What is it about?
The book asks how Europe changed when it came into contact with Africa and America, using France during the second half of the 17th and the early 18th century as a case study. It shows how spaces like the textile industry or the pharmaceutical market, but also discourses and religious concepts were transformed because of this contact.
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Why is it important?
Scholars have explored how Europe changed the world, but it is still less common to talk about how the world not only changed Europe, but made it "modern". The book also stands out for prominently including the African side of this process, illuminating direct trade between Europe and Africa and the consequences of cultural contact on the West African coast for Europe. This clarifies that Africa contributed much more than unfree labour for American plantations.
Perspectives
Although this is striktly speaking a book about Europe (or rather France), for me it has always been about Africa - correcting the view that Africa was shaped by Europe, largely because it had little or nothing to offer. This was quite clearly not the case, and Africa and Africans did indeed shape Europe in a variety of ways. Paradoxically, focusing on Europe from this perspective helped me to accomplish this goal.
Dr. Jutta Wimmler
Europa Universitat Viadrina Frankfurt an der Oder
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Sun King's Atlantic, February 2017, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004336087.
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