She also discovered that these arguments were being supported by gross errors of fact, such as the idea that Aristotle had plundered the Egyptian library at Alexandria as a basis for his own massive philosophical and scientific writings. They maintained that Greece had been invaded from Africa in the Middle of the 2nd millennium, that Greek religion and mystery systems were based on Egyptian prototypes and that what was called “Greek” philosophy was in fact the secret wisdom of Egyptian lodges of a Masonic type.

They were making claims that the Ancient Egyptians were black, as were Socrates, Cleopatra, and other important cultural figures in the Ancient World. She discovered that there were people writing books and teaching that Greek civilization had derived from, or had even been “stolen” from Egypt. When Mary Lefkowitz first encountered Afrocentrism in 1991, she was appalled. Response to this review by Mary Lefkowitz