2026 Distinguished Annual Lecture in History by Visiting Writer Howard W. French
Africa’s Struggle for a Place in the World
Drawing on his acclaimed 2025 book The Second Emancipation: Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, and Global Blackness at High Tide, Howard W. French will explore the deep history of Pan-Africanism, as well as Africa’s effaced centrality in 20th century history, from the world wars to the U.S. civil rights movement and the global education of Ghanaian politician Kwame Nkrumah.
This event is free and open to the public and a book signing will follow. Copies of Howard French’s books will be available for purchase from Amherst Books.
The Distinguished Annual Lecture
The Department of History’s Distinguished Annual Lecture celebrates the 1996 establishment of the UMass/Five College Graduate Program in History. It is presented by the UMass/Five College Graduate Program in History with support from the UMass Amherst history department and Five Colleges, Inc.
The Visiting Writer
Organized by the UMass/Five College Graduate Program in History, each year, the UMass Amherst history department brings a writer of national prominence to campus for a residency. Supported by Five Colleges, Inc, this program facilitates sustained conversation with widely-read authors whose historical work engages broad public audiences. Writers visit courses and seminars, meet with students and faculty over coffee, lunches, and dinners, and deliver a public lecture. Read more.
About the Presenter
Howard W. French is a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is also a former foreign correspondent and senior writer for the New York Times, having worked as a bureau chief in China, Japan, West and Central Africa and Central America and the Caribbean.
French has published five nonfiction books and one book of documentary photography, including: The Second Emancipation: Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, and Global Blackness at High Tide (2025); Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War (2021); Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape China’s Push for Global Power (2017); China’s Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa (2014); Disappearing Shanghai: Photographs and Poems of an Intimate Way of Life (2012) and A Continent for the Taking: The Tragedy and Hope of Africa (2004).
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a global affairs columnist at Foreign Policy, and a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books.