Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800

Kirjan Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800 (1998) on kirjoittanut John Thornton. Kirjan kieli on englanti, ja sen on kustantanut Cambridge University Press. Kirja on laajuudeltaan 380 sivua ja se on pokkari.

This book explores Africa’s involvement in the Atlantic world from the fifteenth century to the eighteenth century. It focuses especially on the causes and consequences of the slave trade, in Africa, in Europe, and in the New World. African institutions, political events, and economic structures shaped Africa’s voluntary involvement in the Atlantic arena before 1680. Africa’s economic and military strength gave African elites the capacity to determine how trade with Europe developed. Thornton examines the dynamics of colonization which made slaves so necessary to European colonizers, and he explains why African slaves were placed in roles of central significance. Estate structure and demography affected the capacity of slaves to form a self-sustaining society and behave as cultural actors, transferring and transforming African culture in the New World.