African Europeans: An Untold History by Olivette Otélé

African Europeans: An Untold History Reviews

• 
  luce (tired and a little on edge)

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  “The history of African Europeans is vibrant and complex, just as it is brutal.”

  
  
  Olivette Otélé, who happens to be a professor at my university, is the first black woman in the UK to be appointed to a professorial chair in history. African Europeans is her meticulously researched and illuminating examination of the relationship, past and present, between Europe and Africa. Otélé reveals key figures and connections that have long been overlooked by historians and public discourse. By revealing the lives and experiences of African Europeans throughout the centuries Otélé dispels the popular myth of Europe having an exclusively white historical narrative (which leads many to criticise period/historical dramas that are set in Europe and star non-white characters, claiming that it isn't 'historically accurate').
  
  In the first chapter, 'Early Encounters: From pioneers to African Romans', Otélé states the following: "From confrontations to collaborations, the relationship between Africans and Europeans has been tumultuous since the third century". She discusses figures such as the Queen of Sheba and St Maurice (an Egyptian and leader of the Roman Theban Legion) as well as African-born Romans such as Emperor Septimius Severus (who was born in Leptis Magna ie Libya) and Marcus Cornelius Fronto. who "paved the way for a strong tradition of African European intellectuals". In the second chapter, 'Black Mediterraneans: Slavery and the Renaissance', Otélé touches upon famous names such as Alessandro de Medici to 'ordinary' ones such as Ursola, a black slave in a Valencian household, who hoped to "buy her freedom".
  From the Renaissance Otélé moves onto the following centuries, exploring, and challenging, Europe's shifting perceptions of race and blackness. Otélé also demonstrates the ways in which racism has evolved throughout history.
  
  

  “From religious artefacts to representations of the magi; from an intellectual in fifteenth-century Granada to the young grime artists of twenty-first-century Britain, African European identities have continuously evolved.”

  
  
  In the latter half of this book Otélé focuses on more recent history, describing how many European countries refuse to acknowledge systemic racism (as if 'apologising' for their colonial pasts absolves them completely) feigning 'color blindness'. I also really appreciated Otélé's intersectional approach as she always takes into account the different ways in which one's gender and sexuality contributes to the way they are treated by and seen by their society.
  The lives, experiences, histories Otélé 'unearths' are riveting. While Otélé does not pose questions to the reader, the histories she 'unearths' are definitely question-inducing. Racism, citizenship, identity, notions of freedom and of belonging all shape the individuals Otélé is writing about.
  This is the kind of history book that should become part of the curriculum. Although I did not attend a British school many of my British acquaintances have complained about the lacunae in their studies (especially when it comes to discussing the relationship between Africa and the UK). And I also hope that it will be translated in Italian and many other languages.
  I think this an inspiring work that will definitely appeal to those with a 'history' background or to history aficionados.
  Otélé is a thoughtful yet objective writer and her work demonstrates incredibly acuity and knowledge.
  
  Many many many thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an a copy of this.
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  K.J. Charles

  An overview of African-origin people in Europe from Roman times to the present. It's comprehensive in scope, with a lot on eg France and Italy, not just the UK, but very much an overview which rather assumes you'll have an acquaintance with a lot of names eg John Blanke already. The stories that are told are really interesting; basically I'd have liked it to be a lot longer.
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  Lois

  Truth is I finished this the day after I started it🤷🏾‍♀️
  I consumed it like a feast and did not take appropriate notes😭
  So I need to add my quotes at a later date.
  I felt this encompasses a very full and complete view of history.
  Often we are given a peripheral view of history and told that's all that exists.
  This bursts that open but doesn't focus on that so much as continues with the story.
  So many fabulous quotes.
  This is well written and sourced.
• 
  Andrew

  Olivette Otélé provides a very comprehensive history of Africans in Europe from the earliest times through to the twenty-first century. Interestingly, we find communities of people of African descent across that continent from the British Isles right through to Russia and the various places in between. While their presence has had an impact on the history, politics, and religion of the region for generations they still remain a hidden class in many countries as they continue to face many challenges mainly in the form of racism in modern times.
  This is an excellent history showing that Africans haven't just been arrivals to Europe in recent decades and is recommended reading.
  
