Nelson Mandela showing he would not take lectures on human rights and the fight for racial equality and justice in South Africa. Mandela made his mark during his first visit to The USA after his release from jail. Watch as he puts veteran America journalist Ted Koppel in his place!
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Greta Thunberg, the world’s most famous environmental campaigner, talks to Newsnight about her views on summits, Covid, and the US President Joe Biden. Please subscribe HERE http://bit.ly/1rbfUog
In an interview with BBC Newsnight, climate change activist Greta Thunberg, says the coronavirus pandemic has shown the climate crisis “has never been treated as actual crisis.”
“It is seen as a minor topic, a political topic that’s a bit important.”
The 18-year-old also discussed her plans for the future saying, “I don’t know what it’s like to be an adult or what it actually means”.
The climate activist added she she didn’t know if it would be beneficial to purpose a career in science or politics, but told Mark Urban she wanted to wanted to continue creating political will, pressure and demand around climate change action.
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The first and only successful slave revolution in the Americas began in 1791 when thousands of brutally exploited slaves rose up against their masters on Saint-Domingue, the most profitable colony in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world. Within a few years, the slave insurgents forced the French administrators of the colony to emancipate them, a decision ratified by revolutionary Paris in 1794. This victory was a stunning challenge to the order of master/slave relations throughout the Americas, including the southern United States, reinforcing the most fervent hopes of slaves and the worst fears of masters.
But, peace eluded Saint-Domingue as British and Spanish forces attacked the colony. A charismatic ex-slave named Toussaint Louverture came to France’s aid, raising armies of others like himself and defeating the invaders. Ultimately Napoleon, fearing the enormous political power of Toussaint, sent a massive mission to crush him and subjugate the ex-slaves. After many battles, a decisive victory over the French secured the birth of Haiti and the permanent abolition of slavery from the land. The independence of Haiti reshaped the Atlantic world by leading to the French sale of Louisiana to the United States and the expansion of the Cuban sugar economy.
Laurent Dubois weaves the stories of slaves, free people of African descent, wealthy whites, and French administrators into an unforgettable tale of insurrection, war, heroism, and victory. He establishes the Haitian Revolution as a foundational moment in the history of democracy and human rights.
Review
“What Laurent Dubois has achieved is a synthesis of the most current research in a strikingly accessible and appealing presentation, be it to experts or to general readers unfamiliar with the subject. Avengers of the New World is more than likely to become the new standard work in English on one of the most under-reported events in the history of the Western Hemisphere.”―Madison Smartt Bell, author of All Souls Rising and Master of the Crossroads
“The course of the Haitian Revolution was as checkered as the storyline of an Italian opera. Laurent Dubois wisely and eloquently reduces that complexity to understandable proportions. He shows how the revolutionary leadership evolved over time, both defining its own objectives and winning its battles along the way. With care and good judgment, Dubois builds for us a compelling picture of the emergent consciousness of the slaves. His distinctive contribution is to bring to life one of the most significant events in modern political history, an event that has been deliberately misrepresented for the past two centuries.”―Sidney Mintz, author of Caribbean Transformations and Sweetness and Power
“By abolishing slavery and granting citizenship to all men, the Haitian Revolution fulfilled the ideals of the Age of Democratic Revolution in a way that France, the United States, and other nations were not yet ready to accept. Dubois demonstrates the revolutionary determination of enslaved Caribbean- and African-born people and captures the voices of key actors including Toussaint Louverture, individual slaves, free people of color, rival black generals, and white women. This is a story that needs to be told in the engaging yet scholarly voice that Dubois achieves.”―John Garrigus, Professor of History, Jacksonville University
“Avengers of the New World is a luminous model for the history of revolution, for a ‘people’s’ history of freedom, and, not least, for a history that is truly Atlantic in scope. At once original, deeply learned, and gracefully written, Dubois’s achievement is worthy of its great lineage: that of C.L.R. James and Aime Cesaire.”―James C. Scott, author of Domination and the Arts of Resistance and Weapons of the Weak
“[A] sinuous and stirring account of ‘the largest slave revolt in the history of the world, and the only one that succeeded.’”―John Leonard, Harper’s
“In this exhaustively researched and valuable account, Laurent Dubois, a history professor at Michigan State, looks back to the founding of Haiti… Dubois, writing in an accessible style and with a wide-ranging focus, has done an impressive job depicting the tumultuous founding of Haiti. Readers wanting to place the Caribbean nation’s current struggles in a larger historical context will find Dubois an eminently worthwhile resource.”―Chuck Leddy, Christian Science Monitor
