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Reviewed by:
  • Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora
  • Anthony Cheeseboro
Michael A. Gomez . Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. New Approaches to African History. 236 pp. Maps. Figures. Notes. Suggestions for Further Reading. Index. $55.00. Cloth. $19.99. Paper.

With Reversing Sail,Michael Gomez has managed to strike the ideal balance for a textbook. The book is packed with relevant information for students of the diaspora and also is very clearly written. More important, at key moments Gomez raises important points for further study in a way that will stimulate those students who are inclined to deepen their knowledge of the subject.

What first meets the eye about Reversing Sail is its small size. The book has a total length of 236 pages, including text, bibliography, and index. Nevertheless, Gomez manages to outline the entire history of the African diaspora on every continent with a sizeable population of African origin. At the beginning, of course, Gomez deals with Egypt and the various civilizations of the Nile Valley. In this section, he identifies and explains the main ideas of Afrocentric writers while still providing a space for alternative interpretations of that early history. His section on Africans and the Bible is also very important, given the centrality of Christianity and Christian imagery to so many diaspora cultures.

As he promises in his introduction, Gomez manages to tie this expansive study together by returning to several themes throughout the text. Since Africa is the source of the diaspora, he often demonstrates how a given practice reflected the application of African cultural elements to a new environment. This is especially evident in part 2 of the book, "'New' World Realities." Here he shows the varying degrees to which African culture expressed itself in the emerging religious, political, and material world of African immigrants to various parts of the Western Hemisphere.

Of equal importance to the experiential continuity of the diaspora, however, was its members' interaction with other communities. Easily the most significant of these relationships revolved around the near universal status of Africans as slaves in the New World. The treatment of African slaves and the reaction of Africans to their predicament provide a powerful unifying theme for the second section of the book. Similarly, Gomez chronicles the variations in the struggle toward emancipation and the continuing elusiveness of true racial equality in the multiracial societies of the modern world. Gomez ends his work by examining the various post–World War II movements toward equality, but he also looks at popular culture. The figures mentioned in this section will be both familiar and new to many students. Particularly noteworthy to me was his discussion of sports. The section on black baseball in the United States, for example, and the involvement of Caribbean players is a wonderful example of the unifying themes in the diaspora experience.

Students who read this book will be struck by the strong commonalities in societies that outwardly appear very different to casual observers. The [End Page 162] range of secondary material Gomez draws on is truly admirable. The result is an incredibly concise reference guide to the black world. This book will surely be well received in classrooms and among general readers as well.

Anthony Cheeseboro
Southern Illinois University
Edwardsville, Illinois
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