As Africans and descendants of slaves have sought to expand an understanding of their history, focus on the African diaspora--the global dispersal of a people and their culture--has increased. African studies have assumed a prominent place in historical scholarship, and a growing number of non-African scholars has helped revise a discipline established over several decades.
The six contributions in this volume were compiled as a result of the thirtieth Walter Prescott Webb Memorial Lecture held at the University of Texas at Arlington. The contributors, nationally recognized in the field,...

Over the last several decades, historians have conducted extensive research into contact between the United States and West Africa during the era of the transatlantic trade. Yet we still understand relatively little about more recent relations between the two areas. This multidisciplinary volume presents the most comprehensive analysis of the U.S.-West African relationship to date, filling a significant gap in the literature by examining the social, cultural, political, and economic bonds that have, in recent years, drawn these two world regions into increasingly closer contact. Beginning...