From Babylon to Timbuktu by rudolph r. windsor

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

I went into this book thinking I would be learning about all of the ancient black races of antiquity but instead got this opinionated piece by a self absorbed author who couldn’t help but remind the reader of his credentials every couple of pages. I found this book unbearable to read and it was unfortunate because a lot of the information he was providing seemed interesting but it was mere conjecture. He never provided sources to any of his claims, I just can't get behind that. After reading this torturous book, I opted in giving it away to a friend who seemed fairly interested in it but to no surprise he subsequently returned it.

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kiibocor3

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

I think this book is very informative and if you don't know where you came from you won't know where you're going. If this book is not based on your people I don't think a fair assessment can be made.

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sullynathan

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

This is by far one of the best ever written on African American History! I think every black person living in America should read this book!

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Atsugaruru

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

A friend of mine recommended this book to me a few years ago. However, I did not take this recommendation seriously. I was afraid of being indoctrinated, since I was sceptical of this notion that black people were the original Hebrews. A notion which my friend preached on the daily on Facebook.

The more I read, about Egypt and ancient black history, the more this notion began to make sense. My curiosity for this book was awoken by two incidents. The first incident happened when I watched a film based on a true story, about the Israeli government sending Mosad to rescue Ethiopian Jews better known as the ¨Beta Jews¨. My mind was like, so it must be true what my friend has been saying all along. Then on the second incident, I read in passing about the Lemba people and their Jewish/Hebrew heritage, they reside presently in both Zimbabwe and South Africa. Thus, I decided to learn more about the these Hebrews.

This book is an academic text made for popular reading, with enough sources for further research for the keen student of history. The book traces the history of the black Hebrews from Abraham in Babylon, to Hebrews in Egypt and Ethiopia and glimpses of Hebrews in Madagascar, Ghana, Algeria and Sudan. The book is concise and highly informative.

A great read and must have for the African scholar who is interested in both history and religion.

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chrono1991

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

I started this book on my personal journey to learn about my own African ancestry. I discovered Rudolph R. Windor on a reading list of book that all African Americans should read. Windor used the bible coupled with historical research to place African people in various biblical cities and events. He breaks down the book of Genesis as representation of various peoples around the world. Then Windsor begins to tell the history of various Kingdoms through out the continent of Africa. How the African people were affected by the Hebrew faith and then invaded by the people of the Islamic faith. The rise of Timbuktu, education centers such as the Kemet and Cush, and how Slavery effected every kingdom. Windsor also speaks about how African kingdoms were educated in Medicine, Science, Economics, Trading, Politics and how this knowledge was spread throughout the world through invasions by the Greeks and Romans and later with Moors invading Spain and Portugal. If anything, this book has encouraged me to continue my studies and to further my knowledge. Windsor gave a brief synopsis of each kingdom but I will have to continue reading. It is an important fact to also mention that this book was written in 1969 and since then many more discoveries have been made by various people on the African ancient past.

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DnTizzet

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

An enlightened rastafarian gave me this book for helping him wire up his sound system. The first 3 chapters completely negated and challenged what I was taught in grade school. I should come full circle and give this a proper reading.

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vmegaslayer

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

If you are one who is interested in cultural issues, historic issues, or have a deep sense of intuition this book is for you! Babylon to Timbuktu contains a vast wealth of historic knowledge that is very valuable particularly to persons of color. However, this also makes for a no-so easy read, as much of the information is confusing unless you have prior knowledge or studies in history. For the novice reader, this book will take time to reader with a thorough overview and research of the material provided. IT IS NOT A PAGE TURNER. While I found the book very useful, I also found it kind of difficult to read and keep up with the thoughts/info the writer provided. This difficulty may be a turn off for some, but if you have the interest and patience to read you will enjoy this book.

Because this book was not an easy read, and the thoughts of the writer did not always flow- I gave this book 3 starts. In terms of quality though, this book is a five star read!

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nonoy9212

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

Wow. What a ride.
Let's talk first about the content of the book: I was intrigued. One of the things we talk about in my World History class is the African Jews, particularly in Ethiopia. They claim descent from the Queen of Sheba and the Biblical King Solomon. This book combines a lot of my interest and covers a lot of my previous knowledge. However, it isn't a book that has a lot of support. Instead, the author made claims and states them as if they are undisputed facts, claims like "most of the people of Africa were Jews, but they actually just pretended not to be." As a book, it is disjointed (the first few chapters cover sweeping swaths of history, then he seems to start over in Biblical history again) and most of his "support" is from taken-out-of-context Bible verses and prophecies.

It is not that I was not open or eager to hear his claims. In fact, I think many of them could be true. But he does not support his claims here, and the book reads much like a conspiracy theory blog post. If he was my student, I would say "you need more concrete evidence!"

Now as for the audiobook - I put a comment on this that it was one of the most entertaining audiobooks I've ever read because of how terrible it was. The reader corrects himself three times, slapping himself every single time. In one of these instances he starts over trying to read the sentence a few times, and ends up saying "ugh, I can't f*ing talk." In an audiobook! His pronunciation isn't just wrong, it varies wildly. Nebuchadnezzar, for example, is called "ne-BUCK-ned-ZAHR", then "ne-BUtchred-zahr." The Roman emperor Trajan is referred to as "Tray-han." The Biblical book of Esther is called "EES-ther." Honestly if I wasn't a former Bible teacher and a current World History teacher who teaches on all this content, I would have no idea who he was talking about. I honestly had to rely on context clues from the narrative to figure out who the people were. There were plenty of difficult words he said correctly, but almost just as many that he butchered. The oddest part was that he was a good narrator other than that, in terms of ease of listening. Just a terrible pronouncer.

So would I recommend this? No. Do I wish I could read another book on the same topic? Yes.

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