Central Africans and Cultural Transformations in the American Diaspora

Description

Sets out a new paradigm that increases our understanding of African culture and the forces that led to its transformation during the period of the Atlantic slave trade and beyond, putting long over-due emphasis on the importance of Central African culture to the cultures of the United States, Brazil, and the Caribbean. Focusing on the Kongo/Angola culture zone, the book illustrates how African peoples re-shaped their cultural institutions, beliefs and practices as they interacted with Portuguese slave traders up to 1800, then follows Central Africans through all the regions where they were taken as slaves and recaptives. Here, for the first time in one volume, leading scholars of Africa, Brazil, Latin America and the Caribbean have collaborated to analyze the culture history of Africa and its diaspora. This interdisciplinary approach across geographic areas is sure to set a precedent for other scholars of Africa and its diaspora.

"...an exemplary collection of essays, presenting new information and interpretations that fundamentally revise and deepen our understanding of the slave trade and the African diaspora." American Historical Review "[T]he overall architecture of this book is strong and telling. Graduate students and faculty." Choice "This path-breaking volume is a long overdue illumination of Central African influences on the slave cultures of the Americas and a refreshing reassessment of the transmission of African ideas, beliefs, and rituals...the essays represent an important launch pad for the debates that will no doubt shape slave studies well into the future. For those engaged in slave studies, this book will be indespensable." Transforming Anthropology