Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World WarTraditional accounts of the making of the modern world afford a place of primacy to European history. Some credit the fifteenth century Age of Discovery and the maritime connection it established between West and East; others the accidental unearthing of the "New World." Still others point to the development of the scientific method, or the spread of Judeo Christian beliefs; and so on, ad infinitum. The history of Africa, by contrast, has long been