“A stern and brilliant new book… The Haitian Revolution, in all its ugliness and brutality, was the response of the oppressed, indentured and enslaved to their unjust condition. And it is this whirling and chaotic world that Dubois so vividly brings to life in Avengers of the New World and so accurately deconstructs… Dubois starts this book about war with chapters about love, death, books and graveyards. His discussions of interracial love affairs and the attitudes of slaves both toward death among slaves and toward death among masters are riveting and eloquent. Indeed, Dubois’ literary sensibility informs the book from start to finish, so that at its beginning as well as its end, the reader feels as if the story must be fiction, yet it is not… Dubois calls Haiti a nation ‘founded on ashes,’ and he has written splendidly about the fires, both political and cultural, that lit up the land during the days of revolution and that are still, in a sense, burning today.”―Amy Wilentz, Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Avengers of the New World weaves the experiences and stories of slaves, free Blacks, wealthy whites, and French administrators into an unforgettable tale of insurrection, war, heroism, and victory. Laurent Dubois examines the actions of the famous leaders of the revolt such as Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, but also of lesser-known men and women caught up in the violent and tumultuous events. Dubois establishes the Haitian Revolution, which is often misunderstood or forgotten, as a foundational moment in the history of democracy and of human rights… Avengers of the New World can help us put the current situation in Haiti in context, explain the reasons behind the violence, and give us an idea of what the future might hold.”―Caribbean Life
“Laurent Dubois’s patient study offers a valuable glimpse into the complexities of the creation of modern Haiti that supplants the usual commonplaces on this ‘first black republic.’”―Nick Caistor, Times Literary Supplement
“There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of books about the Haitian Revolution, but only a handful are indispensable. Avengers of the New World joins that select company. A powerful narrative informed by the latest research, it digs beneath ready-made notions―whether of purely heroic rebels or of implacable caste hatreds―to bring to light the forging of new identities and new ideals.”―Robin Blackburn, The Nation
“Brilliantly conceived, beautifully rendered, Laurent Dubois’s narrative places the Haitian Revolution at the center of the Age of Revolutions―one of three that shook the world―challenging in the process the stubborn academic myopia that divides the history of Europe from its colonies, and whites from blacks.”―Thomas Holt, author of The Problem of Race in the 21st Century
“This wonderfully readable account is a timely reminder of the perils and sacrifices that marked Haiti’s revolutionary path, resulting in only the second independent nation of this hemisphere. Dubois rightfully emphasizes the impact of French revolutionary principles (i.e., the Rights of Man) on the Haitian rebel slaves, as well as the inextricable influence of French politics on the fate of its Caribbean colony, highlighted by the power struggles between Napoleon and Louverture. The author’s insights about the nature of solidarity, trust, and leadership among the slaves, as well as the organization of insurgents across the colony, are well worth recalling, especially in this fateful year.”―R. M. Delson, Choice
“For those who wish to recall the dramatic events that led to the creation of the world’s first black republic and the Western Hemisphere’s second independent nation, I would strongly recommend Laurent Dubois’s Avengers of the New World… The story of Haitian independence is well known and has been told many times before, but Dubois’s vigorous text brings the story to vibrant new life. The battles, personalities, and complex sociopolitical turmoil brought about in Haiti and elsewhere in the world, especially the slave-owning American South, are recalled with a depth and passion that makes this an invigorating work of historical writing.”―Phil Hall, New York Resident
“Readers unfamiliar with the history of Haiti will find this thoughtful, gracefully written book an eye-opening account of the complexities of the Haitian revolution.”―Milton Berman, Salem Press Online
“How well Dubois wears the mantle of this exciting area of study. His engaging analysis of the social forces at play in Saint Domingue (now Haiti) at the turn of the nineteenth century reveals this conflict to be of wider significance than we may previously have thought… Dubois’s masterful grasp of the ‘contorted human relationships’ that define the period renders his study infinitely relevant to our global society… With his help, we may yet come to understand the far-reaching impact of this amazing revolution and the true meaning of Haiti’s beloved motto: L’Union fait la force.”―Patti M. Marxsen, French Review
“In Avengers of the New World, Laurent Dubois has crafted a nuanced yet highly readable narrative of the Haitian Revolution… It is a welcome addition to the growing literature on the revolutionary Atlantic World. Readers new to the Haitian Revolution will especially benefit from Dubois’s lucid explanation of an enormously complex period.”―Yvonne Fabella, New West Indian Guide
About the Author
Laurent Dubois is Marcello Lotti Professor of Romance Studies and History at Duke University.
