Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War (Liveright, 2021)

In a book that weaves historical detail with personal reportage, Howard W. French retells the story of medieval and emerging Africa, demonstrating how the economic ascendancy of Europe, the anchoring of democracy in America, and the fulfillment of so-called Enlightenment ideals all grew out of Europe’s dehumanizing engagement with the “darkest” continent. Born in Blackness retrieves the lives of major African historical figures whose legacies have been downplayed or erased, telling the story of gold, tobacco, sugar, and cotton — and the greatest “commodity” of all, the millions brought in chains to the New World, whose reclaimed histories help explain our present world.

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. A two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee, he has authored five books.