• 
  Kara Babcock

  As the description of this book suggests, many of us have an inaccurate understanding of the history of Black people’s presence in Europe. So I wanted to correct my understanding. It’s important for us to learn the history of the slave trade, of course. But if we reduce Black histories merely to slavery, we are engaging in yet another type of colonial violence. Olivette Otélé aims to highlight the presence of African Europeans throughout history. She complicates and problematizes both our understanding of the slave trade as well as our conceptions about what it meant to be a “free” Black person in Europe during various centuries. African Europeans is informative and interesting, although it is also highly academic and difficult to read. Thanks to Perseus Books and NetGalley for the e-ARC!
  
  I’m not going to attempt to summarize this book. All I will say is that I learned a lot from it. Some of the highlights include the first Medici Duke of Florence, Alessandro, and how his skin colour affected his rule. Another highlight would be the ways that various European countries attempted to restrict or require extensive documentation from people of colour. Throughout this book, Otélé demonstrates how European countries, such as France, the Netherlands, and Sweden, have yet to really reckon with their role in the slave trade. Much is made of celebrating when these countries abolished slavery. Little discussion happens around the experiences of Black people in these countries around or even after that time.
  
  I wish I could say I enjoyed the book, but that would be a stretch. There are academic books, and then there are academic books, and then there are academic books. Like, African Europeans is full of research and references to other scholars. If that’s what you’re looking for—if you are studying this subject, then you will find this book useful. Nor do I want to suggest that every book should be comprehensible to a lay reader. But as someone who has a couple of university degrees and has been around the academic block a couple of times, I still found large parts of this book a slog to read. It largely comes down to how Otélé has organized the information. The transitions are often abrupt, and at times I found it difficult to understand the overall topic of each chapter.
  
  So when I say that I learned a lot from this book, I also want to say that I think I could have learned more if the writing style had worked better for me. I’m not sure how much I will retain that I learned. Therefore, unfortunately, as much as I would love to recommend this book widely to my friends, I’m not sure I can do that. African Europeans is informative but no compelling, well-researched but not well-organized, important but perhaps in need of more work to make its information accessible to those of us who most need to read it.
  
  Originally posted on
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  Siria

  I really wanted to—expected to—love this book. It has all the hallmarks of being an important intervention on an understudied topic. Olivette Otélé has assembled here a cast of fascinating characters—people of African descent whose lives played out in whole or in part in Europe, such as Jacobus Capitein, a Black man once enslaved who earned a degree from Leiden University with a dissertation defending slavery and who returned to West Africa as a missionary, or Joseph Boulogne, a virtuoso musician, fencing master, and soldier in the French Revolution. Otélé convincingly shows that Black people are an integral part of European history and societies, and have been so for a very long time.
  
  But ultimately this book fell between two stools for me: not well-structured enough to be a strong academic text, nor narrative-driven enough to likely have much appeal for the general reader for whom it's clearly intended. For instance, there are large swathes of the book that feel like the literature review section of a dissertation. I'm absolutely fine with this being a work of synthesis rather than one grounded in original archival research—this kind of sweeping work covering a continent across millennia could hardly be written otherwise—and deeply respect Otélé's clear commitment to foregrounding the other scholars on whose work she draws, which is something that many writers of popular histories often do not do. But it does make for a dry read, particularly since Otélé at times I think assumes more familiarity with the work of these scholars, or the events they're discussing, than the average reader may have. Equally, many of the chapters seemed to lack much by way of internal structure, and whiplashed between topics/subjects.
  
