“African Americans and Africa: A New History uses strong archival research to uncover the various ways African Americans identified with their Africanity from the 17th to the 21st centuries.....Blyden...encourages readers to examine how Africa has impacted African Americans’ self-conceptions both historically and contemporarily. Furthermore, this text highlights the impact African Americans have had on Africa, thus reinforcing the fact that a relationship has always existed between African Americans and Africa.”

“[Blyden] skillfully reveals the emergence and evolution of a distinctly African American identity through the writings and lives of black intellectuals, ranging from the eighteenth-century ex-slave and poet Phillis Wheatley to later figures such as the historian and activist W. E. B. Du Bois and the author Richard Wright. A recurring theme of the book is that African Americans have looked to Africa when their prospects in the United States have seemed particularly bleak and unpromising. ”

“Blyden is an ideal guide for this journey. As the child of an African immigrant and a black American, her family story frames her interrogation of the hyphenated African American identity. Blyden finds, rather than a narrative of rising or declining identification with Africa, that attraction to an oft-idealized ancestral homeland ebbed and flowed in response to domestic race relations. ”

“As I read the book, I was continually grateful for Blyden’s references and biographical sketches. The sketches were so broad and immensely diverse. I am thankful for the research she conducted and her ability to synthesize all the wide-ranging stories concisely.”