The civil rights and black power movements expanded popular awareness of
the history and culture of African Americans. But, as Stephen Hall
observes, African American authors, intellectuals, ministers, and
abolitionists had been writing the history of the black experience since
the 1800s. With this book, Hall recaptures and reconstructs a rich but
largely overlooked tradition of historical writing by African
Americans.
Hall charts the origins, meanings, methods, evolution, and maturation of
African American historical writing from the period of the Early
Republic to the twentieth-century professionalization of the larger
field of historical study. He demonstrates how these works borrowed from
and engaged with ideological and intellectual constructs from mainstream
intellectual movements including the Enlightenment, Romanticism,
Realism, and Modernism. Hall also explores the creation of discursive
spaces that simultaneously reinforced and offered counternarratives to
more mainstream historical discourse. He sheds fresh light on the
influence of the African diaspora on the development of historical
study. In so doing, he provides a holistic portrait of African American
history informed by developments within and outside the African American
community.