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The Second Emancipation: Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, and Global Blackness at High Tide

The Second Emancipation: Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, and Global Blackness at High Tide

by Howard W. French

Liveright ·2025 ·512 pages
New Release
Top of the Pile
Top of the Pile
I Index
78/99
Top of the Pile

93/99

Critics' Rating Index

Near the Top

64/99

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Scholars' Citation Index

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About This Book

"Howard French's The Second Emancipation stands the second half of the last century on its geopolitical head." —David Levering Lewis, winner of the Pulitzer Prize The Second Emancipation, a work of Odyssean dimension, recasts the liberation of post–World War II colonial Africa and the American civil rights struggle through the lens of Ghana's revolutionary visionary Kwame Nkrumah (1909–1972), who emerges as the most significant African leader of the twentieth century. Determined that readers fully understand Nkrumah's legacy, bestselling author of Born in Blackness Howard W. French newly dramatizes the Nkrumah story—his humble beginnings, his momentous experience in Harlem, his American education, and his return to Ghana in the final years of British subjugation. The language soars as French evokes an entire continent in the throes of liberation and a roiling United States in the Cold War era. In its dramatic depiction of a continent that once exuded the promise of a newly won freedom, The Second Emancipation is a generational work that positions not only Africa but also the American civil rights movement at the forefront of modern-day history.


Reviews

"Weaving a staggering amount of history into a propulsive narrative that recasts the 20th century as a long struggle for liberation, this is a towering achievement."

Publishers Weekly Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"Challenges lazy theories that attribute Africa's current economic precarity and political instability to incompetence ..."

Lovia Gyarkye· The New Republic Read review ↗ Near the Top

"French is an expert guide to its nuances."

Robert D. Kaplan· The Wall Street Journal Top of the Pile

"Blending his lucid, reportorial prose with his expertise in African, Black diasporic, and 20th-century political histories, French produces a dynamic, intricate sequence of documentary nonfiction."

Walton Muyumba· The Boston Globe Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"French's book reads as history told in the present tense, at once enthralling and devastating."

Vivien Chang· Los Angeles Review of Books Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"A fluent exploration of an important if often overlooked political leader whose ideas still bear consideration."

Kirkus Read review ↗ Near the Top

"French keeps reminding the reader of the larger context."

Jennifer Szalai· The New York Times Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

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