  I picked this up with an eye to assigning it at a textbook in a future course, but my reservations about structure/clarity of argument mean that I am unlikely to do so now. I will however definitely use it as a jumping off point for future reading and classroom inspiration—the triumph of African Europeans is undoubtedly in the richness and diversity of the history it portrays.
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  Bethany (Beautifully Bookish Bethany)

  DNF at 7%
  
  This is not a reflection on the content of this book, but unfortunately I just couldn't get through the audiobook. The narration is choppy with oddly placed pauses and emphasis which, in combination with the academic style of the prose, makes it very difficult to follow. The premise of the book, looking at the history of Africans in Europes is an interesting and important one. Perhaps I will return to the material via the physical book at some point in the future, but the audio just isn't going to work for me and that is what I currently have available. I received an audio review copy of this book via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
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  Inderjit Sanghera

  Otélé explores the history of Africans in Europe, from Roman to Medieval times, from Alessandro de’ Medici to Stormzy, from the virtually unheard of stories of mixed race children of German and Danish colonialists,. Otélé’s book is impressively researched and draws out the gradual increase of racism in Europe just as it was emerging from the renaissance, which imbued Europeans with a feeling of cultural superiority which was exacerbated by self-interest in the slave trade and which reached climax in eugenics and colonialism.
  
  Otélé’s greatest strength lies in her ability to interweave personal narratives against the historical context they take place within. So Otélé explores the emergence of grime and drill music against a backdrop of increased racial tensions and poverty, or of the African women of the Danish Gold Coast whose main avenue to independence as to marry a European man, but who were still treated as second class people by European society or of the mixed race German man who grew up Germany during the rise of fascism. At times ‘African Europeans’ can be a bit too academic in style, however this is offset by Otélé’s erudition and her ability to explores the motivations and stories of the people she depicts.
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  2TReads

  This is one of those historical accounts that needs to be read.
  
  African Europeans have been creating and sharing knowledge for centuries. They have been transmitting their various cultures in environments that were hostile to them and in ways that were not recognised as valuable by scholars from the Global North.'
  
  Otele has written an illuminating and engaging history that is aimed at returning the Africans that existed within the European societal construct to the collective consciousness of today.
  
  Those whose images had been rewritten and redrawn by European historians to suit their racialised definitions and perceptions. She has reclaimed their true identities and contributions that have been obscured to feed into the need to erase and downplay their colonialistic and imperialist past.
  
  She uses an investigative and comparative approach using records and surviving observations to accomplish this and it is done brilliantly.
  
  Otele focuses on their relationship with their histories and identities, how the structure of the European society was set up to extract their talents, minds, and bodies to further each colonial country's agenda, while refusing to view them as an integral part of the social fabric.
  
  She takes us into laws and practices that were implemented to exclude and separate those of African descent and with dual heritage from the native white populace, the perceptions held by the general public and the effects that rippled and crippled the potential of those who were branded stateless, not belonging, exotic.
  
  We also learn how these countries use their dual-heritaged/African-descended individuals to excel in arenas such as Sports/Athletics and the Arts.
  
  But throughout Otele's brilliant, easy to read and understand account, we are shown the resilience that resides within, how it is used to fight for the right to be seen and heard. Across Europe, social movements, festivals, artists, and activists have instigated and initiated movements to cement their place in the countries they and their ancestors, on and off continent, literally built.
• 
  Gretel

  I received a review copy from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
  
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  Sometimes you find books you instantly know you’ll like. I found this one months ago and I would’ve read it anyways, but it just so coincided with the rising of racist ignorance regarding Black people living in Europe. People were decrying the existence of Black characters in popular media, from games to movies, arguing that Black people didn’t live in Europe “at that time”, a range that encompasses from antiquity and the middle-ages to at least 1945. I already knew that this was historically incorrect and that the presence of Black people was, as I assumed correctly and Otélé proves, an act of active amnesia: erasing, negating and thus forgetting the existence of Black people in Europe as a political move.
  
  So, when I saw this ARC, I was not only happy to learn more and get rid of my blind spots, I was looking forward to being equipped with the historical and scholarly ammunition I needed for future conversations. I knew this book was going to be good and dear readers, this book delivered and exceeded my expectations tenfold!
  
