Facing Up to the Past

The legacy of slavery has long haunted the memories of the descendants of the once enslaved Africans in the Americas and in the European diaspora, yet public acknowledgement of this gruesome past, part and parcel of the national history of former European slave trading nations, has only begun to occur in the latter years of the 20th century. Written by a set of eminent scholars and opinion leaders, this book offers fresh insights into the manifold ways inwhich the slave trade and slavery are remembered and commemorated - or suppressed - as part of the national identity in the three contintents forever connected by the leagcies of the triangular trade.