TO TURN AS ON A PIVOT: WRITING AFRICAN AMERICANS INTO A HISTORY OF OVERLAPPING DIASPORAS. |
| Author: |
Lewis, Earl.
|
| Author Background: |
|
| Date |
1/1/95
|
| Type |
Journal
|
| Journal Title: |
American Historical Review
|
| Volume/Pages |
100(3)p.765-787
|
| Publisher |
|
| Subject Matter |
African American
|
| Population |
|
| Pedagogies |
|
| Abstract |
Although W. E. B. Du Bois made major contributions to early volumes of the American Historical Review (AHR), the author rightly points out that the history of black Americans, apart from treatments of slavery as alegal condition, was allowed little scope in the journal s first half-century. The editors did not even find space for a review of Benjamin Brawley s pioneering study, A Social History of the American Negro (1921). Theauthor compares this record with the even more limited coverage given to African-American issues in political science journals and gives the AHR credit for playing an important role in discussions about thehistory of slavery. Much of the exciting work on this topic and on postemancipation African Americans, however, took place elsewhere, and only recently has the AHR moved back into the picture. The author alsodiscusses recent work in African-American history and argues the need for a clear distinction between race formation and identity formation. In this regard, the author notes the importance of seeing historical actorsas multipositional. African-American history is one of overlapping diasporas in which identity formation is highly complex.
|
| Website: |
|
| email: |
|
|