Biography
Laurent Dubois is Professor of Romance Studies and History and Faculty Director of the Forum for Scholars & Publics at Duke University. His works on the Caribbean in the Age of Revolution include the author of Avengers of the New World (Harvard University Press, 2004) and A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787-1804 (University of North Carolina Press, 2004), which won four book prizes, including the Frederick Douglass Prize. He has also published two collections: Origins of the Black Atlantic, edited with Julius Scott (Routledge Press, 2009) and Slave Revolution in the Caribbean, 1789-1804: A History in Documents, edited with John Garrigus (Bedford Press, 2006).
In 2012 he published Haiti: The Aftershocks of History (Metropolitan Books), which was reviewed on the front page of the New York Times Book Review as well as in the Miami Herald, the Boston Globe, and the New Yorker. He recently published The Banjo: America’s African Instrument (Harvard University Press 2016), for which he received a National Humanities Center Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He also was the recipient of a Mellon New Directions Fellowship to study Ethnomusicology. He has also written about sport in Soccer Empire: The World Cup and the Future of France (University of California Press, 2010), as well as for The New Republic and Sports Illustrated and at his Soccer Politics Blog. His book The Language of the Game: How to Understand Soccer (Basic Books), will be published in March 2018.
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In the late eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, revolutions transformed the British, French, and Spanish Atlantic worlds. During this time, colonial and indigenous people rioted and rebelled against their occupiers in violent pursuit of political liberty and economic opportunity, challenging time-honored social and political structures on both sides of the Atlantic. As a result, mainland America separated from British and Spanish rule, the French monarchy toppled, and the world’s wealthiest colony was emancipated. In the new sovereign states, legal equality was introduced, republicanism embraced, and the people began to question the legitimacy of slavery. Revolutions in the Atlantic World wields a comparative lens to reveal several central themes in the field of Atlantic history, from the concept of European empire and the murky position it occupied between the Old and New Worlds to slavery and diasporas. How was the stability of the old regimes undermined? Which mechanisms of successful popular mobilization can be observed? What roles did blacks and Indians play? Drawing on both primary documents and extant secondary literature to answer these questions, Wim Klooster portrays the revolutions as parallel and connected uprisings.
Review
“This is a balanced, well conceived, and accessible book. Wim Klooster has done a masterful job sorting out the chaotic and kaleidoscopic tumble of events that identify the half-century ending in the mid-1820s as the ‘Age of Revolution.'” — Thomas M. Truxes ― Common-Place
“Klooster has written a concise, original, and long overdue synthesis of a turbulent and transformative period in the history of the modern world. Klooster emphasizes the unexpected, uncertain, and unforeseen paths to revolution, and integrates the experiences of different populationsloyalist and rebel, slave and free, women and men, European, African, colonial, and Native American. Grounded in extensive reading in multiple languages, Revolutions in the Atlantic World will stand as the definitive work on the subject for years to come.” — Alison Games,author of The Web of Empire: English Cosmopolitans in an Age of Expansion, 1560-1660
“This highly readable and well-argued book at last brings together all of the Atlantic RevolutionsNorth American, Caribbean, French, and Latin Americanto tell a story at once sweeping and succinct about the transformations of the period.” — Laurent Dubois,author of Avengers of the New World
““Based on extraordinarily wide reading, it has the makings of a winner in a burgeoning sector of the undergraduate textbook market… Wim Klooster has produced a survey of unique breadth and admirable concision that is full of insight and interesting detail. Its most impressive feature is the multilingual bibliography cited in endnotes, which is remarkably rich and wide ranging and combines extensive coverage of recent scholarship with some obscure older items. The writing is compact and flows well.” ― Hispanic American Historical Review
““Klooster (Clark Univ.) compares for the first time four major revolutions of the Atlantic World: the American, French, Haitian, and Spanish… Although Klooster offers some fresh perspectives, his treatment is a synthesis of other interpretations crafted though a successful chronological weaving of a narrative that tells a familiar story.” ― CHOICE
