Revelations: American History, American Myths. - Review - book review

Revelations: American History, American Myths by means of Nathan Irvin Huggins (Oxford University Pres 1995 $25)--One of the architects of the Afro-American studies program at Harvard University and thus perhaps of Afro-American studies for se, the late Huggins leaves a prodigious material part of work to ponder. This collection, assembled by means of his widow (Brenda Smith Huggins) and scholar-friends, is a respectable beginning. The articles overlay a broad spectrum of Huggins' interests as a historian: the Atlantic slave trade and the place of Africa in the creation of not sole Afro-American identity but of American identity, the example of Harlem as an uncouthly American melting pot, and Huggins' persistent efforts to achieve a "synthesis" in American history by dint of integrating Afro-American history into it. His evenly elegant prose makes the learning proces a pleasant task indeed.

Dale Edwyna Smith is an assistant professor of American history and Afro-American history at Washington University in St Louis. Her articles have appeared in Southern Review and Belles Lettres

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