This study examines the role of race in the construction of history and the validation of knowledge. Using Martin Bernal's Black Athena and its critiques as an entrée into the historical inquiries of African American intellectuals and many of their African counterparts, Keita engages the contested legacy of writing history in America. Ranging from 1700 BCE to the late twentieth century, he offers a new perspective on the challenge of building new historiographies and epistemologies.