““The organization of this work and its overall presentation are models of clarity. After a brief introduction, Klooster takes the reader through four chapters (one each on the four revolutions) and then ends with a succinct comparative conclusion. The work is very readable, and Klooster is to be commended for distilling some very complex series of events into a readable synopsis that is both engaging and easy to follow… Klooster’s synthesis is no small achievement; he is to be congratulated for an important and sweeping new contribution to the history of the Atlantic World.” ― Enterprise and Society
““The research necessary to chronicle all four revolutions is intimidating, but Klooster has done a herculean job, with impressive reading in multiple languages. He integrates economic, social, political, and military history and incorporates marginalized groups such as women and blacks (the American Revolution chapter also discusses the fates of Native Americans). Each chapter offers lively writing and is a model of clarity, providing helpful background on the prerevolutionary decades as well as on each revolution’s development and legacy… Klooster’s book is a very worthy achievement. It adds much to the growing literature on Atlantic revolutions and will be invaluable for teachers of the American Revolution who wish to add a comparative dimension to their courses.” ― The Journal of American History
“Klooster has accepted a daunting challenge: writing an updated monograph on what we now consider the four main Atlantic revolutions―the American, French, Haitian, and Spanish American….The research necessary to chronicle all four revolutions is intimidating, and Klooster has done a Herculean job, with impressive reading in multiple languages….It adds much to the growing literature on Atlantic revolutions and will be invaluable for teachers of the American Revolution who wish to add a comparative dimension to their courses.” ― Journal of American History
About the Author
Wim Klooster is Professor of History at Clark University. He is the author or (co-)editor of many books, including The Dutch Moment: War, and Trade, and Settlement in the Seventeenth-Century Atlantic World, The Atlantic World: Essays on Slavery, Migration, and Imagination, and Illicit Riches:Dutch Trade in the Caribbean, 1648-1795.
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The slave revolution that two hundred years ago created the state of Haiti alarmed and excited public opinion on both sides of the Atlantic. Its repercussions ranged from the world commodity markets to the imagination of poets, from the council chambers of the great powers to slave quarters in Virginia and Brazil and most points in between. Sharing attention with such tumultuous events as the French Revolution and the Napoleonic War, Haiti’s fifteen-year struggle for racial equality, slave emancipation, and colonial independence challenged notions about racial hierarchy that were gaining legitimacy in an Atlantic world dominated by Europeans and the slave trade. The Impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World explores the multifarious influence―from economic to ideological to psychological―that a revolt on a small Caribbean island had on the continents surrounding it. Fifteen international scholars, including eminent historians David Brion Davis, Seymour Drescher, and Robin Blackburn, explicate such diverse ramifications as the spawning of slave resistance and the stimulation of slavery’s expansion, the opening of economic frontiers, and the formation of black and white diasporas. They show how the Haitian Revolution embittered contemporary debates about race and abolition and inspired poetry, plays, and novels. Seeking to disentangle its effects from those of the French Revolution, they demonstrate that its impact was ambiguous, complex, and contradictory.
About the Author
David P. Geggus is a professor of history at the University of Florida in Gainesville and a former Guggenheim and National Humanities Center fellow. He has published extensively on the history of slavery and the Caribbean, with a particular focus on the Haitian Revolution. He is the author of Slavery, War and Revolution: The British Occupation of Saint Domingue, 1793–1798 and an editor of A Turbulent Time: The French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean. Geggus lives in Gainesville.
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A USA Today “Must-Read for Black History Month”
An unprecedented visual history of African women told in striking and subversive historical photographs–featuring an Introduction by Edwidge Danticat and a Foreword by Jacqueline Woodson.
