Edward W. Blyden's Intellectual Transformations

"Blending the techniques of biography and intellectual history, Odamtten offers a fresh reading of the complex, sometimes confounding, always changing thought of one of the towering figures in Pan-African history."
—James T. Campbell, Edgar E. Robinson Professor in United States History, Stanford University, and author of Middle Passages: African American Journeys to Africa, 1787–200

"West Indian–born intellectual Edward Wilmot Blyden has been heralded the progenitor of Pan-Africanism, and his 1887 book Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race has been widely acknowledged as pathbreaking by historians of the vast African diaspora. Yet, according to Harry Odamtten in Edward W. Blyden’s Intellectual Transformations, much about Blyden’s life, work, and contributions to Afropublicanism and Afro-positivism, his key terms for Blyden’s overarching philosophy, have been underappreciated and undervalued. Exploring, theorizing, and contextualizing Blyden’s travels, influence, and breadth of work, Odamtten boldly and creatively portrays Blyden as one of the most important and influential African public intellectuals of his times. Those who read this intellectual biography will be challenged to rethink Blyden’s legacy."
—Pero G. Dagbovie, University Distinguished Professor of History, Michigan State University