  First of all, for an ARC this book was flawless. Flawless!
  I found exactly one minute mistake – one sentence in the epilogue didn’t start with a capitalisation – and was otherwise stunned at the quality, not because I didn’t expect it to be excellent, but because I thought of other ARCs I’ve read. (One particular very awful nonfiction comes to mind…) Each and every single book by Black women I got through Netgalley share the same amount of skill and rigorous research. I strive to be that good in my own academic writing and I know I have a long way to go but their work gives me a goal and an example I try to achieve.
  Not only are grammar and spelling flawless, Otélé is a great storyteller. She writes clearly, concisely and with passion. The words flow from the pages, which I know takes a lot of hard work. The scholarly aspect is equally impeccable with great summaries of complex theories and works, great analysis, giving every single source and summarising materials to give you enough information and details but without being confusing or boring. It is hard to be able to synthesise sources well. It was an absolute pleasure to read this.
  
  What is African Europeans about?
  
  

  The history of African Europeans is vibrant and complex, just as it is brutal. It is a collection of experiences that vary greatly from one place to another and across time. All of these histories have shaped the social practices and identities of European communities and continue to do so today. The trajectories of African Europeans are embedded in local architecture, as well as in national and international visual, literary and other cultural productions. From religious artefacts to representations of the magi; from an intellectual in fifteenth-century Granada to the young grime artists of twenty-first-century Britain, African European identities have continuously evolved. While most eighteenth-century African Europeans had to tiptoe around their spaces, reluctant to assert their presence, twenty-first-century French Afrofeminists and other African Europeans are claiming their rights to self-define, reshaping discourses around race, feminism, and their own lives.

  
  
  From the antiquities to modern times, Otélé looks at various cases of African-European exchange and the lives of famous and regular people of African Europeans. We have Roman soldiers, who enjoyed high education and became politicians; religious figures and saints; enslaved and freedpeople, including how Africans navigated slavery as participants within the global market; famous Black women, such as Josephine Baker, Sarah Baartman (Hottentot Venus) and Jeanne Duval; famous European figures with African ancestry like Alexandre Dumas and Alexander Pushkin; people from sports; and much more.
  
  As Otélé shows, it would be a mistake to view everything from the racialised and racist lens that permeates our time. Did racism play an important role in many of these interactions? Yes. But through millennia and centuries, the idea and identity of “African” had shifted numerous times. She presents a complex and nuanced kaleidoscope of exchange, influence and even appreciation for African culture, history and people throughout Europe. It wasn’t until much later that “African” became synonymous with “slave/enslaved” and even within this system of enslavement, exploitation and dehumanisation did Africans find myriad ways to engage with Europe/ans.
  There are clear examples of exploitation within slavery, as many women were sexually abused by their white owners. The trajectory for the children was complicated, as some would become enslaved themselves, while others could advance – albeit oftentimes limited – within European society and receive education, possibly even positions or marriages within the European elite. There are also cases where white men would marry indigenous African women for their connections within their culture, as it made trading – in goods, as well as enslaved people – easier. This way, African women could profit and even participate in the global market. The power relations should not be obfuscated and Otélé is very clear in saying that these relations were complex and based on exploitation and uneven power dynamics. She doesn’t sugar-coat the history or pretend that Africans had equal chances and opportunities within a system that was designed to oppress them. She merely shows that there were hybrid forms of life where Africans would try and find success, (relative) safety and money within a system as best as they could.
  
  African Europeans presents a slice of the many lives of African Europeans, discussing what it meant to be “African” depending on the epoch, the shifting identities and changes in perception and ultimately the numerous and indispensable contributions to European history, culture, economics, society, arts, sports and more. There is no Europe without Africa, and not only because the first humans to walk the planet moved from Africa to Europe – the first humans to live in what is now England were scientifically proven to be dark-skinned – but because the African-European exchange – from goods and ideas to people – has never stopped. It was and is a continuous flow.
  
  Fact is that we Europeans profited from Africans and Africa a lot and it hasn’t stopped. And even if that weren’t the case, people deserve respect, equality, equity and opportunity without being “productive” or becoming a “model immigrant”. Human rights and dignity should never be tied to conditions, like economic contributions/exploitation.
  
