Author: Christa Ingrid Reynolds
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781514285053
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 218
Book Description
Born to War is intended to, through my eyes as a Berlin child, point out how easily freedom can be lost, and the pain and suffering required to regain that lost freedom. It's a message that war does not distinguish between guilt and innocence. The pain and suffering of war is ladled out equally to all in its path. Ours was a constant struggle for survival, for food, water, and warmth, the bare necessities of life. For many months we lived above ground when possible, and below ground when necessary, as hundreds of Allied aircraft dropped bombs on the city both day and night. Fear and fury were my reality during the many hours spent in the musty and uncomfortable bomb shelter. I had not even the luxury of hope for better times, for I had no concept of better times. I knew only war, and the suffering and misery that it brought. The war would end, but misery lasted long after. And death was to remain a constant companion to Berliners due to starvation, hypothermia, suicide and other war-related circumstances. I lost many people dear to me during and in the wake of WWII. Yet I was one of the lucky children born to war who survived. And I survived largely due to the love and care of "Oma," my grandmother, to whom this work is mainly dedicated. It remains very difficult for me to imagine the anguish she must have suffered in that terrible period.
Born to War
Author: Christa Ingrid Reynolds
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781514285053
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 218
Book Description
Born to War is intended to, through my eyes as a Berlin child, point out how easily freedom can be lost, and the pain and suffering required to regain that lost freedom. It's a message that war does not distinguish between guilt and innocence. The pain and suffering of war is ladled out equally to all in its path. Ours was a constant struggle for survival, for food, water, and warmth, the bare necessities of life. For many months we lived above ground when possible, and below ground when necessary, as hundreds of Allied aircraft dropped bombs on the city both day and night. Fear and fury were my reality during the many hours spent in the musty and uncomfortable bomb shelter. I had not even the luxury of hope for better times, for I had no concept of better times. I knew only war, and the suffering and misery that it brought. The war would end, but misery lasted long after. And death was to remain a constant companion to Berliners due to starvation, hypothermia, suicide and other war-related circumstances. I lost many people dear to me during and in the wake of WWII. Yet I was one of the lucky children born to war who survived. And I survived largely due to the love and care of "Oma," my grandmother, to whom this work is mainly dedicated. It remains very difficult for me to imagine the anguish she must have suffered in that terrible period.
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781514285053
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 218
Book Description
Born to War is intended to, through my eyes as a Berlin child, point out how easily freedom can be lost, and the pain and suffering required to regain that lost freedom. It's a message that war does not distinguish between guilt and innocence. The pain and suffering of war is ladled out equally to all in its path. Ours was a constant struggle for survival, for food, water, and warmth, the bare necessities of life. For many months we lived above ground when possible, and below ground when necessary, as hundreds of Allied aircraft dropped bombs on the city both day and night. Fear and fury were my reality during the many hours spent in the musty and uncomfortable bomb shelter. I had not even the luxury of hope for better times, for I had no concept of better times. I knew only war, and the suffering and misery that it brought. The war would end, but misery lasted long after. And death was to remain a constant companion to Berliners due to starvation, hypothermia, suicide and other war-related circumstances. I lost many people dear to me during and in the wake of WWII. Yet I was one of the lucky children born to war who survived. And I survived largely due to the love and care of "Oma," my grandmother, to whom this work is mainly dedicated. It remains very difficult for me to imagine the anguish she must have suffered in that terrible period.
Born of War
Author: R. Charli Carpenter
Publisher: Kumarian Press
ISBN: 1565492374
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
'Born of War' examines the human rights of children born of wartime rape and sexual exploitation in worldwide conflict zones. Detailing the impacts of armed conflict on these children's survival, protection and membership rights, the text suggests that these children constitute a particularly vulnerable category in conflict zones.
Publisher: Kumarian Press
ISBN: 1565492374
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
'Born of War' examines the human rights of children born of wartime rape and sexual exploitation in worldwide conflict zones. Detailing the impacts of armed conflict on these children's survival, protection and membership rights, the text suggests that these children constitute a particularly vulnerable category in conflict zones.
