A dazzling history of Africans in Europe, revealing their unacknowledged role in shaping the continent
Conventional wisdom holds that Africans are only a recent presence in Europe. But in African Europeans,
renowned historian Olivette Otele debunks this and uncovers a long
history of Europeans of African descent. From the third century, when
the Egyptian Saint Maurice became the leader of a Roman legion, all the
way up to the present, Otele explores encounters between those defined
as "Africans" and those called "Europeans." She gives equal attention to
the most prominent figures—like Alessandro de Medici, the first duke of
Florence thought to have been born to a free African woman in a Roman
village—and the untold stories—like the lives of dual-heritage families
in Europe's coastal trading towns.
African Europeans is
a landmark celebration of this integral, vibrantly complex slice of
European history, and will redefine the field for years to come.
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