  I will end this review by recommending you this book in all its five-star glory. You will not regret reading it. And the final words go to Otélé herself:
  
  

  The stories of migratory movement from Africa to the Americas and to Europe educate us about the forced contributions of people of African descent. Even ‘voluntary’ migrations are also forced in many ways, as economic migrants leave their families and culture in search of better lives. What to make of all these histories colliding, and contributing to anxiety amongst some contemporary groups while they are deeply valued by others? These stories should be taught, widely analysed, and valued. They bring us back to our human nature, while also serving as reminders that ‘humanity’ itself is a shifting concept. […]
  They do so because the histories of marginalised communities have found ways, be it through music, dance, food, arts or sports, to permeate the societies in which they live and have lived. Lived experiences have also been transmitted by these groups through successive generations. However, simply remembering is not the ultimate goal. Triumph against institutionalised brutality, everyday forms of racism and microaggression, poverty, exclusion and marginalisation requires a radical way of using transmitted experience of resistance. It demands a collective degree of consciousness that runs across social, economic, gender and cultural barriers. It entails a renewed and adaptable practice of kinship. It means engaging with black radicalism.
• 
  Nate

  This book covers the history of African people in Europe/Western society from Biblical times through the present day. I, however, could not get past chapter three. The history was clearly well-researched and the author knew what she was talking about, but it was not communicated well. The book would often dart between people and topics without fully explaining any of them, describing people as if they're recognizable on first glance. The one that stood out was the story of St. Maurice, who I never heard about having never been a Christian nor a European. The author talked about him in assorted paragraphs between other discussions about the life of Africans in Roman Europe and going as far as the Middle Ages before circling back. This jumping around made it hard to remember who was whom and what they were doing and when. There were many assertions of someone's influence, but no description of what their effect was. The author seemed to become overly academic in her writing by responding to many historians as if we should already know who they were and their basic argument about whichever topic. Overall, it felt like multiple historical journal articles mixed together, and I could not get through it.
  
  A free e-copy of this book was received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review
• 
  Gareth Russell

  Beautifully written, it balances both the panoramic of the wider story with the intimate details of individuals' lives. A deeply researched and fascinating book.
• 
  Mandy

  An untold story, certainly, and one that is worth the telling. I learnt a lot from this book, which explores the presence of people of African descent in Europe from way back, something that is perhaps not widely known. From as far back as Roman times, in fact, there have been Africans in Europe. Even Russia’s national poet Pushkin had African ancestry. Often there is little evidence to go on, particularly for women, but the author’s research has been thorough and deep, highlighting individuals from different time periods and exploring attitudes and perceptions through the ages. She also explores the different words that have been used – negro, black, slave – and how they came not only to denote race and colour but eventually inferiority. The book is academic and scholarly and thus not always an easy read, although the author has made it as accessible for the general reader as it can be. I found the constant references to other writers and quotes from them, which peppered the text, intrusive, and would have preferred to read the author’s own views, leaving her sources to notes or footnotes, as I felt this impeded the narrative flow, and I can’t say that I really enjoyed the book. However, it is an important one and adds much to our understanding of race in history and thus any quibbles do not detract from that importance.
• 
  Lona

  That's the stuff that should be taught in school too, so people wouldn't always talk like Black people in Europe would be something relatively "new". It was super interesting to read and I am glad, that I could catch up on mending my knowledge gap about their history here a bit. There was also of course information about ongoing important topics that still need to be adressed today. Absolutely worth reading!
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  Littlebookterror

  This book is exactly what you expect from the title and it's great.
  Otélé explores in great detail the relations between African and European countries over centuries and how different our current views on race are when it comes to our history. From different countries to different social statuses, we get an array of opinions supported by quotes and footnotes divided into several chapters to paint a full picture.
  Through known historical figures, we get an insight into what their life must have been like and Otélé explains the complicated and contradicting views people had during those times. The political and economic situations are well explained and strengthen her narrative as she truly shatters the notion that "black people did not exist in Europe".
  
