This exceptional set of essays explores the “Black Atlantic” through biography. The volume is organized around particular life stories that illustrate the implications for interpreting the interconnected histories of Atlantic societies. Generally, these fine contributions raise issues of how to reconstruct biographies to determine their significance as individualized glimpses into patterns of history; responses to enslavement; and the quest for liberty, dignity, and meaning. Implicitly, biography is interdisciplinary because it draws on written and sometimes oral texts that have to be examined through the lens of literary criticism while explaining the context in terms of historical methodology. This volume addresses this dual orientation carefully and thoroughly. Suitably critiqued, it can help to propel the genre even further as a historical tool of analysis. The book is divided into twelve chapters and an afterword. A number of contributions summarize or extend earlier studies of individuals.
One of the great achievements in...