Born of War
Author: Thomas Taylor
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
ISBN:
Category : Generals
Languages : en
Pages : 472
Book Description
"'A man of genius, a man of destiny,' was Churchill's epitaph for the most original and controversial warrior of the twentieth century, Orde Wingate. Extolled by American and Israeli allies, grudgingly admired by Italian and Japanese foes, the iconoclastic Wingate fought his bitterest campaigns against the hierarchy of his own British army, which he led to its first victories on two continents during World War II. Even before, he had gained enduring fame. Like his cousin, Lawrence of Arabia, Wingate developed the embryo of a guerrilla army in the Middle East; in its ranks were the founding fathers of Israel, whom he was ready to lead against the Nazis. Rebuffed by the British high command, he worked himself into the service of the emperor of Ethiopia, a king on crusade to regain his kingdom from Mussolini's empire--an impossibly romantic mission in which only Wingate believed. Closely escaping death, Wingate then embarked on what British generals thought to be another sacrificial adventure--to oust the seemingly invincible Japanese army from Burma. Wingate was tossed like a grenade into the Japanese rear, leading a suicide expedition to cut Japanese supply lines while the British army recovered from defeat. He called his patchwork forces 'the Chindits,' a light brigade that became the American model for Merrill's Marauders. He named his behind-the-lines strategy 'long-range penetration,' the forerunner of today's extended battlefield and air-mobile warfare. At the same time Wingate was the first general since Hannibal to use elephants, the last to walk into battle and kill with his own hands. By Whatever methods, he won; against whatever odds, he prevailed--until his final, mysterious disappearance. Mixing historical fact with novelistic technique, [this book] is a tour de force of military adventure writing and a fascinating literary sojourn into the life of an enigmatic and haunting character."--Dust jacket.
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
ISBN:
Category : Generals
Languages : en
Pages : 472
Book Description
"'A man of genius, a man of destiny,' was Churchill's epitaph for the most original and controversial warrior of the twentieth century, Orde Wingate. Extolled by American and Israeli allies, grudgingly admired by Italian and Japanese foes, the iconoclastic Wingate fought his bitterest campaigns against the hierarchy of his own British army, which he led to its first victories on two continents during World War II. Even before, he had gained enduring fame. Like his cousin, Lawrence of Arabia, Wingate developed the embryo of a guerrilla army in the Middle East; in its ranks were the founding fathers of Israel, whom he was ready to lead against the Nazis. Rebuffed by the British high command, he worked himself into the service of the emperor of Ethiopia, a king on crusade to regain his kingdom from Mussolini's empire--an impossibly romantic mission in which only Wingate believed. Closely escaping death, Wingate then embarked on what British generals thought to be another sacrificial adventure--to oust the seemingly invincible Japanese army from Burma. Wingate was tossed like a grenade into the Japanese rear, leading a suicide expedition to cut Japanese supply lines while the British army recovered from defeat. He called his patchwork forces 'the Chindits,' a light brigade that became the American model for Merrill's Marauders. He named his behind-the-lines strategy 'long-range penetration,' the forerunner of today's extended battlefield and air-mobile warfare. At the same time Wingate was the first general since Hannibal to use elephants, the last to walk into battle and kill with his own hands. By Whatever methods, he won; against whatever odds, he prevailed--until his final, mysterious disappearance. Mixing historical fact with novelistic technique, [this book] is a tour de force of military adventure writing and a fascinating literary sojourn into the life of an enigmatic and haunting character."--Dust jacket.
