Description
The title of this book is both a humorous homage to Toqueville’s De la Dmocratie en Amrique and a critical allusion to Buffon’s Histoire naturelle, in which the latter attempted to find the origin of species and classified Africans in a particular category of apes. Indeed, in his analysis of the birth of democracy in America, Toqueville forgot to mention Africans, since in his worldview the new regime of the colonies did not include them. As for Buffon, he justified slavery by classifying Africans as creatures different from human. These two works have shaped our reading of American history, and the generations that followed these two authors and read them, attributed to the colonies an intrinsic racism stemming from simple skin color.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.