This is a dense scholarly account, that traces the presence and role of Africans in Europe, right from the Middle Ages onwards. The author's aim is to showcase the variety of experiences of Africans, beyond the usual stories of slavery and their contributions in wars. As she mentions in the foreword, a lot of far-right political parties that are anti-immigration mention immigration as a recent phenomenon and justify racist attacks as unfamiliarity with contact with other cultures, when that couldn't be farther from the truth. Otele's book has a wide cast of characters, and she starts with accounts from the Roman Empire, all the way through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and to the 21st Century, taking in lives both extraordinary and ordinary. Her aim is to show that Europe really wasn't as homogenously Caucasian as critics of the casting in Bridgerton would have one believe! Otele also explores the influence of bi-racial communities in entrepots, and the effect trade has on these communities and geographies, such as the Signares of Goree. She also draws a connection between the laws denying people their rights to humanity, based on race, and modern-day attitudes of racial superiority, to show how antiquated the basis for these beliefs are.
The only thing that prevents this from being a 5 star read is the structure-the book is structured according to themes, such as dual heritage, trade, slavery, and in each chapter, she explores that across each time period. This makes for a lot of back and forth across history, and since she quotes from multiple studies ( in some instances just the name of the thesis is mentioned without any more information about what it was about!), it makes for academic reading rather than well-structured non-fiction. This is an important book with a really fascinating topic but it's written in a rather dry, academic style.

I really wanted to like this. And some parts I did but it was very detailed. I have very little knowledge about this topic and I felt very lost through most of it. I have a bachelor's in history so I am always looking for something new to explore and learn about. This was something that intrigued me. I just found myself struggling to get through it. Maybe at another time I will give it a try but right now it was not enough to hold my attention.

*Forgot to download, so got a copy at a local library.

Really liked the plot, the idea and what the author was trying to tell the reader. However, it was very cramped. There was too much information for such a short book. It also made it harsh to understand the message of the author and the goals she had while writing this book.

Unfortunately, this book suffers from the fact that the intriguing and interesting lives of African Europeans that it endeavours to recount are conveyed in a remarkably uninteresting manor.

Olivette Otele's excellent African Europeans: An Untold History is a superb treatment of a fascinating—if also, of course, at times fiercely painful—subject. The book looks at the widespread presence and changing perceptions of people of African descent in Europe from ancient Rome onward, exploring their vibrant contributions to European culture as well as the various ways ideas of race, identity, otherness and freedom were constructed and reconstructed over time. Through many of the centuries about which she writes, European society (though certainly othering and exoticizing people of color) generally considered an individual’s religion more telling than their race, marking Muslims and Jews out for horrifying persecution but allowing some persons of color to attain influential positions; not until the rise of the slave trade, which fueled and was fueled by notions of African inferiority, did today’s sense of race as the defining marker fully take hold. Equally important, Otele traces the varied ways those of African descent attempted to negotiate existing attitudes and power structures. Otele is a gifted storyteller as well as a shrewd and thoughtful analyst. She vividly evokes the lives and characters of better-known figures—onetime slave and slavery apologist Jacobus Capitein, for example, or Baudelaire's Haitian-born “mistress of mistresses” Jeanne Duval—she also speaks tellingly about those on whom little historical fact has survived. Her scrutiny extends beyond her subjects’ lifetimes, exploring the ways the perception of each changed over time. Otele's book is an absorbing, thought-provoking read and a valuable corrective to centuries of narratives that define European culture entirely in terms of white achievement. African Europeans: An Untold History appeared from Basic Books in May 2021 and is available for purchase on Amazon, Bookstore.org, and other platforms now.

I really wanted to like this book. But it was not meant to be. I felt like it was too many facts crammed into too little page count and the result was a jumbled mess. This book is for somebody who already has an extensive knowledge of the topic and this is just a fun way to revise what they already know or for a novice who is willing to google everything or do library reserch on their own because nothing is explained in detail.

+ 1 star for a really interesting subject matter.

I need to find another book that hopefully does this topic better justice.

Disclaimer: I got this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I get exactly what i get from this title and i will diffidently be getting a physical copy with the audiobook if there is one. I get an array of opinions supported by quotes/footnotes divided into several chapters to paint a full picture. By being selective with her stories Otele is able to cover a large geographic area. when it comes to nonfiction work i love it when they make me want to do the research outside of the book and Qtele does just that.