Most of us grew up with images of African women that were purely anthropological–bright displays of exotica where the deeper personhood seemed tucked away. Or they were chronicles of war and poverty–“poverty porn.” But now, curator Catherine E. McKinley draws on her extensive collection of historical and contemporary photos to present a visual history spanning a hundred-year arc (1870–1970) of what is among the earliest photography on the continent. These images tell a different story of African women: how deeply cosmopolitan and modern they are in their style; how they were able to reclaim the tools of the colonial oppression that threatened their selfhood and livelihoods.
Featuring works by celebrated African masters, African studios of local legend, and anonymous artists, The African Lookbook captures the dignity, playfulness, austerity, grandeur, and fantasy-making of African women across centuries. McKinley also features photos by Europeans–most starkly, striking nudes–revealing the relationships between white men and the Black female sitters where, at best, a grave power imbalance lies. It’s a bittersweet truth that when there is exploitation there can also be profound resistance expressed in unexpected ways–even if it’s only in gazing back. These photos tell the story of how the sewing machine and the camera became powerful tools for women’s self-expression, revealing a truly glorious display of everyday beauty.
Review
“McKinley expertly guides readers through a history lesson of the ways fashion in these countries is connected with colonialism, industrialization and numerous traditions and styles of dressing . . . McKinley delicately reminds us that African traditions, styles, creations and the people themselves ― with their many layers and differences ― don’t need to come from fictional kingdoms like Zamunda or Wakanda to deserve attention. The real, everyday beauty of Africa is worth canonizing beyond the continent.” – New York Times Book Review
“The curator draws on her collection of historical and contemporary photographs of African girls and women for a striking visual history spanning decades.” – USA Today, “5 Books not to Miss”
“Black is beautiful–no matter what era or geographical region. This historical photography collection depicts that truth stunningly, telling the visual and textual story of African women living on the motherland between 1870 and 1970. Curator Catherine E. McKinley sheds light on their style, relationship dynamics, and the ways they’ve defeated colonial oppression to flourish on their own, presenting a hardcover that portrays Black women with dignity.” – LEVEL
“The African Lookbook captures the dignity, grandeur, austerity and liveliness of African women across the century through images curated from celebrated African masters, studios and anonymous artists.” – The Root
“The African Lookbook is a remarkable repository for African women’s rich history, their influence on global fashion and photography spanning 100 years. . . . In what remains an incredibly white-washed fashion industry filled with cultural appropriation, very little credit given to Africans and Black women who have (and continue to) contribute to the industry, The African Lookbook upends that reality within its pages.” – OkayAfrica
“[A] richly detailed and immersive visual history . . . Packed with arresting images and incisive analysis, this well-conceived survey tells a powerful story of African liberation.” – Publishers Weekly
“What McKinley offers in this compelling, quixotic book is something closer to a testament―a bold declaration of the enduring strength, beauty and power of African women, many of whom gaze at the camera with evident self-possession. The African Lookbook is a pleasure to absorb, whether you already know about the history of photography on the African continent or are new to the conversation.” – BookPage
“From young girls in Mali wearing ‘hot’ outfits beneath attire deemed respectable by Muslim culture to women defying Western Christianity by wearing traditional African attire to church, McKinley focuses on the ways in which fashion is a form of protest and resistance, preserving history in ‘more resilient and revealing’ ways than any other. The African Lookbook is an exquisite collection of African photographs and stories bearing witness to the power and grace of African women.” – Booklist
“[A] bold act of reclaiming. Here, in photographs and lyrical prose, McKinley defies Western stereotypes about African women.” – The Millions “A Year in Reading: Nadia Owusu”
“McKinley sheds light on the erasure and resilience of African women image-makers. The African Lookbook reads like a collective photo album with critical captions accompanying a trove of rare archival, vintage, vernacular, and contemporary images. McKinley draws attention to power dynamics, consent, subversion, and identity, examining the lives of African women ‘in the pursuit of modernity and resistance to colonialism and gender violence.’ She unearths and dissects the grave imbalances that have long plagued African visual archives.” – C&
“A really special book.” – BookRiot’s “For Real” Podcast
“How lucky we are that Catherine McKinley has collected this exquisite series of photographs from all corners of the African continent . . . proof of the range of beauty and elegance the world was otherwise telling us we could not possess.” – Edwidge Danticat, from the Introduction
