Making the Black Atlantic

The British role in the shaping and direction of the African diaspora was central, since the British carried more Africans across the Atlantic than any other nation, and British colonial settlements absorbed vast numbers of Africans. The crops produced by those slaves helped to lay the foundations for western material well-being, and their associated cultural habits helped to shape key areas of western sociability which survive to the present day. The shadow of slavery lingered long after the institution itself had died, and this racism survived into the 20th century, reinforced and periodically reinvented by powerful cultural forces - commercialism, schooling, popular journalism and a host of visual images. Recently the story of migration has been marked by a wave of migration, since 1945, from the former slave colonies and other parts of the empire to Britain, with long-reaching consequences for British domestic life. This book presents the story of the African exile, its origins, its progress and its transformation from bondage to freedom.