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.
Author(s): Donald A. Yerxa
Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
Year: 2008
Language: English
Commentary: rearranged with scantailor, pages 102 & 103 missing
Pages: 137
City: Columbia
Recent themes in the history of Africa and the Atlantic world : historians in conversation
Contents
Series Editor's Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Coherence, Complexity, and the Place of Africa and the Atlantic World in World History (Donald A. Yerxa)
Part 1. AFRICA AND WORLD HISTORY
Beyond Blacks, Bondage, and Blame: Why a Multicentric World History Needs Africa (Joseph C. Miller)
The Way of Africa, "The Way I Am," and the Hermeneutic Circle (Ricardo Duchesne)
Africa in World History and Historiography (Patrick Manning)
Comment on Miller (William H. McNeill)
Finding Africa in World History (David Northrup)
The Borders of African and World History (Jonathan T. Reynolds)
What Are World Histories? (Michael Salman)
Another World (Ajay Skaria)
Africa in a Multicentric World History: Beyond Witches and Warlords (John K. Thornton)
Multicentrism in History: How and Why Perspectives Matter (Joseph C. Miller)
African Encounters (David Northrup)
Part 2. THE ATLANTIC WORLD
Only Connect: The Rise and Rise (and Fall?) of Atlantic History (Trevor Burnard)
Does Equiano Still Matter? (Vincent Carretta)
Construction of Identity: Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa? (Paul E. Lovejoy)
Good-bye, Equiano, the African (Trevor Burnard)
Beyond Equiano (Jon Sensbach)
Response to Lovejoy, Burnard, and Sensbach (Vincent Carretta)
Further Readings
Contributors
Index
