Transatlantic Negotiations

"Transatlantic Negotiations" was the theme of the 52. annual convention of the German Association for American Studies, held in Frankfurt in 2005. Each contribution to this volume illuminates explicitly or implicitly the intricacies of negotiations embedded in different relationships of power as they reverberate through history. Together they present a wide range of forms of interaction between Europe, Africa, and America, from fruitful exchange to contemptuous or thoughtless discrimination. The collection thus points to a salient feature of transatlantic relations, namely the simultaneity of mutual enriching forms of negotiation, marked by reciprocity, with drastic forms of inequality in which the negotiating power is almost entirely one-sided.