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Gilroy, Paul.  The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness.  Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1993.

Gilroy’s conceptual framework of the Black Atlantic is geographically located in the triangular relationship between North America, Africa, and Europe. In this thinkpiece, the author is concerned with the role black Atlantic culture played in shaping our understanding of modernity. Using W.E.B. DuBois’ famous term of ‘double consciousness,’ Gilroy assesses the difficulty of black people to read themselves into the Western concept of modernity. He argues strongly for “the Atlantic as one single, complex unit of analysis.” He juxtaposes black diaspora with Jewish diaspora in order to argue for a central and profound component of rupture and dislocation in the history of modernity. With regards to cultural landscape studies, Gilroy’s interpretive work offers the possibility of framing historical discourse in a new geographical setting that leads to different interpretations of various historical events and artifacts. [I. Cserno]