“As I slowly moved through the stunningly beautiful pages of The African Lookbook, I found myself being transported by the glorious photographs Catherine McKinley has collected. . . . We took and continue to take the skin, the pain, the fabric, the tools we have. And with all of this–as Catherine McKinley has done here–we make something as beautiful as our own selves.” – Jacqueline Woodson, from the Foreword
“Our mothers are our source. Similarly, the ‘Motherland’ is the source of what we come to know as Blackness in America. That’s why Catherine McKinley’s The African Lookbook is a welcome bridge across the diaspora. . . . The African Lookbook is an ode to Black womanhood on the continent, and an ideal way to bring the Motherland to your mother.” – The Root’s “The Glow Up”
“In the fashion world, a “lookbook” is a collection of photos highlighting, say, a fashion designer’s work or a fashion model. The African Lookbook has a different agenda: images that present a stereotype-busting way to look at African women, their relationship with fashion ― and their ability to turn the sewing machine from a tool synonymous with toil, lack of choice and oppression into a means for them to achieve economic power.” – NPR.org’s Goats and Soda
“McKinley’s collection thus provides a refreshing new look at the visual history of African women. In choosing to collect images that exclusively contained female subjects, we are given a new, more in-depth look at the history of women on the continent and can trace the way visual narratives change and adapt with the times, especially in the context of decolonization. Rich with anecdotes and untold narratives, The African Lookbook is a valuable and exciting trove of feminine history on the African continent.” – Musée Magazine
About the Author
Catherine E. McKinley is a curator and writer whose books include the critically acclaimed Indigo, a journey along the ancient indigo trade routes in West Africa, and The Book of Sarahs, a memoir about growing up Black and Jewish in the 1960s–80s. She’s taught creative nonfiction writing at Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University. The McKinley Collection, featured here, is a personal archive representing African photographies from 1870 to the present. She lives in New York City.
Edwidge Danticat is the author of several books, including Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah’s Book Club selection; Krik? Krak!, a National Book Award finalist; The Farming of Bones, an American Book Award winner; and the novel-in-stories, The Dew Breaker. She is the editor of The Butterfly’s Way: Voices from the Haitian Diaspora in the United States and The Beacon Best of 2000: Great Writing by Men and Women of All Colors and Cultures, Haiti Noir and Haiti Noir 2, and Best American Essays 2011. Shehas written several books for young adults and children―Anacaona, Behind the Mountains, Eight Days, The Last Mapou, Mama’s Nightingale, and Untwine―as well as a travel narrative, After the Dance, A Walk Through Carnival in Jacmel. Her memoir, Brother, I’m Dying, was a 2007 finalist for the National Book Award and a 2008 winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. She is a 2009 MacArthur Fellow.
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Brimming with rich, electrifying tales of the precious dye and its ancient heritage, Indigo is also the story of a personal quest: Catherine McKinley is the descendant of a clan of Scots who wore indigo tartan; Jewish “rag traders”; a Massachusetts textile factory owner; and African slaves-her ancestors were traded along the same Saharan routes as indigo, where a length of blue cotton could purchase human life. McKinley’s journey in search of beauty and her own history leads her to the West African women who dye, trade, and wear indigo-women who unwittingly teach her that buried deep in the folds of their cloths is all of destiny and the human story.
Review
“Gorgeously recounts McKinley’s journey to West Africa’s teeming markets and churning factories, through funerals and uprisings, to find ‘the bluest of the blues’” ―Los Angeles Times
“[McKinley’s] discoveries resonate, and her unique experiences provide a vivid snapshot of the cultures she encountered in Africa.” ―Washington Post
“An eye-opening account of the controversial role this gorgeous, coveted pigment has played through the millennia.” ―Elle
About the Author
Catherine E. McKinley is the author of The Book of Sarahs. She is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, where she has taught creative nonfiction, and a former Fulbright Scholar in Ghana, West Africa. She lives in New York City.
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The fortunes of the late nineteenth century’s imperial and industrial powers depended on a single raw material—rubber—with only one source: the Amazon basin. And so began the scramble for the Amazon—a decades-long conflict that found Britain, France, Belgium, and the United States fighting with and against the new nations of Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil for the forest’s riches. In the midst of this struggle, Euclides da Cunha, engineer, journalist, geographer, political theorist, and one of Brazil’s most celebrated writers, led a survey expedition to the farthest reaches of the river, among the world’s most valuable, dangerous, and little-known landscapes.
