In recent years, Black European Studies has become a rapidly developing area of academic research. Scholars of different disciplines are grappling with the problem of how to make African influences in a seemingly all-white European history more visible. However manifold the reasons which have left the black presence in European history so completely ignored, an absence of material is not one of them (Kate Lowe). “Black Europeans” – the term suggests a geographical and political identity of people of African origin equal to that of other – “White” – Europeans. Early modern Black biographies of outstanding social success seem to support such suggestions but they do only partly represent their options of participation. Focusing on the encounter of black Africans and their descendants with the Central European courts, the book examines these options of social integration in view of the Europe-imposed transatlantic slave trade and trans-European, Mediterranean and Ottoman economic and cultural influences.weiterlesen