Locating Africans on the World Stage:
A Problem in World History
Patrick Manning
World History Center
October 28, 2015

• Analysis
• Comprehensiveness
• Disciplinary specialization
• Comprehensiveness
• Rhetoric
• “World stage” – and the world beyond the stage
• Institutions
• Associations
• Journals
• Programs of study

Multiple Perspectives in World History
• Standpoint
• By time, place, social position and interest
• Knowledge
• Many types of knowledge; many levels
• Debate
• Facts vs. outlooks
• New research, new facts
• Identifying and balancing perspectives
• Tension: * search for synthesis;
* expression of perspectives

World History in the perspectives of
Africa and African diaspora
• “absence” of black people in major interpretations
• The “Eurocentrism” debate 1990s . . .
• . . . failed to end include blacks in narratives.
• The problem, I think: predominance of elite and civilizational perspectives

• Comprehensiveness
• Subfields – empire, economy, environment, health, migration, social movements
• Disciplinary specialization
• Crosby on environment
• Benton on law in history
• Economic history
• Coherence – logic of change
• Cause-and-effect, interactions, correlations

• The World Stage and the wider world
• Contrast of “world stage” & “master narrative”
• Successful examples:
• Crosby, Columbian exchange
• McNeill, Plagues and peoples
• Benton, legal pluralism
• Pomeranz, great divergence
• Analysis, Synthesis, Narrative

Others:
– Darwin
– McKeown
– Matsuda
– Abu Lughod
– Goldstone
– Aslanian

• Is there a lack of information on black history?
– Studies of Africa, Americas, Europe, Asia
• Has no one argued for inclusion of blacks?
– WEB Du Bois
– CLR James
– Colin Palmer
– R. Kelley & T. Patterson
– M. Gomez
– V. Mudimbe

A Look at Leading World-Historical
Narratives
• Bayly, Birth of the Modern World
• Osterhammel, Transformation of the World
• Wallerstein, Modern World-System
• Textbooks
• Bentley
• Fernandez-Armesto
• Princeton

Analytical and rhetorical practice reconsidered
• History in vertical and horizontal terms
• Civilizations
• Elites
• Initiative and response
• Systemic logic
• Reconsidering The African Diaspora (2009)

Narratives of black initiative and engagement
• Enslavement
• Atlantic creoles; Palmares (mid 17 th )
• Code noir; Moroccan black army (late 17 th )
• Rise in slave prices (early 18 th )
• Slave rebellions (late 18 th )
• Emancipation (19 th )
• White supremacy (19 th -20 th )
• Black cultural renaissance, post-emancipation (20 th )
• 1968 in white perspective
• 1968 in black and white perspective

Mulay Ismail (Morocco) , 1672-1727
Palmares (Brazil), c. 1605 - 1694
Code Noir, 1685

• Linking social history to world history
• Linking bottom-up to top-down
• Linking regions, seeking global interactions
• Linking topics and themes
Examples?

• Family and community (more than empire)
• Work (more than industry)
• Unfree labor (as much as free labor)
• Diaspora (more than civilization)
• Political protest and citizenship (more than nationhood)
• Basic education (more than higher education)
• Popular culture (more than elite culture)
• Recurring problems in social and economic inequality