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.

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 in Europe".

Something strange about humans: we tend to like thinking in binaries.
I’m in my second year teaching AP Psychology, and because of the pandemic last spring I wasn’t able to teach my favorite branch of psychology: social psychology. So right now, I’m teaching through it for the first time.
One important through-line in social psychology is the tendency for humans to form in-groups and out-groups. We prefer our in-group and see individual differences between people, but we assume out-group members are all similar to each other, for the most part.
But what about when the lines blur between in-group and out-group? Where does a person with dual heritage belong in a world where people are defined as “in” or “out”. Are they accepted by both groups, or are they left in the middle with no real group to call their own? Taking a historical perspective, that is a central question at the heart of the new book African Europeans, written by historian Olivette Otele.

Otele brings little-known historical figures to life. She shows the effects of the African and European combination of heritages in each person, along with how time and place changed the dynamics of such dual-heritage people. Beginning with Africans in the Roman empire, Otele analyzes the social status of people with partial African heritage compared to those with an only European heritage. She then takes a look at Africans during the Renaissance, specifically a prominent member of the Medici family, Alessandro, who had an African mother. In these cases, even before the invented concept of “blackness” came to fruition, African Europeans were seen as part of an out-group and were often treated with hostility.
The story continues through the invention of race and the transatlantic slave trade, but also touches on the intersectional aspects of dual heritage women, the impact of European colonization along, the tendency to forget African Europeans who transcended these made-up boundaries created by racism, and the plight of African Europeans today. The story of NBA star Giannis Antetekuompo, a Black Greecian, was particularly interesting to me even though, due to my NBA fandom, I had already heard a lot of the details. But Otele’s analysis of Black Britons today was especially interesting, as it seems that the UK has done a much better job of inclusivity among Black men than Black women.
The message that pervades African Europeans, while never being militant about that message, is that such a dual heritage often leaves one with no real home. In most cases, neither Africans nor Europeans considered these individuals part of the defined “us”. The same is true today. Many with a dual heritage report not feeling at home in either culture. The term “third culture kids” was coined in the 1950s to describe this exact scenario. It’s a conundrum that someone like me, readily accepted by white, male, and “American” culture, could easily miss. We sometimes assume that someone with dual Black and White heritage, or Latinos born in the United States, can shift seamlessly between the two groups. Many times, that is the opposite of the truth.
If these topics interest you and you want to think historically about what a dual heritage has meant in the past, I highly recommend Otele’s African Europeans. Its breadth and depth gives this book the potential to become a classic of cultural history, and Otele’s focus on individuals within a larger cultural climate makes it accessible to almost any reader. Buy it from your book vendor of choice.
I received a review copy African Europeans courtesy of Basic Books and NetGalley, but my opinions are my own.

African Europeans is a very in depth look at people of African Descent living, working, and thriving in Europe prior to the modern age. Written by the renowned historian Olivette Otele, the book debunks many of the modern misconceptions about Africa, African Europeans, and Europe itself.

This is an incredibly complex and dense book that is filled with citations from other scholars as well as primary resources. This is not a book for the average reader. Despite having a background in history including post-graduate work, I found this book difficult to read. The language was incredibly scholarly and used terminology without providing context or definition. The author seemed to expect the reader to already have a foundation in history and historical thought and theory and so went straight into heavy stuff. It can be a bit much to take in.

That said, it's super well researched. And it's clear that the author knows her stuff. There's tons of citations, footnotes, and this is a great resource for the budding historian, history major, or post grad. In a way, this book read much like a text book which is both a positive and a negative depending on your perspective. I also really appreciated how the author related back a lot of the historical information to the modern day.

It's a good book. A complex book. But it's going to be tough for the average reader to get into it. And it's definitely not bedtime reading. ^_^ That said, it's a book that should be in your library and it should be a go to resource for people interested in being true to the reality of Europe and not just the whitewashed version of it that many of us are often taught.

