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Improvements to Microsoft
Encarta Africana 2000 edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Anthony
Appiah
Reviewed by Molefi Kete Asante
 Encarta
Africana 200 is an improved version of the project undertaken by
Professors Henry Louis Gates and Anthony Appiah to capture African
American history and culture. Encarta Africana 2000 reflects substantive
changes to content, design and format and represents a remarkable
advance in conceptualizing the African and African American experience.
While I still find some areas that
need attention, for example, the
piece on Costa Rica that hangs out without any material reason to
be in the Encarta Africana as it is written, I can say in all honesty
that the Encarta Africana 2000 goes a long way toward providing
a springboard for intellectual adventure. My
comment about the Costa Rica piece is simply that there is no discussion
of the Limonenses, the people who migrated
from Jamaica to Costa Rica, producing the large African population
in that country. Otherwise the piece on Costa Rica stands out as
disconnected from the project. Quince Duncan is there, but linking
him and the text on Costa Rica begs to be done. One comes away asking
the same question I asked in the previous version, “If there is
nothing more than a description of Costa Rica devoid of black people
in the text then it should not be included.” But Costa Rica does
have a strong black tradition and history.
In
my judgement Encarta Africana 2000 is now a milestone that marks
the beginning of the new millennium with fascinating facts and features
about the African world. Nevertheless, it will still have to be
revised many times.
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