Children Born of War
Author: Sabine Lee
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429576250
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 245
Book Description
This volume presents research from an international, interdisciplinary, and intersectoral research project in which 15 doctoral researchers explored a range of issues related to the life-course experiences of children born of war in 20th-century conflicts. Children Born of War (CBOW), children fathered by foreign soldiers and born to local mothers during and after armed conflicts, have long been neglected in the research of the social consequences of war. Based on research projects completed under the auspices of the Horizon2020-funded international and interdisciplinary research and training network CHIBOW (www.chibow.org), this book examines the psychological and social impact of war on these children. It focusses on three separate but interrelated themes: firstly, it explores methodological and ethical issues related to research with war-affected populations in general and children born of war in particular. Secondly, it presents innovative historical research focussing specifically on geopolitical areas that have hitherto been unexplored; and thirdly, it addresses, from a psychological and psychiatric perspective, the challenges faced by children born of war in post-conflict communities, including stigmatisation, discrimination, within the significant context of identity formation when faced with contested memories of volatile post-war experiences. The book offers an insight into the social consequences of war for those children associated with the ‘enemy’ by virtue of their direct biological link.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429576250
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 245
Book Description
This volume presents research from an international, interdisciplinary, and intersectoral research project in which 15 doctoral researchers explored a range of issues related to the life-course experiences of children born of war in 20th-century conflicts. Children Born of War (CBOW), children fathered by foreign soldiers and born to local mothers during and after armed conflicts, have long been neglected in the research of the social consequences of war. Based on research projects completed under the auspices of the Horizon2020-funded international and interdisciplinary research and training network CHIBOW (www.chibow.org), this book examines the psychological and social impact of war on these children. It focusses on three separate but interrelated themes: firstly, it explores methodological and ethical issues related to research with war-affected populations in general and children born of war in particular. Secondly, it presents innovative historical research focussing specifically on geopolitical areas that have hitherto been unexplored; and thirdly, it addresses, from a psychological and psychiatric perspective, the challenges faced by children born of war in post-conflict communities, including stigmatisation, discrimination, within the significant context of identity formation when faced with contested memories of volatile post-war experiences. The book offers an insight into the social consequences of war for those children associated with the ‘enemy’ by virtue of their direct biological link.
A War Born Family
Author: Kori A. Graves
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479815861
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 307
Book Description
The origins of a transnational adoption strategy that secured the future for Korean-black children The Korean War left hundreds of thousands of children in dire circumstances, but the first large-scale transnational adoption efforts involved the children of American soldiers and Korean women. Korean laws and traditions stipulated that citizenship and status passed from father to child, which made the children of US soldiers legally stateless. Korean-black children faced additional hardships because of Korean beliefs about racial purity, and the segregation that structured African American soldiers’ lives in the military and throughout US society. The African American families who tried to adopt Korean-black children also faced and challenged discrimination in the child welfare agencies that arranged adoptions. Drawing on extensive research in black newspapers and magazines, interviews with African American soldiers, and case notes about African American adoptive families, A War Born Family demonstrates how the Cold War and the struggle for civil rights led child welfare agencies to reevaluate African American men and women as suitable adoptive parents, advancing the cause of Korean transnational adoption.
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479815861
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 307
Book Description
The origins of a transnational adoption strategy that secured the future for Korean-black children The Korean War left hundreds of thousands of children in dire circumstances, but the first large-scale transnational adoption efforts involved the children of American soldiers and Korean women. Korean laws and traditions stipulated that citizenship and status passed from father to child, which made the children of US soldiers legally stateless. Korean-black children faced additional hardships because of Korean beliefs about racial purity, and the segregation that structured African American soldiers’ lives in the military and throughout US society. The African American families who tried to adopt Korean-black children also faced and challenged discrimination in the child welfare agencies that arranged adoptions. Drawing on extensive research in black newspapers and magazines, interviews with African American soldiers, and case notes about African American adoptive families, A War Born Family demonstrates how the Cold War and the struggle for civil rights led child welfare agencies to reevaluate African American men and women as suitable adoptive parents, advancing the cause of Korean transnational adoption.
Forgetting Children Born of War
Author: Charli Carpenter
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231151306
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 300
Book Description
"Excellent, well-documented, thoughtful, and comprehensive, Forgetting Children Born of War challenges the prevailing discourse on human rights and humanitarian intervention."-ALISON BRYSK, University of California, Irvine.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231151306
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 300
Book Description
"Excellent, well-documented, thoughtful, and comprehensive, Forgetting Children Born of War challenges the prevailing discourse on human rights and humanitarian intervention."-ALISON BRYSK, University of California, Irvine.
Americans All!
