cover image Africans in the Americas: A History of the Black Diaspora

Africans in the Americas: A History of the Black Diaspora

Michael Conniff, Thomas J. Davis. St. Martin's Press, $35 (356pp) ISBN 978-0-312-10275-3

This scholarly study of the black experience in the Americas will be of interest mostly to students. Conniff, a history professor at Auburn University in Alabama, and Davis, a teacher of African American studies and history at the State University of New York, proceed chronologically, providing background on the history of Africa and the slave trade, then looking at particular circumstances of life, labor, emancipation and assimilation in four regions: the Caribbean, Brazil, Spanish America and North America. The comparative approach yields meaningful observations, such as the more rapid acculturation by blacks in the United States, and the deleterious effects of Brazil's national repression of its slave history. Although they include certain intriguing details--for example, the contributions of largely ignored Afro-Mexicans to their country's hybrid society--the authors generally eschew anecdote and popular writing. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Jan.)