Recent Themes in the History of Africa and the Atlantic World: Historians in Conversation

by Donald A. Yerxa

Overview

New approaches to understanding African history from major historians of the subject matter

Described as "the New York Review of Books for history," Historically Speaking has emerged as one of the most distinctive historical publications in recent years, actively seeking out contributions from a pantheon of leading voices in historical discourse. This collection of articles and forums by prominent historians explores the relationship of Africa to world history, maps the current state of the burgeoning field of Atlantic history, and debates the accuracy of Olaudah Equiano's seminal narrative. The standard approach of world historians often compresses the African past into interpretive frameworks that leave Africans without a history of their own. Joseph C. Miller makes the case here for an alternative approach, a multicentric world history that gives voice to the various ways Africans experienced the past, and an impressive array of Africanist and world historians respond. The volume also assesses the state of the field of Atlantic history and includes a spirited forum on Vincent Carretta's provocative thesis that Olaudah Equiano, author of the most important account available of the horrific Middle Passage, was actually born in South Carolina and not Africa.

Designed to serve as a companion text for courses in African, Atlantic, and world history, this volume will also appeal to lay readers interested in contemporary approaches to these topics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781570037580
Publisher:	University of South Carolina Press
Publication date:	08/29/2008
Series:	Historians in Conversation
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Donald A. Yerxa is assistant director of the Historical Society and editor of its bulletin, Historically Speaking. A professor of history at Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy, Massachusetts, Yerxa is the author of The Burning of Falmouth, 1775 and Admirals and Empire: The United States Navy and the Caribbean, 1898–1945 and coauthor of Species of Origins: America's Search for a Creation Story. His articles and interviews have appeared in a variety of publications, including the European Review, Military Affairs, the Naval War College Review, Mariner's Mirror, Fides et Historia, Books & Culture, Science & Spirit, and Historically Speaking.

Table of Contents

Series Editor's Preface     vii
Acknowledgments     ix
Introduction: Coherence, Complexity, and the Place of Africa and the Atlantic World in World History   Donald A. Yerxa     1
Africa and World History
Beyond Blacks, Bondage, and Blame: Why a Multicentric World History Needs Africa   Joseph C. Miller     7
The Way of Africa, "The Way I Am," and the Hermeneutic Circle   Ricardo Duchesne     19
Africa in World History and Historiography   Patrick Manning     25
Comment on Miller   William H. McNeill     29
Finding Africa in World History   David Northrup     33
The Borders of African and World History   Jonathan T. Reynolds     38
What Are World Histories?   Michael Salman     43
Another World   Ajay Skaria     48
Africa in a Multicentric World History: Beyond Witches and Warlords   John K. Thornton     53
Multicentrism in History: How and Why Perspectives Matter   Joseph C. Miller     58
African Encounters   David Northrup     66
The Atlantic World
Only Connect: The Rise and Rise (and Fall?) of Atlantic History   Trevor Burnard     75
Does Equiano Still Matter?   Vincent Carretta     81
Construction of Identity: Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa?   Paul E. Lovejoy     93
Good-bye, Equiano, the African   Trevor Burnard     101
Beyond Equiano   Jon Sensbach     106
Response to Lovejoy, Burnard, and Sensbach   Vincent Carretta     111
Further Readings     119
Contributors     123
Index     125