"Emphasizing the diversity of the African continent, historian Palmer looks in some detail at the development of the slave trade, the forced migration and enslavement of what is estimated to be between 10 million and 20 million people, and the roles that blacks plays in the New World in the sixteenth century. While never playing down the atrocity and suffering, he describes how an enduring African American culture developed in the diaspora."--Booklist (starred review).