Born in Blackness, Howard W. French
Born in Blackness, Howard W. French
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Born in Blackness
Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War

Author: Howard W. French

Narrator: James Fouhey

Unabridged: 16 hr 49 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/12/2022

Synopsis

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.

About Howard W. French

Howard W. French is a professor of journalism at Columbia University and former New York Times bureau chief in the Caribbean and Central America, West and Central Africa, Tokyo, and Shanghai. The author of five books, French lives in New York City.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Christine

I like the argument of this book, but it is not well-written or well-edited. It is incredibly repetitive, jumbled, and suffered from a lack of driving narrative and analysis. It’s also not a work of history, as I don’t think it used any primary sources, but was instead a survey of historians’ works......more

Goodreads review by Erik

"Born in Blackness" is a history of Black people's contributions to modernity and the rise of the West. The beginning covers some of the same ground that Toby Green's "A Fistfull of Shells" did, but is focused less on currencies, and more on Africa's encounter with the Portuguese as a pivot point of......more

Goodreads review by Mal

We’ve been taught that the modern world dawned when Christopher Columbus arrived in the Caribbean in 1492 in search of a route to the riches of “India.” In fact, for centuries, historians have been telling us that everything changed because explorers from Spain and Portugal set out across the unknow......more

Goodreads review by Benjamin

This book changed how I see west Africa. 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 “......more

Goodreads review by Florian

Mit „Afrika und die Entstehung der modernen Welt“ vollzieht der langjährige Auslandskorrespondent der NY Times Howard W. French im Hinblick auf Afrika einen Perspektiv-Wechsel. Indem French plausibel aufzeigt, dass der ökonomische Aufstieg des Westens durch Sklavenarbeit auf Baumwoll- und Zuckerplan......more

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