Four Stars

I received an ARC of this book via NetGalley

3.5 stars rounded up. An incredibly well-researched and informed book that looks at the lives of Africans in Europe, from past to present. As someone with a history degree, I often get frustrated with the narrative that Black people didn't exist in Europe in days of yore, that they just magically appeared one day, and I was really looking forward to delving more in depth into this nuanced and detailed history. Otele does a great job of dispelling those popular misconceptions about the realities of African Europeans, especially when it comes to times of antiquity. While I think it is a valuable text, I found the organization and throughlines a bit confusing to track, and would have appreciated a stronger narrative editing hand. Understandably, it felt very academic, and I think I would have really benefited from reading as a physical copy, pencil in hand, where i could make notes and easily flip back and forth. (Though that is obviously not a fault of the book itself, which is why it did not impact my rating.) Overall, I'm glad to have had the chance to read it, and I think it will be one that I will revisit once I am able to grab a hard copy.

Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for this advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

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.

I received African Europeans as part of a NetGalley giveaway.

Despite mainstream notions that questions of immigration, diversity, and racial identity are a relatively recent phenomenon, African Europeans have been present at all levels of European society since ancient times. Their stories are Europe's story, and over the centuries, African Europeans have found multiple ways of adapting to and/or challenging hostile or paternalistic white power structures, which themselves have evolved over time. From the ancient Roman emperor Septimius Severus, who was born in present-day Libya, to African Europeans of the colonial era fighting against paternalistic, condescending barriers to equality, to millennial and Gen Z activists challenging deeply entrenched and oppressive power structures and demanding an end to not just racism, but economic/environmental injustice, sexism, and homophobia, the African European experience is complex and too often ignored or compartmentalized by those in power.

Somewhat surprising myself as someone whose major historical interests are ancient and medieval, I found the latter chapters on the more modern day experiences of African Europeans the most powerful and engaging. I'm not sure if that's just a result of our particular moment in history, or if there's a natural commonality with people who live closer to us in time, but as a white American I found the discussions of how racism manifests itself differently between European countries, and between Europe and the United States, very thought-provoking. I've had a working knowledge of how racism in America is its own phenomenon, but having a European perspective to compare it to really brought both sides into clearer focus. As the epilogue states, African Europeans is more of an overview of the lives and experiences of African Europeans--each chapter feels like its own self-contained essay. Personally, I tend to prefer deeper dives on a more concentrated subject, but that''s just me. For those who may not have a strong background in the subject matter, African Europeans is a valuable introduction.

I received an ARC from the publisher and am voluntarily posting a review. All opinions are my own.
This book is a well-researched look at the lives of Africans in Europe from antiquity to present, dispelling the myth of the all-white Europe seen in many a period drama and looked back fondly on by white supremacists. From the early days through the slave trade, abolition, and beyond, all the way to the present, this is a great reminder that Black people have always been a part of Europe in some form or another. And while Otele’s approach can be a bit dense at times, the expertise is there and you’ll absolutely come away with more knowledge about the lives of Black people in Europe.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to get through much of this one. The subject is fascinating and I appreciate all the work that went into the book, but the language is too academic for me to understand. From the description and cover I was expecting something more for the general reader, so I was disappointed to find more of a textbook. Perhaps some time I would sit down and work slowly through it, but I would prefer something a bit more accessible. I've still rated it 3 stars because from what I did read I thought it was very well done, just not for me. I'd like to thank the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy, I appreciate it.

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.

<i>A free e-copy of this book was received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review</i>

We all know what happened to the Africans who became Americans, but what of the Africans who have become Europeans?

This book was not what I expected. It was very well researched, well written and something I could have thoroughly used in one of my history classes in college. This highly academic book has sources that I myself had to also look up to grasps the full scope to understand what she was trying to get across in her writing. I honestly felt like I was back in the library during one of those late-night sessions (which isn't a bad thing).

Very well done.

Thank you, NetGalley, for an advanced copy of this book for an honest review.

Where has this book been all of my life!! I was so intrigued by the history of my people. Here I am a 42 years old African-American woman and I never heard of the majority of the people covered in thia book. I will definitely be adding a hard copy to my family's library.

Wow this is amazingly well written and covers a lot of time and history in a concise and comprehensive way. It really highlighted my ignorance of realities I have not been taught in school, serving as a reminder to do my own research from time to time! I am astounded by how the author got all the documents and sources together for such a little known history, It does come off academic or didactic at time, which is not to say it is unreadable, but it's richness is not supplemented with amazing storytelling. Still....you will get facts you never would have otherwise known.

I am going to be recommending this book widely - it is completely illuminating and reminds me how US-centric my learning is to this point, I think the parts that stood out to me most were the ones about resilience through harsh conditions, especially economic conditions. My only complaint on this book is that it was hard to stay on track with it read a bit dry