African, American: From Tarzan to Dreams from My Father – Africa in the US Imagination - Hardcover

Mar, David Peterson Del

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1783608544 ISBN 13: 9781783608546

Publisher: Zed Books, 2017

Synopsis

From the Edenic wilderness of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan novels to Marcus Garvey’s Back to Africa movement, Africa has gripped the imaginations of Americans, white or black, male or female. But why is this? In African, American, David Peterson del Mar uncovers the answer, exploring the ways in which American fantasies of Africa have evolved over time and how Africans themselves have played a role in subverting American attitudes toward the continent.
 
 In this remarkable, panoramic work, Peterson del Mar draws on a wide range of sources from literature, film, and music, in addition to accounts by missionaries, aid workers, and travel writers, incorporating pop culture references as well as historical perspectives from Ernest Hemingway to Richard Wright, from the African Queen to the Lion King, in order to trace our continued fascination with Africa. The book spans several decades, beginning in the postwar period and continuing to the present, addressing such topical events as American responses to the Ebola crisis and reactions to Obama’s Kenyan roots, and it compares white and African American views on Africa, looking at how they have changed in light of the increased prominence enjoyed by African writers in America, including Teju Cole and Chimamanda Adichie.
 
All together, African, American provides a fascinating deconstruction of the idea of Africa as it exists in the American mind.
 

About this title

About the Author:

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

Review:

“Del Mar doesn’t spell it out that explicitly in African, American, but he doesn’t need to, not to anyone who’s paid any sort of respectful attention and thought to black life in America. He tells how many of those encounters have played out, and whether they ended with communion or bitterness, the thread is: you may be black or you may be white, but in Africa, you’re an American first.” (PopMatters)

“Offers an insight into the relationship between Africans and Americans. His obviously bold undertaking employs a reading of fiction, autobiography, and film to elucidate his perspectives.” (Choice)

“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.”

(Catherine Mathers, Duke University)

“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.” (Leslie James, University of Birmingham)

About this edition

• Publisher: Zed Books
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1783608544
• ISBN 13: 9781783608546
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 400