Author: Nancy Gentile Ford
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1603443290
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 218
Book Description
During the First World War, nearly half a million immigrant draftees from forty-six different nations served in the U.S. Army. This surge of Old World soldiers challenged the American military's cultural, linguistic, and religious traditions and required military leaders to reconsider their training methods for the foreign-born troops. How did the U.S. War Department integrate this diverse group into a united fighting force?The war department drew on the experiences of progressive social welfare reformers, who worked with immigrants in urban settlement houses, and they listened to industrial efficiency experts, who connected combat performance to morale and personnel management. Perhaps most significantly, the military enlisted the help of ethnic community leaders, who assisted in training, socializing, and Americanizing immigrant troops and who pressured the military to recognize and meet the important cultural and religious needs of the ethnic soldiers. These community leaders negotiated the Americanization process by promoting patriotism and loyalty to the United States while retaining key ethnic cultural traditions.Offering an exciting look at an unexplored area of military history, Americans All! Foreign-born Soldiers in World War I constitutes a work of special interest to scholars in the fields of military history, sociology, and ethnic studies. Ford'sresearch illuminates what it meant for the U.S. military to reexamine early twentieth-century nativism; instead of forcing soldiers into a melting pot, war department policies created an atmosphere that made both American and ethnic pride acceptable.During the war, a German officer commented on the ethnic diversity of the American army and noted, with some amazement, that these "semi-Americans" considered themselves to be "true-born sons of their adopted country." The officer was wrong on one count. The immigrant soldiers were not "semi-Americans"; they were "Americans all!"
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1603443290
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 218
Book Description
During the First World War, nearly half a million immigrant draftees from forty-six different nations served in the U.S. Army. This surge of Old World soldiers challenged the American military's cultural, linguistic, and religious traditions and required military leaders to reconsider their training methods for the foreign-born troops. How did the U.S. War Department integrate this diverse group into a united fighting force?The war department drew on the experiences of progressive social welfare reformers, who worked with immigrants in urban settlement houses, and they listened to industrial efficiency experts, who connected combat performance to morale and personnel management. Perhaps most significantly, the military enlisted the help of ethnic community leaders, who assisted in training, socializing, and Americanizing immigrant troops and who pressured the military to recognize and meet the important cultural and religious needs of the ethnic soldiers. These community leaders negotiated the Americanization process by promoting patriotism and loyalty to the United States while retaining key ethnic cultural traditions.Offering an exciting look at an unexplored area of military history, Americans All! Foreign-born Soldiers in World War I constitutes a work of special interest to scholars in the fields of military history, sociology, and ethnic studies. Ford'sresearch illuminates what it meant for the U.S. military to reexamine early twentieth-century nativism; instead of forcing soldiers into a melting pot, war department policies created an atmosphere that made both American and ethnic pride acceptable.During the war, a German officer commented on the ethnic diversity of the American army and noted, with some amazement, that these "semi-Americans" considered themselves to be "true-born sons of their adopted country." The officer was wrong on one count. The immigrant soldiers were not "semi-Americans"; they were "Americans all!"
War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning
Author: Chris Hedges
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1610395107
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 156
Book Description
General George S. Patton famously said, "Compared to war all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance. God, I do love it so!" Though Patton was a notoriously single-minded general, it is nonetheless a sad fact that war gives meaning to many lives, a fact with which we have become familiar now that America is once again engaged in a military conflict. War is an enticing elixir. It gives us purpose, resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble. Chris Hedges of The New York Times has seen war up close -- in the Balkans, the Middle East, and Central America -- and he has been troubled by what he has seen: friends, enemies, colleagues, and strangers intoxicated and even addicted to war's heady brew. In War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, he tackles the ugly truths about humanity's love affair with war, offering a sophisticated, nuanced, intelligent meditation on the subject that is also gritty, powerful, and unforgettable.
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1610395107
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 156
Book Description
General George S. Patton famously said, "Compared to war all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance. God, I do love it so!" Though Patton was a notoriously single-minded general, it is nonetheless a sad fact that war gives meaning to many lives, a fact with which we have become familiar now that America is once again engaged in a military conflict. War is an enticing elixir. It gives us purpose, resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble. Chris Hedges of The New York Times has seen war up close -- in the Balkans, the Middle East, and Central America -- and he has been troubled by what he has seen: friends, enemies, colleagues, and strangers intoxicated and even addicted to war's heady brew. In War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, he tackles the ugly truths about humanity's love affair with war, offering a sophisticated, nuanced, intelligent meditation on the subject that is also gritty, powerful, and unforgettable.
