If all academic books are, to some extent, a collective oeuvre, this is especially true of this one. It never could have been written without the cooperation, advice and support of many colleagues, many of whom have become my friends over the long process of putting this book together. I am indebted to Kevin Yelvington, David Hellwig, Sally Cole, Anthony Platt and Pol Briand. Special thanks go to David Easterbrook of the Melville Herskovits Library of African Studies at Northwestern University; Joellen Elbashir of Moorland Spingarn Center, Howard University; Amy Staples, curator of the archives of the National Museum of African Art, Washington, DC; Portia James, Jennifer Morris and Alcione Amos of the Anacostia Community Museum; Dr Leopold and Jake Homiak, curators of the National Anthropological Archives of the Smithsonian Institution; Jens Boel and Alexandre Coutelle of the UNESCO Archives in Paris; Ute Fendler of the University of Bayreuth; Stephan Palmie of the University of Chicago; César Braga-Pinto at Northwestern, and the late Jean Herskovits and Margaret Wade-Lewis.
Thanks also to Scot French of the Carter Woodson Institute of the University of Virginia for his assistance on digital history and archives, and to the splendid archivists of the Melville Herskovits African Library at Northwestern University, Schomburg Center for Researh in Black Culture, Rockefeller Archive Center and the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University. A special thank you goes to Mike Hanchard, Stefania Capone, Chris Dunn, Stephen Small, John Collins, Paul Gilroy, Vron Ware, Dmitri van den Bersselaar and Peter Geschiere. In Brazil, I am incredibly grateful to Jeferson Bacelar, Maria Rosario de Carvalho, Omar Thomaz, Luis Gustavo Rossi, Aldrin Castellucci, Elisa Morinaka, Felipe Fernandes, Felipe Fernandes, Peter Fry, Marcos Chor Maio and the late Carlos Hasenbalg for the good conversations and suggestions. Peter Fry and Marcos Chor Maio for the good conversations and suggestions.
My former students and now colleagues, Ivo Santana and Washington Jesus, I owe for their help in understanding my social position in Salvador. Dona Railda, my mother-in-law, and Tia Edinha were so kind to tell me about the Gantois house and our neighbourhood. Julio Campos Simões, whose wonderful MA dissertation I have had the pleasure to supervise, deserves special mention: a true and witty sorcerer’s apprentice, he is soon to overcome his supervisor. The anonymous peer reviewers of the Cluster-Brill series also deserve my gratitude for their suggestions. For funding my research, I am grateful to CNPq, Capes-Print, the RAC Fellowship and the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth, Germany.
Last, but not least, to my sons Giulio and Pedro and my life companion Sueli Borges I owe an apology for having been so often away from home. My grateful thanks for your patience with me. I dedicate this book to them.