It begins at an early age. A popular book, which current American college students may have read in their toddler years, follows Bert and Ernie of Sesame Street as they traverse the wilds of Africa on safari.Footnote ¹ Dressed in khaki, they play peek-a-boo not only with the likes of zebras, leopards, and giraffes but with tigers, too. Cultural production even in its most innocent forms finds a way to generate false categories of knowledge about Africa, perpetuating and recycling myths mired in centuries-old stereotypes of the ‘Dark Continent’ and how Westerners have encountered it. The second edition of Curtis Keim's useful and enjoyable Mistaking Africa: Curiosities and Inventions of the American Mind deftly debunks these myths by explaining ‘what Africa is not’. Though this book is an indictment of American imaginings of Africa, Keim's evenhanded tone and explanatory skill invite undergraduates and educated readers unfamiliar with scholarship on Africa to challenge their preconceptions of the continent and its people without estranging them. Keim succeeds in this endeavor by explaining the genealogy of this false knowledge, by illustrating that such imaginings have very real and sometimes dangerous moral, political, and economic consequences, and by highlighting the objectification of Africa and Africans in how Americans (here mainly white and middle-to-upper class) make sense of themselves in the world.

Similar in form and content to the first edition, the book opens with a two-chapter overview of the major American stereotypes about Africa and their widespread dissemination through television and movies, print media, and amusement parks. Part Two traces the history and modern-day remnants of evolutionism that underpin common concepts of ‘Real Africa’, a make-believe place of cultural primitivity in which the wise and noble African waits in need of progress and ‘our help’. Each chapter of Part Three takes on some of the most dominant misperceptions of Africa, from cannibalism and tribalism to Americans' longtime obsession with the African safari. The last part offers a somewhat cursory, yet effective, treatment of race, culture, and scientific inquiry. Here Keim also encourages readers to actively pursue dialogue with Africans and scholars in their quest to learn more about the continent and their shared history.

Keim has included a number of additions in this updated version. Chapter 2 contains two new sections on movies and the growing prominence of Americans' association of Africa with celebrities. Chapter 6, broadly concerned with ‘help’ and development, includes brief commentary on ‘military help’, specifically US involvement in Africa during the Cold War, and plans for AFRICOM. Chapter 10, which analyzes images of Africa in advertisements, has been entirely rewritten and features more current ad campaigns such as (Product)Red. In response to requests from readers of the first edition, Keim has also added an appendix, ‘Learning More’, which offers the reader further activities for analyzing American images of Africa, as well as guidelines and sources for learning and teaching about African history and societies.

A worthy read for scholars, students, journalists, business professionals, and travelers, Mistaking Africa may be considered the handbook for undergraduate introductory courses in African studies and, most hopefully, a companion for those individuals in the US who contribute broadly to the production of knowledge about Africa in all of its forms.