African Europeans: An Untold History

African Europeans: An Untold History

by Olivette Otele
African Europeans: An Untold History

African Europeans: An Untold History

by Olivette Otele

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Overview

A dazzling history of Africans in Europe, “masterfully” (Smithsonian) revealing their unacknowledged role in shaping the continent  

A finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History 

 
Conventional wisdom holds that Africans are only a recent presence in Europe. But in African Europeans, renowned historian Olivette Otele debunks this and uncovers a long history of Europeans of African descent. From the third century, when the Egyptian Saint Maurice became the leader of a Roman legion, all the way up to the present, Otele explores encounters between those defined as “Africans” and those called “Europeans.” She gives equal attention to the most prominent figures—like Alessandro de Medici, the first duke of Florence thought to have been born to a free African woman in a Roman village—and the untold stories—like the lives of dual-heritage families in Europe’s coastal trading towns. 
 
African Europeans is a landmark celebration of this integral, vibrantly complex slice of European history, and will redefine the field for years to come. 

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781541619920
Publisher: Basic Books
Publication date: 08/29/2023
Pages: 304
Sales rank: 358,574
Product dimensions: 8.10(w) x 5.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Olivette Otele is distinguished research professor at SOAS University of London and former vice president of the Royal Historical Society. She is the first Black woman to be appointed to a professorial chair in history in the UK, and her writing has appeared in the Guardian, the BBC’s History Extra, and Times Higher Education

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction 1

1 Early Encounters: From Pioneers to African Romans 13

2 Black Mediterraneans: Slavery and the Renaissance 39

3 The Transatlantic Slave Trade and the Invention of Race 67

4 Neither Here Nor There: Dual Heritages and Gender Roles 95

5 Fleeting Memories: Colonial Amnesia and Forgotten Figures 127

6 Claiming a Past, Navigating the Present 159

7 Identity and Liberation: African Europeans Today 185

Epilogue 217

Notes 225

Bibliography 251

Index 269

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