  
  
  I received an advanced reading copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
• 
  Lisa

  This is easily read by a popular audience. It isn’t a straightforward history, but more a set of historically informed meditations and educational essays on the relationships over time between Africans and Europeans and what we mean by those terms and how hard multiple identities are. It pushes us to think about how and where racialised identities are formed and to re-evaluate assumptions about race. The historical stories she told were mostly not familiar with me and I learned a lot about the fate of the children of mixed race marriages.
• 
  Mary

  One of those fascinating books that contains a multitude of stories. She gives an overview of African presences in Europe, but many of the subjects deserve books of their own. Here’s to further research.
• 
  Thomas Pope

  An absolutely brilliant book -
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  Anna

  ↠ 2.5 stars
• 
  Josh Hedgepeth

  Thanks to NetGalley for an e-arc. 3-3.5/5 stars
  
  This was a fascinating look at the history of Africans relationship to, and existence in, Europe. I ended up reading along with the audiobook narrated by the author.
  
  The narration was alright. I always admire academics who choose to narrate their own works, but it can be a learning process. The quality of the audiobook isn't the best. It's mostly minor stuff, small shifts in volume or tone or how the author is narrating something, likely due to breaks in between. It also feels dry which isn't necessarily a bad thing, merely not my personal preference, but that approach did exacerbate my problem following the content of the book.
  
  I'm hesitant to give this three stars because much of my critique is personal preference mixed with my mindset while reading this. I've been interested in reading this for a while, and when I finally did it was hard for me to follow the overall narrative in part because I was struggling to read in general. Nevertheless, some of the blame is with the book, or how it's structured. It feels like we go from topic to topic, each very detailed, but those very details come across like a wave of facts that I struggled to retain.
  
  Personally, I would have liked to have seen a more overarching narrative to help the reader/me connect each step in the overall story. Where, even if we don't retain every name or event, we get a good feel of each time period.
  
  Overall, my feelings are very subjective, and I certainly don't want to give the impression that this book isn't worth reading because it very much is. Even as an American, I felt much of the earliest history explored here is important precursor to American history, not to mention the value of understanding it in Europe considering it's weight on the world's stage.
  
  This isn't an easy book, but if it seems interesting to you, I do urge you to give it a shot. My struggles don't make it a bad book, nor is it necessarily representative of most readers.
  
  Again, 3-3.5/5 stars.
• 
  Caitlin

  African Europeans is a historiographical overview of how African Europeans lived within European societies from the Romans up to present day and how African Europeans influenced and were influenced by the racism and structure of the society around them. She uses several examples of exceptional individuals as well as ordinary groups that found ways to make their own paths to power and influence despite the pressure of society in general.
  
  I landed somewhere between 3 and 4 stars on this book and appreciate getting early access to the e-arc via NetGalley. I'm rounding up simply because it's a very valuable area for people to know about and very well-written and researched. As someone with an undergraduate degree in European history, I have some familiarity with the subject and the writing format of both histories and historiographies. This one ends up firmly in the latter camp. It's excellent scholarship and ties together many different studies on individuals and groups of African Europeans to create a cohesive theme. However, that means that there's a lot of quoting other works without a lot of description about the other works so that as a general reader and not someone aware of all of the scholarship, it feels like there's quite a bit you're missing.
  
  I'd recommend this to those looking for a more academic, dense overview of themes and history relating to African Europeans. And it is an amazing resource for those interested in the untold history of African Europeans and the research available about them.
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  Ethan

  What was the experience of Africans who became European? Such is not normally presented as part of the historical narrative of Europe.
  
  The author begins with Roman times and some information known regarding Africans in Europe, yet the majority of the work covers the period since the Renaissance. The story is very much tied with colonialism: the Portuguese experience, those of mixed European and African heritage in Guinea unable to fit in either in Europe or in Africa; the fate of Cameroonians acculturated to Germany after Germany lost its Empire; conditions for Africans in Sweden, Denmark, and the surprising celebration of Pushkin's African heritage in Russia. Much is made of the modern experience of Europeans of African descent, both of those who came to Europe in the colonial days and those who have more recently immigrated. The author gives a strong voice to those African Europeans who wish to be seen and valued in Europe as Europeans without experiencing discrimination or exoticization.
  
