French Literature Reviews - 2026
A. S. Curran, The Anatomy of Blackness: Science and Slavery in an Age of Enlightenment
History, Politics and Society
Reference: Andrew S. Curran, L’Anatomie de la noirceur - Science et esclavage à l’âge des Lumières, trans. Patrick Graille, Paris, Classiques Garnier, "L'Europe des Lumières" collection, 2017.
EAN: 9782406064039
333 pages
Price: 32 €
Exploring travelogues, natural history, anatomical works, as well as philosophical, pro-slavery, and anti-slavery texts of the 18th century, this book reveals the connections between scholarly ideas, commercial profit, and the violence inflicted on Black Africans in the colonies.
During the eighteenth century, European intellectuals, natural historians and travel writers frequently sought to categorize human difference, producing frameworks that often intersected with colonial expansion and the transatlantic slave trade. This scholarly interest in physical traits and bodily variation belonged to a broader Enlightenment inquiry into human origins, climate theory and the natural order. By examining contemporary treatises alongside travel accounts, researchers in cultural history study how scientific discourse could run parallel to economic imperatives and systemic colonial violence during the early modern period.
Andrew S. Curran, in L’Anatomie de la noirceur - Science et esclavage à l’âge des Lumières, explores travelogues, natural history, anatomical works, as well as philosophical, pro-slavery, and anti-slavery texts of the eighteenth century, revealing the connections between scholarly ideas, commercial profit, and the violence inflicted on Black Africans in the colonies. Readers interested in the history of science, Enlightenment studies and the intellectual roots of racial categorization may find this French translation relevant to their inquiries into how scholarship and colonial commerce were intertwined.