African, American

Africa has long gripped the American imagination. From the Edenic wilderness of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan novels to the ‘black Zion’ of Garvey’s Back-to-Africa movement, all manner of Americans - whether white or black, male or female - have come to see Africa as an idealized stage on which they can fashion new, more authentic selves. In this remarkable, panoramic work, David Peterson del Mar explores the ways in which American fantasies of Africa have evolved over time, as well as the role of Africans themselves in subverting American attitudes to their continent.Spanning seven decades, from the post-war period to the present day, and encompassing sources ranging from literature, film and music to accounts by missionaries, aid workers and travel writers, African, American is a fascinating deconstruction of ‘Africa’ as it exists in the American mindset.

Offers an intimate view of the intertwined relationship between Americans and Africans. Through a comprehensive yet sensitive analytical reading of fiction, autobiography and film, Del Mar shows just how much Africa has and continues to shape what it means to be American., Demonstrates how Americans projected their own gender, class, and racial psychoses into their experiences and renderings of the African Continent. Del Mar seeks a critical approach not to what Africa is, but to how Americans have perceived it. With this comprehensive source, we might begin to understand the difference.

David Peterson del Mar is an associate professor of history at Portland State University, and the founding president of Yo Ghana!, a charity devoted to promoting friendship and understanding between students in Ghana and the Pacific Northwest.