Encyclopedie noire

If you peer closely into the bookstores, salons, and diplomatic circles of the eighteenth-century Atlantic world, Mdric Louis lie Moreau de Saint-Mry is bound to appear.As a lawyer,philosophe, and Enlightenment polymath, Moreau created and compiled an immense archive that remains a vital window into the social, political, and intellectual fault lines of the Age of Revolutions. But the gilded spines and elegant designs that decorate his archive obscure the truth: Moreaus achievements were predicated upon the work of enslaved people and free people of color. Their labor afforded him the leisure to research, think, and write. Their rich intellectual and linguistic cultures filled the pages of his most applauded works. Every beautiful book Moreau produced contains an embedded story of hidden violence.Sara Johnsons arresting investigation of race and knowledge in the revolutionary Atlanticsurrounds Moreau with the African-descended people he worked so hard to erase,immersing him in a vibrant community of language innovators, forgers of kinship networks, and world travelers who strove to create their own social and political lives. Built from archival fragments, creative speculation, and audacious intellectual courage,Encyclopdie noireis a communal biography of the women and men who made Moreaus world.