  A good work which highlights aspects of European history most often neglected, and one with which Europe should grapple.
  
  **--galley received as part of early review program
• 
  Rachel

  The answer to every person who's ever tried to argue that Black people appearing in European period dramas is anachronistic. It's not. People of African descent have been living in European (sometimes by choice, sometimes not) since ancient times. From musicians to soldiers and everything in between, African Europeans have played an important role in the history of Europe. But they have often been either forgotten or willfully erased by those (usually white and male) writing the history books. Otele sets the record straight.
  
  I learned about a number of historical figures I'd either never heard of (Joseph Bologne, French composer almost erased from history by Napoleon) or didn't realize were of African descent (Alexander Pushkin). Maybe too dry for reluctant non-fiction readers but I'm very glad to have read it and learned quite a bit. And the audiobook, narrated by Otele herself, is especially interesting. I always love hearing an author narrator their own book, particularly in non-fiction, if they have the voice and talent to do so well. And Otele certainly does.
• 
  Cynthia

  This is an incredibly important work of history. It needs to be read and analyzed in graduate classrooms, it should be in every graduate student's exam reading list, and it needs to be read by anyone who teaches European or World history at any level. Otele traces the history of Africans in Europe from ancient Greece to today and in doing so tells us a story of racial discrimination and perseverance. Because of the expansive nature of her work, not everything is covered. By choosing the stories included, Otele does cover a large geographic area. The strongest and most accessible chapters are the last two, which are of interest to a general audience, The rest of the book is better suited for specialists because knowledge of European and African history is required to fully understand the stories and analysis.
• 
  Rachel

  The answer to every person who's ever tried to argue that Black people appearing in European period dramas is anachronistic. It's not. People of African descent have been living in European (sometimes by choice, sometimes not) since ancient times. From musicians to soldiers and everything in between, African Europeans have played an important role in the history of Europe. But they have often been either forgotten or willfully erased by those (usually white and male) writing the history books. Otele sets the record straight.
  
  I learned about a number of historical figures I'd either never heard of (Joseph Bologne, French composer almost erased from history by Napoleon) or didn't realize were of African descent (Alexander Pushkin). Maybe too dry for reluctant non-fiction readers but I'm very glad to have read it and learned quite a bit.
• 
  Barbara

  A lot of scholarship has gone into this book. Professor Otele is of course an academic, and her style is quite dry with constant referencing of her sources. As an academic book, it is extremely important and interesting with challenging content in the second half. What I missed, however, were the stories. For the most part, she relates the accounts of people's lives but they don't leap off the page. There are no illustrations, so I scurried across the internet to find images of the people she was mentioning. Some of them came much more alive in their Wikipedia entries. So this book provides not only food for thought, but offers ideas for further personal research into some fascinating characters.
• 
  Attila Gáspár

  Information content: 5 stars - meticulously collected, captivating stories of people whom everyone should know about.
  Coherence: 2 stars - no coherent narrative emerges. Sometimes it seems as if the author was writing an encyclopedia. Some of the choices are questionable - i.e. the book is about Black people, but I found no evidence, for example, that Roman emperor Septimius Severus was of Black African descent, even though he was from Africa.
  -0.5 star for the left-speak which makes the text much less accessible to a wide audience as it should be, which is a pity, because a wide audience should be aware of the stories of the people who are the protagonists of this book.
• 
  Maddie O.

  I received an ARC of this book via NetGalley.
  
  There was so much interesting information in this book, but I felt like the way it was presented really did it a disservice. It wasn't necessarily the writing, but the way that it was organized- it seemed like unconnected events were presented one after another and the chapters didn't seem to have much of a rhyme or reason to them. If you can look past that, you can learn a lot but it's not the most "user-friendly" history text I've read.