Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1680
John K. Thornton
Africans as agents, not merely victims, in the making of the Atlantic world.
Thornton argues that Africans shaped Atlantic history as active participants: African states were not overpowered by early Europeans but set the terms of coastal trade, and enslaved Africans carried skills, beliefs and cultures that formed New World societies. By stressing African agency and autonomy, it broke with a narrative of helpless victims and recast the Atlantic slave trade as a system in which African political and commercial power mattered.
Its legacy. Its expanded second edition (1998) carried the account to 1800 and became a standard text in Atlantic history.
- Author
- John K. Thornton
- First published
- 1992
- Genre
- History
- Theme
- The Continent's Own History
More from The Continent's Own History
- Africa: A Biography of the Continent — John Reader
The continent where humanity began, told from the bedrock up.
- Africans: The History of a Continent — John Iliffe
A history built on a startling claim: Africa's central problem was too few people, not too many.
- The Lost Cities of Africa — Basil Davidson
The book that put Kush, Aksum and Great Zimbabwe back into world history.
- The Civilizations of Africa: A History to 1800 — Christopher Ehret
Deep African history reconstructed from the evidence of language itself.