The field of African studies has made extraordinary advances in the last half century, and the African diaspora has become one of the best-studied human dispersions. The African population is over one-eighth of the human total, and adding the diaspora, black people are well over one seventh of humanity.
Paradoxically, interpretations of globalization and modernity give no more than footnotes to the African continent or people of African descent. Aspects of global studies and African studies reinforce the interpretive invisibility of Africans. Global studies in economics and politics privilege the holders of wealth and titles, and assume that they are the cause of change; African studies focus on monographic detail, assuming that local details will be connected to the larger picture. Thus, changes in ideology, theory, and attention to empirical detail are all necessary to clarify the place of Africans in the world.These observations have emerged from the experience of preparing a book on the world history of the African diaspora.