This collection of essays by new and seasoned scholars presents cutting-edge research on the history of Africa and the African Diasporas. The chapters ask new questions, query old assumptions, and open new fields of inquiry. While the essays are broad-ranging, three major themes found throughout the volume bind the chapters together.
With a newfound focus on biographies, the volume explores Africans in the Diaspora, problematizes mobility and population displacement, and nuances resistance as a ubiquitous aspect of African history. Throughout the volume Africans are seen moving voluntarily, by necessity, or by force both within the continent and beyond it. Wherever they are, Africans are also resisting—struggling to improve their circumstances and, in the process, preserve their agency in defiance of coercive authority. In their respective ways, the chapters move beyond generalizations and abstractions to render subaltern groups and individual lives visible and comprehensible on their own terms.
In compiling this volume, the editors were fully cognizant of the fact that some of these themes can be brought into focus, while the full import of the others remains just over the horizon. Hence, Changing Horizons invites further studies and asks more questions than it answers, raising new questions about the history of Africa and the African Diasporas.
