins of Democracy
challenges the myth that democracy was born in ancient Greece. Drawing on archaeology, anthropology, and political science, Bernd Reiter shows that egalitarian African societies practiced self-rule tens of thousands of years earlier—and that these traditions spread outward through migration and exchange. At the heart of the book is Botswana, where
dikgotla
—village assemblies—still embody living democracy today. Bold and provocative, this book rewrites democracy’s story, centering Africa as its birthplace and urging us to imagine futures beyond elite-driven representative systems.