Born Survivors
Author: Wendy Holden
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062370278
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
The Nazis murdered their husbands but concentration camp prisoners Priska, Rachel, and Anka would not let evil take their unborn children too—a remarkable true story that will appeal to readers of The Lost and The Nazi Officer’s Wife, Born Survivors celebrates three mothers who defied death to give their children life. Eastern Europe, 1944: Three women believe they are pregnant, but are torn from their husbands before they can be certain. Rachel is sent to Auschwitz, unaware that her husband has been shot. Priska and her husband travel there together, but are immediately separated. Also at Auschwitz, Anka hopes in vain to be reunited with her husband. With the rest of their families gassed, these young wives are determined to hold on to all they have left—their lives, and those of their unborn babies. Having concealed their condition from infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, they are forced to work and almost starved to death, living in daily fear of their pregnancies being detected by the SS. In April 1945, as the Allies close in, Priska gives birth. She and her baby, along with Anka, Rachel, and the remaining inmates, are sent to Mauthausen concentration camp on a hellish seventeen-day train journey. Rachel gives birth on the train, and Anka at the camp gates. All believe they will die, but then a miracle occurs. The gas chamber runs out of Zyklon-B, and as the Allied troops near, the SS flee. Against all odds, the three mothers and their newborns survive their treacherous journey to freedom. On the seventieth anniversary of Mauthausen’s liberation from the Nazis by American soldiers, renowned biographer Wendy Holden recounts this extraordinary story of three children united by their mothers’ unbelievable—yet ultimately successful—fight for survival.
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062370278
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
The Nazis murdered their husbands but concentration camp prisoners Priska, Rachel, and Anka would not let evil take their unborn children too—a remarkable true story that will appeal to readers of The Lost and The Nazi Officer’s Wife, Born Survivors celebrates three mothers who defied death to give their children life. Eastern Europe, 1944: Three women believe they are pregnant, but are torn from their husbands before they can be certain. Rachel is sent to Auschwitz, unaware that her husband has been shot. Priska and her husband travel there together, but are immediately separated. Also at Auschwitz, Anka hopes in vain to be reunited with her husband. With the rest of their families gassed, these young wives are determined to hold on to all they have left—their lives, and those of their unborn babies. Having concealed their condition from infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, they are forced to work and almost starved to death, living in daily fear of their pregnancies being detected by the SS. In April 1945, as the Allies close in, Priska gives birth. She and her baby, along with Anka, Rachel, and the remaining inmates, are sent to Mauthausen concentration camp on a hellish seventeen-day train journey. Rachel gives birth on the train, and Anka at the camp gates. All believe they will die, but then a miracle occurs. The gas chamber runs out of Zyklon-B, and as the Allied troops near, the SS flee. Against all odds, the three mothers and their newborns survive their treacherous journey to freedom. On the seventieth anniversary of Mauthausen’s liberation from the Nazis by American soldiers, renowned biographer Wendy Holden recounts this extraordinary story of three children united by their mothers’ unbelievable—yet ultimately successful—fight for survival.
Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War
Author: Howard W. French
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
ISBN: 1631495836
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 444
Book Description
Revealing the central yet intentionally obliterated role of Africa in the creation of modernity, Born in Blackness vitally reframes our understanding of world history. Traditional accounts of the making of the modern world afford a place of primacy to European history. Some credit the fifteenth-century Age of Discovery and the maritime connection it established between West and East; others the accidental unearthing of the “New World.” Still others point to the development of the scientific method, or the spread of Judeo-Christian beliefs; and so on, ad infinitum. The history of Africa, by contrast, has long been relegated to the remote outskirts of our global story. What if, instead, we put Africa and Africans at the very center of our thinking about the origins of modernity? In a sweeping narrative spanning more than six centuries, Howard W. French does just that, for Born in Blackness vitally reframes the story of medieval and emerging Africa, demonstrating how the economic ascendancy of Europe, the anchoring of democracy in the West, and the fulfillment of so-called Enlightenment ideals all grew out of Europe’s dehumanizing engagement with the “dark” continent. In fact, French reveals, the first impetus for the Age of Discovery was not—as we are so often told, even today—Europe’s yearning for ties with Asia, but rather its centuries-old desire to forge a trade in gold with legendarily rich Black societies sequestered away in the heart of West Africa. Creating a historical narrative that begins with the commencement of commercial relations between Portugal and Africa in the fifteenth century and ends with the onset of World War II, Born in Blackness interweaves precise historical detail with poignant, personal reportage. In so doing, it dramatically retrieves the lives of major African historical figures, from the unimaginably rich medieval emperors who traded with the Near East and beyond, to the Kongo sovereigns who heroically battled seventeenth-century European powers, to the ex-slaves who liberated Haitians from bondage and profoundly altered the course of American history. While French cogently demonstrates the centrality of Africa to the rise of the modern world, Born in Blackness becomes, at the same time, a far more significant narrative, one that reveals a long-concealed history of trivialization and, more often, elision in depictions of African history throughout the last five hundred years. As French shows, the achievements of sovereign African nations and their now-far-flung peoples have time and again been etiolated and deliberately erased from modern history. As the West ascended, their stories—siloed and piecemeal—were swept into secluded corners, thus setting the stage for the hagiographic “rise of the West” theories that have endured to this day. “Capacious and compelling” (Laurent Dubois), Born in Blackness is epic history on the grand scale. In the lofty tradition of bold, revisionist narratives, it reframes the story of gold and tobacco, sugar and cotton—and of the greatest “commodity” of them all, the twelve million people who were brought in chains from Africa to the “New World,” whose reclaimed lives shed a harsh light on our present world.
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
ISBN: 1631495836
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 444
Book Description
Revealing the central yet intentionally obliterated role of Africa in the creation of modernity, Born in Blackness vitally reframes our understanding of world history. Traditional accounts of the making of the modern world afford a place of primacy to European history. Some credit the fifteenth-century Age of Discovery and the maritime connection it established between West and East; others the accidental unearthing of the “New World.” Still others point to the development of the scientific method, or the spread of Judeo-Christian beliefs; and so on, ad infinitum. The history of Africa, by contrast, has long been relegated to the remote outskirts of our global story. What if, instead, we put Africa and Africans at the very center of our thinking about the origins of modernity? In a sweeping narrative spanning more than six centuries, Howard W. French does just that, for Born in Blackness vitally reframes the story of medieval and emerging Africa, demonstrating how the economic ascendancy of Europe, the anchoring of democracy in the West, and the fulfillment of so-called Enlightenment ideals all grew out of Europe’s dehumanizing engagement with the “dark” continent. In fact, French reveals, the first impetus for the Age of Discovery was not—as we are so often told, even today—Europe’s yearning for ties with Asia, but rather its centuries-old desire to forge a trade in gold with legendarily rich Black societies sequestered away in the heart of West Africa. Creating a historical narrative that begins with the commencement of commercial relations between Portugal and Africa in the fifteenth century and ends with the onset of World War II, Born in Blackness interweaves precise historical detail with poignant, personal reportage. In so doing, it dramatically retrieves the lives of major African historical figures, from the unimaginably rich medieval emperors who traded with the Near East and beyond, to the Kongo sovereigns who heroically battled seventeenth-century European powers, to the ex-slaves who liberated Haitians from bondage and profoundly altered the course of American history. While French cogently demonstrates the centrality of Africa to the rise of the modern world, Born in Blackness becomes, at the same time, a far more significant narrative, one that reveals a long-concealed history of trivialization and, more often, elision in depictions of African history throughout the last five hundred years. As French shows, the achievements of sovereign African nations and their now-far-flung peoples have time and again been etiolated and deliberately erased from modern history. As the West ascended, their stories—siloed and piecemeal—were swept into secluded corners, thus setting the stage for the hagiographic “rise of the West” theories that have endured to this day. “Capacious and compelling” (Laurent Dubois), Born in Blackness is epic history on the grand scale. In the lofty tradition of bold, revisionist narratives, it reframes the story of gold and tobacco, sugar and cotton—and of the greatest “commodity” of them all, the twelve million people who were brought in chains from Africa to the “New World,” whose reclaimed lives shed a harsh light on our present world.