The Second Emancipation

Reviews

"In this truly monumental biography of the rise and fall of Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, global observer Howard W. French documents the Cold War hubris that foredoomed Africa’s aspirations in a Greek tragedy of racist pathologies affronted by emancipated leadership. French’s The Second Emancipation stands the second half of the last century on its geopolitical head." — David Levering Lewis, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize

"French, a professor of journalism at Columbia and a former foreign correspondent for The New York Times, covers a lot of ground in a book that merges biography with panorama. His previous book, “Born in Blackness,” showed how the making of the modern world wasn’t just a story about Europe; it was also about Africa. “The Second Emancipation” is a sequel, bringing that approach into the postwar era... “The Second Emancipation” ably treads the line on Nkrumah’s complicated legacy. French keeps reminding the reader of the larger context, pointing out how European colonies were laboratories not for good governance but for authoritarianism." — Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times

"[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, The Wall Street Journal

"Howard W. French thinks Nkrumah deserves better...he calls Nkrumah “comparable in his impact on the world of his era to Mandela, and even Gandhi.” He is especially attentive to the way Nkrumah was influenced by Black Americans, and how he influenced them in turn, by showing what Black political power might look like…[The Second Emancipation] re-creates the era of soaring hopes in Africa" — Kelefa Sanneh, The New Yorker

"[The Second Emancipation] is an important work that deserves to be widely read." — Jonathan M. Jackson, History Today