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  • Born in Blackness

  • Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War
  • Written by: Howard W. French
  • Narrated by: James Fouhey
  • Length: 16 hrs and 49 mins
  • 5.0 out of 5 stars (7 ratings)

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Born in Blackness

Written by: Howard W. French
Narrated by: James Fouhey
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Publisher's Summary

Traditional accounts of the making of the modern world afford a place of primacy to European history. Some credit the fifteenth-century Age of Discovery and the maritime connection it established between West and East; others the accidental unearthing of the "New World." Still others point to the development of the scientific method, or the spread of Judeo-Christian beliefs; and so on, ad infinitum. The history of Africa, by contrast, has long been relegated to the remote outskirts of our global story. What if, instead, we put Africa and Africans at the very center of our thinking about the origins of modernity?

In a sweeping narrative spanning more than six centuries, Howard W. French does just that, for Born in Blackness vitally reframes the story of medieval and emerging Africa, demonstrating how the economic ascendancy of Europe, the anchoring of democracy in the West, and the fulfillment of so-called Enlightenment ideals all grew out of Europe's dehumanizing engagement with the "dark" continent. In fact, French reveals, the first impetus for the Age of Discovery was not—as we are so often told, even today—Europe's yearning for ties with Asia, but rather its centuries-old desire to forge a trade in gold with legendarily rich Black societies sequestered away in the heart of West Africa.

©2021 Howard W. French (P)2022 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
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Hitting the Undo Key of Deleted History

An unblinkered and consistently engaging corrective to the comforting version of history absenting Africa and Africans from the "progress" myths of Europe and America.

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Excellent Overview

Excellent overview of a very complicated topic. It uses known historical documents that most will not have access to unless they are in higher level university courses, something which the author admits. This book does an excellent job making a complicated history understandable and enthralling, with a wide range of nations and ethnicities covered over time, allowing the central thesis to be argued for beautifully.

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1 person found this helpful