Reversing Sail

A History of the African Diaspora

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by Michael Gomez

Cambridge University Press

Due/Published March 2005, 256 pages, paper

ISBN 0521001358

This book examines the global unfolding of the African Diaspora, the migrations and dispersals of the people of Africa, from antiquity to the modern period. Their exploits, challenges, and struggles are discussed over a wide expanse of time in ways that link as well as differentiate past and present circumstances. The experiences of Africans in the Old World, in the Mediterranean and Islamic worlds, is followed by their movement into the New, where their experience in lands claimed by Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French and English colonial powers is analyzed from enslavement through to the Cold War. While appropriate mention is made of persons of renown, particular attention is paid to the everyday lives of working class people and their cultural efflorescence. The book also attempts to explain contemporary plights and struggles through the lens of history.

Contents

Part I. "Old" World Dimensions: 1. Antiquity; 2. Africans and the Bible; 3. Africans and the Islamic world; Part II. "New" World Realities: 4. Transatlantic movement; 5. Enslavement; 6. Asserting the right to be; 7. Reconnecting; 8. Movement of peoples.