A fascinating insight into the idea-historical recapitulation of the negative image of the African, which in the western concept of progress since the 17th century has been the focal point of his redemptive reconstruction. The crucial epistemological phases of such reconstruction are the concept of the Great Chain of Being, the theory of social evolution and the current post-colonial concepts of social modernisation to strip Africans of their cultural identity and render them to exploitation in the global economic and financial system.