African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals

Book info: African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals (Audio CD, 1 pages) – Simon & Schuster Audio and Blackstone Publishing, 2022. Language: English.

In this sweeping, foundational work, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Hackett Fischer draws on extensive research to show how enslaved Africans and their descendants enlarged American ideas of freedom in varying ways in different regions of the early United States.African Founders explores the little-known history of how enslaved people from different regions of Africa interacted with colonists of European origins to create new regional cultures in the colonial United States. The Africans brought with them linguistic skills, novel techniques of animal husbandry and farming, and generations-old ethical principles, among other attributes. This startling history reveals how much our country was shaped by these African influences in its early years, producing a new, distinctly American culture. Drawing on decades of research, some of it in western Africa, Fischer recreates the diverse regional life that shaped the early American republic. He shows that there were varieties of slavery in America and varieties of new American culture, from Puritan New England to Dutch New York, Quaker Pennsylvania, cavalier Virginia, coastal Carolina, and Louisiana and Texas. This landmark work of history will transform our understanding of America's origins. Editorial Reviews Review

"[Fischer] argues that historians should not focus solely on the tragic moral paradox of racism and slavery without also considering the positive, enduring impacts that enslaved and free Africans have had on the United States."

-- "Library Journal (starred review)"

"A comprehensive demographic history with a powerful and important corrective thesis."

-- "Booklist (starred review)"

"A monumental achievement."

-- "Joseph J. Ellis, Pulitzer Prize-winning author"

"A rich portrait of the variety of cultures and places from which captives came."

-- "New York Times"

"A tour de force of fascinating, multilayered research that adds significantly to the literature on the early republic."

-- "Kirkus Reviews (starred review)"

"This milestone study casts American history in a new light."

-- "Publishers Weekly (starred review)" About the Author David Hackett Fischer is University Professor and Warren Professor of History at Brandeis University in Massachusetts. The recipient of many prizes and awards for his teaching and writing, he is the also author of numerous books, including Washington's Crossing, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in history.