The French Atlantic Triangle: Literature and Culture of the Slave Trade [Paperback]

Christopher L. Miller (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0822341514 | ISBN-13: 978-0822341512 | Publication Date: January 11, 2008

The French slave trade forced more than one million Africans across the Atlantic to the islands of the Caribbean. It enabled France to establish Saint-Domingue, the single richest colony on earth, and it connected France, Africa, and the Caribbean permanently. Yet the impact of the slave trade on the cultures of France and its colonies has received surprisingly little attention. Until recently, France had not publicly acknowledged its history as a major slave-trading power. The distinguished scholar Christopher L. Miller proposes a thorough assessment of the French slave trade and its cultural ramifications, in a broad, circum-Atlantic inquiry. This magisterial work is the first comprehensive examination of the French Atlantic slave trade and its consequences as represented in the history, literature, and film of France and its former colonies in Africa and the Caribbean.

Miller offers a historical introduction to the cultural and economic dynamics of the French slave trade, and he shows how Enlightenment thinkers such as Montesquieu and Voltaire mused about the enslavement of Africans, while Rousseau ignored it. He follows the twists and turns of attitude regarding the slave trade through the works of late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century French writers, including Olympe de Gouges, Madame de Staël, Madame de Duras, Prosper Mérimée, and Eugène Sue. For these authors, the slave trade was variously an object of sentiment, a moral conundrum, or an entertaining high-seas “adventure.” Turning to twentieth-century literature and film, Miller describes how artists from Africa and the Caribbean—including the writers Aimé Césaire, Maryse Condé, and Edouard Glissant, and the filmmakers Ousmane Sembene, Guy Deslauriers, and Roger Gnoan M’Bala—have confronted the aftermath of France’s slave trade, attempting to bridge the gaps between silence and disclosure, forgetfulness and memory.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“The French Atlantic Triangle will stand as a landmark in both the study of slavery and its very particular manifestations in the French Atlantic world.” - Martin Munro, Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies

“Miller’s The French Atlantic Triangle is an original and highly readable book that makes a significant contribution to scholarship on Atlantic slavery and its role in shaping the modern world. . . . [T]he book’s detailed examination of France’s long-neglected involvement in the slave trade makes it a necessary read for anyone seeking to understand the cultural echoes of the Middle Passage in the Francophone world and beyond.” - Andrew Optiz, African American Review

"Thoroughly researched and thought-provoking, this well-written book will be accessible even to readers unfamiliar with the primary texts Miller discusses. . . . It will interest not only those studying French and Francophone literature but also those pursuing work in African and black studies. Highly recommended. Lower division undergraduates through faculty."
- D. L. Boudreau, Choice

“This is a book of encyclopedic reach and vast dimensions. . . . The French Atlantic Triangle is meticulously researched, almost comprehensive in its treatment of the literary corpus, and makes diligent use of historical scholarship. It offers an astonishing web of circuits of reception, rereadings and intertextual relations between key texts . . . and thus fills a troubling gap in French literary and cultural history. . . . The French Atlantic Triangle is a tremendous achievement that is possible only on the basis of decades of committed research and teaching. Most importantly, it is an important rectification of a reprehensible cultural narrative. Perhaps the day will come when French literary history can no longer be written without mentioning the slave trade and the slave colonies that subtended the motherland of liberty.” - Sibylle Fischer, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History

“Miller’s project is unusual not only in its broad historical scope but also in its attempt to trace links between 18th and 19th-century French literature and 20th-century works by writers from France’s former colonies in Africa and the Caribbean.” - Brent Hayes Edwards, London Review of Books

“The French Atlantic Triangle is a tremendous achievement. Meticulously researched and lucidly written, it is an introduction to a neglected water world, without knowledge of which our encounter with continental history and literature is doomed to perpetuate biases and omissions.”—Deborah Jenson, author of Trauma and Its Representations: The Social Life of Mimesis in Post-Revolutionary France

“The French Atlantic Triangle is an extremely impressive, compelling, and necessary book. Christopher L. Miller provides a magisterial examination of how the history of slavery, which profoundly shaped the culture of France, has haunted and animated the work of generations of writers and artists. In the process he offers us a new way of defining and seeing the French Atlantic.”—Laurent Dubois, author of A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787–1804

“Revealing a remarkable breadth of knowledge, Christopher L. Miller combines conceptual sophistication, an authoritative analysis of Francophone texts, and a compelling discussion of the ways that the French Atlantic triangle emerged and put a lasting imprint on French imagination and politics. This is a significant contribution to an understanding of the world slavery built. It is a truly great book; it should be read by anyone who cares about race, memory, literature, and citizenship.”—Françoise Vergès, author of Monsters and Revolutionaries: Colonial Family Romance and Métissage

From the Back Cover

"This dazzling, provocative book is a compendium that sets an explosive new agenda for French Studies. Christopher L. Miller's work is important not only for scholars but also for postcolonial France as it struggles to comes to grips with its past."--Paul Gilroy, author of The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness

"This is a lovely book about an un-lovely subject. Christopher L. Miller brings the insight of a mature major scholar to questions about literature, slavery, and culture in the Francophone world."--Kwame Anthony Appiah, author of Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers

"Revealing a remarkable breadth of knowledge, Christopher L. Miller combines conceptual sophistication, an authoritative analysis of Francophone texts, and a compelling discussion of the ways that the French Atlantic triangle emerged and put a lasting imprint on French imagination and politics. This is a significant contribution to an understanding of the world slavery built. It is a truly great book; it should be read by anyone who cares about race, memory, literature, and citizenship."--Françoise Vergès, author of Monsters and Revolutionaries: Colonial Family Romance and Métissage

"The French Atlantic Triangle is an extremely impressive, compelling, and necessary book. Christopher L. Miller provides a magisterial examination of how the history of slavery, which profoundly shaped the culture of France, has haunted and animated the work of generations of writers and artists. In the process he offers us a new way of defining and seeing the French Atlantic."--Laurent Dubois, author of A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787-1804

"The French Atlantic Triangle is a tremendous achievement. Meticulously researched and lucidly written, it is an introduction to a neglected water world, without knowledge of which our encounter with continental history and literature is doomed to perpetuate biases and omissions."--Deborah Jenson, author of Trauma and Its Representations: The Social Life of Mimesis in Post-Revolutionary France --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 592 pages
• Publisher: Duke University Press Books (January 11, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0822341514
• ISBN-13: 978-0822341512
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,104,588 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Two Valuable Views Of The Slave Trade, January 30, 2010

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This review is from: The French Atlantic Triangle: Literature and Culture of the Slave Trade (Paperback)

I would say that if you are a student of history, or literature, or not necessarily either, but you would like to have a better understanding of historical events that have shaped our western world and culture, then this book will be of interest to you. It is well crafted, and because of the subject matter, you might need to absorb it over a period of time. This is not the sort of book you read in one sitting.

It is very interesting, educational and informative. This book is searing. It gives one pause and much to digest and consider. It also leaves you wondering about the nature of many things.