Books to challenge your perceptions of England and other worlds

by Onyeka Nubia
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14 books
This list was created to explore the wealth of the written word on: anthropology, history and literature. Some of the texts are primary sources that would be useful to researchers and general readers who are seeking methodological tools on the science of history. There are also works from other fields of the humanities such as mythology and classical-historical fiction. This list is intended to spur the reader into engaging with the written word. These works are intended to challenge our perceptions.
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The Works of Francis Bacon, Volume 1

Francis Bacon, Sir, 2015
People often talk about historical figures without understanding who these people were. By reading what people actually wrote we can discover so much about their actual philosophies. This is what historians’ call primary evidence gathering and it is a vital aspect of any academic discipline.

The Strange Adventures of Andrew Battell of Leigh, in Angola and the Adjoining Regions

Reprinted From "Purchas His Pilgrims;" (Classic Reprint)
Andrew Battel, 2017
This is a great book that some modern commentators might say could not exist. It is the written account of an Englishman captured and then enslaved in the sixteenth century. It is fantastic for revealing a time when enslavement had not yet become ethnographically specific. The book is also great for revealing even in a very circumlocutious way, African civilizations of the sixteenth century.

Colloquium of the Seven about Secrets of the Sublime

Jean Bodin, 2010
A fantastic book exploring sixteenth-century philosophy. Bodin’s ideas are often misquoted. Now find out for yourself.

Black is Beautiful

Rubens to Dumas
Nationale Stichting De Nieuwe Kerk, 2008
This book compiles the research on an African presence in the Netherlands during the first part of the early modern period, and juxtaposes this with the Renaissance art of Rubens and other European artists.

The Golden Trade of the Moors

E W Bovill, 2021
What an interesting book on the relationship between Moorish kingdoms and West African empires. This book was written in 1958 and challenges the idea that this kind of history has only been discovered recently. Or that it is the result of some kind of political correctness or wokism.

Marian Moments in Early Modern British Drama

Lisa Hopkins, 2016
A fantastic monograph exploring the ethnography of English traditions and cultures and debunking commonly held views about them.

Signs and Symbols of Primordial Man

Evolution of Religious Doctrines from the Eschatology of the Ancient Egyptians
Albert Churchward, 1992
This is a frequently denigrated and misunderstood thesis. It is primarily a book of ideas, some of which are supportable by evidence — others are imaginative or creative musings on the origins of early cultural phenomenon. Those who dispute Churchward have rarely read him cover to cover.

Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species

Humbly Submitted to the Inhabitants of Great Britain
Ottobah Cugoano, 2013
A fantastic book written by an African abolitionist in Britain during the eighteenth century. Cugoano was a leading member of the Sons of Africa, and influential in the abolitionist movement. Cugoano’s final whereabouts are still a matter of historical conjecture.

The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales

Geoffrey Chaucer, 2017
A classic book written by the medieval, civil-servant, poet, politician Geoffrey Chaucer. It is more than a fictional poem it is an allegorical dissection of medieval English society. And it is infused with humor and satire.

The Register of All the Marriages, Christenings and Burials in the Church of S. Margaret, Lee

In the County of Kent from 1579-1754
Barron Oswald 1868-1939, Lewisham Antiquarian Society, Kent Englan Church of S Margaret (Lee, 2016
A great primary source that lists the baptism and burials in the County of Kent from the sixteenth to the end of the early modern period. These sources are a great resource to help us understand this period of English history.

Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire

Al-Saʿdi's Taʾrīkh Al-Sūdān Down to 1613, and Other Contemporary Documents
John O. Hunwick, 2003
This book contains a great history written in a simplified narrative form. It is accessible to modern readers and a good introduction to West African History in the early modern period.

The British History, Translated Into English from the Latin of Jeffrey of Monmouth. with a Large Preface Concerning the Authority of the History. by Aaron Thompson,

MONUMENTENSIS. GALFRIDUS, 2018
This is not a history book. It is a collection of myths and legends of the British Isles. These stories are stitched together by the imagination of Monmouth. But some of these legends are drawn from much earlier cultures and peoples who once inhabited Western Europe and elsewhere.

Africa's Discovery of Europe

1450-1850
David Northrup, 2002
A relativist attempt to conceptualize the African gaze. What did Africans think of Western Europe in the early modern period? A simple premise analyzed with probative confidence.

The Image of the Black in Western Art

From the demonic threat to the incarnation of Sainthood ; 2, Africans in the Christian ordinance of the world, 14th to the 16th century
Jean Devisse, 1979
A great pictographical art exposition. In bold colour, the images of Africans and other people of colour act as an artistic rebuff to the annihilation of the African image.