Middle Passages : African American Journeys to Africa, 1787-2005 Hardcover - 2006
by Campbell, James T
- Used
A groundbreaking history of African American journeys back to Africa over the course of three centuries, a book whose enormous accomplishment reveals to us that without understanding the long-evolving place of Africa in the African American imagination, our understanding of American history is woefully incomplete.
In the four centuries after Columbus' voyage to the New World, some twelve million Africans were loaded into the holds of European ships and carried to the Americas as slaves. For most, the "middle passage" across the Atlantic was truly a voyage of no return. But beginning in the eighteenth century, a small number of African Americans found their way back to their ancestral continent. The roster includes many of the central figures in African American intellectual and political life, including Martin Delany, Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois, Eslanda Robeson, Richard Wright, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Maya Angelou, to name only a few. As James T. Campbell shows in this marvelous book, these journeys illuminate not only the enduring importance of Africa in African American life but also the changing contours of African American life in the United States.
Middle Passages recounts more than two hundred years of black American encounters with Africa, from the arrival of the first liberated slaves in what would become Liberia to the photojournalism and heritage tourism of the twenty-first century. Together, the stories recounted here-of journeys celebrated and obscure, journeys replete with irony and tragedy but also hope and inspiration-chart the history of African Americans' ever-changing relationship with Africa and, by extension, their complex, often painful, relationship with the United States. As the book makes wonderfully clear, to ask "What is Africa to Me?," the question famously posed by Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen, is also to ask,"What is America to me?" and, perhaps, "What am I to America?"
Description
Details
- Title Middle Passages : African American Journeys to Africa, 1787-2005
- Author Campbell, James T
- Binding Hardcover
- Edition First Edition
- Condition Used - Very Good
- Pages 513
- Volumes 1
- Language ENG
- Publisher Penguin Publishing Group, New York
- Date May 4, 2006
- Bookseller's Inventory # 7476504-6
- ISBN 9781594200830 / 1594200831
- Weight 1.89 lbs (0.86 kg)
- Dimensions 9.44 x 6.54 x 1.41 in (23.98 x 16.61 x 3.58 cm)
- Ages 18 to UP years
- Grade levels 13 - UP
- Library of Congress Catalog Number 2005058672
- Dewey Decimal Code 916.043
About Better World Books Nevada, United States
Not everyone has access to a book the way you do, which is why Better World Books cares. We have donated millions of books and raised millions of dollars to support literacy, libraries and education. Every Better World Books purchase you make contributes. Oh yeah, great prices, fast delivery, unique titles and a generous return policy - we’ve got that too. Thank you for shopping with us!
Better World Books wants every single one of its customers to be happy with their purchase. If you are not satisfied your purchase or simply find out that it was not the book you were looking for, please e-mail us at: help@betterworldbooks.com. We will get back to you as soon as possible with directions on how to return the book to our warehouse. Please keep in mind that because we deal mostly in used books, any extra components, such as CDs or access codes, are usually not included. CDs: If the book does include a CD, it will be noted in the book's description ("With CD!"). Otherwise, there is no CD included, even if the term is used in the book's title. Access Codes: Unless the book is described as "New," please assume that the book does *not* have an access code.
