The Second Emancipation by Howard W. French The Second Emancipation, the second work in a trilogy from best-selling author Howard W. French about Africa’s pivotal role in shaping world history, underscores Adam Hochschild’s contention that French is a “modern-day Copernicus.” The title—referring to a brief period beginning in 1957 when dozens of African colonies gained their freedom—positions this liberation at the center of a “movement of global Blackness,” with one charismatic leader, Kwame Nkrumah (1909–1972), at its head. That so few people today know about Nkrumah is an omission that French demonstrates is “typical of our deliberate neglect of Africa’s enormous role in the birth of the modern world.