Description:
Publishers Weekly - Best Books of 2025 [Nonfiction]
Foreign Policy - Most Anticipated Books of 2025
Longlisted for the 2026 Cundill History Prize
"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
From the acclaimed author of Born in Blackness comes an extraordinary account of Africa's liberation from colonial oppression, a work that fundamentally reshapes our understanding of modern history.
Brief description: Howard W. French is a professor of journalism at Columbia University and a former New York Times bureau chief for Central America and the Caribbean, West and Central Africa, Japan and the Koreas, and China, based in Shanghai. The author of six books, including Born in Blackness and The Second Emancipation, French lives in New York City.
Review Quotes: [An] epic narrative...This is a sprawling book, and the better for it. Mr. French has delivered a panoramic, sympathetic, yet analytical portrait of a global black movement, deepened by his own family connections with West Africa...As the fastest-growing part of the world in population, Africa will matter more and more. And Mr. French is an expert guide to its nuances.--Robert Kaplan "Wall Street Journal"