The Scramble for the Amazon tells the story of da Cunha’s terrifying journey, the unfinished novel born from it, and the global strife that formed the backdrop for both. Haunted by his broken marriage, da Cunha trekked through a beautiful region thrown into chaos by guerrilla warfare, starving migrants, and native slavery. All the while, he worked on his masterpiece, a nationalist synthesis of geography, philosophy, biology, and journalism he named the Lost Paradise. Da Cunha intended his epic to unveil the Amazon’s explorers, spies, natives, and brutal geopolitics, but, as Susanna B. Hecht recounts, he never completed it—his wife’s lover shot him dead upon his return.
At once the biography of an extraordinary writer, a masterly chronicle of the social, political, and environmental history of the Amazon, and a superb translation of the remaining pieces of da Cunha’s project, The Scramble for the Amazon is a work of thrilling intellectual ambition.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“A journey into South America’s heart of darkness.”
― Nature
“A vividly detailed account of the complex interactions of the diverse Amazon dwellers of the late 19th through early 20th centuries, including native people, descendants of runaway slaves, rubber barons, peasant rubber tree tappers, ranchers, scientists, explorers, and the Brazilian military. . . . This scholarly but accessible work about an individual now somewhat forgotten to history will be of greatest interest to scholars and . . . Brazilian and Amazonian history enthusiasts.”
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A new look at a contentious period in the history of the Atlantic world
Within just a half century, the American, French, Haitian, and Spanish American revolutions transformed the Atlantic world. This book is the first to analyze these events through a comparative lens, revealing several central themes in the field of Atlantic history. From the murky position of the European empire between the Old and New Worlds to slavery and diaspora, Wim Klooster offers insights into the forces behind the many conflicts in the Atlantic world in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Digging deeply into the structural causes and oppressive environments in which these revolutions occurred, Klooster debunks the popular myth that the “people” rebelled against a small ruling elite, arguing instead that the revolutions were civil wars in which all classes fought on both sides. The book reveals the extent to which mechanisms of popular mobilization were visible in the revolutions. For example, although Blacks and Indians often played an important role in the success of the revolutions, they were never compensated once new regimes rose to power. Nor was democracy a goal or product of these revolutions, which usually spawned authoritarian polities.
The new edition covers the latest historiographical trends in the study of the Atlantic world, including new research regarding the role of privateers. Drawing on fresh research – such as primary documents and extant secondary literature – Klooster ultimately concludes that the Enlightenment was the ideological inspiration for the Age of Revolutions, although not its cause.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“In this updated edition, Wim Klooster elegantly, and comprehensively, argues for an Age of Atlantic Revolutions. Expertly guiding us through the decades between 1760 and 1830 and over a landscape that includes North America, France, the Caribbean, and Latin America, Klooster convincingly describes this period as one of unanticipated consequences: empires fought, authority was questioned and reformulated, social tensions exploded in unpredicted ways. Kloosters great contribution is to provide a coherence to this turbulence.” — James Alexander Dun,author of Dangerous Neighbors: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America
“Wim Klooster’s Revolutions in the Atlantic World not only provides a comparative overview of the revolutions that transformed the Atlantic World in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, but also reveals the connections among different revolutionary processes in the Americas and in Europe. Klooster transitions smoothly between regional and imperial contexts, highlighting the significance of transimperial linkages in shaping the social and political processes of different Atlantic empires on both sides of the Atlantic. This second edition provides an especially useful introduction examining how these revolutions reflected the emergence of multiple Enlightenments in different parts of the Atlantic World. This book breaks away from euro-centric narratives and beautifully weaves together vast and the complex intellectual, political, and social revolutions that transformed the Atlantic World.” — Fabricio Prado ,College of William and Mary
About the Author
Wim Klooster is Professor of History at Clark University. He is the author or (co-)editor of many books, including The Dutch Moment: War, and Trade, and Settlement in the Seventeenth-Century Atlantic World, The Atlantic World: Essays on Slavery,
Migration, and Imagination, and Illicit Riches:Dutch Trade in the Caribbean, 1648-1795.
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Transition Studies 