Prof. Joseph C. Miller is one of the very few scholars who have done fieldwork in Angola during the last 40 years. Numerous seminal books and articles, including several on the history of Angola, notably on the Chokwe migrations and their socio-political effects; on Mbangala (“Jaga“) history; comprehensive expertise and interpretations of the Atlantic slave trade, its organisation and its effects in Africa and in South America.

Jcm7a@cms.mail.virginia.edu

T. Cary Johnson, Jr. Professor
Department of History – Randall Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
USA

Tel: ++1 (434) 924-7146 (Department)
Tel.: ++1 (434) 924-6395 (direct)
Fax: ++1 (434) 924-7891 (History)

Selected Bibliography:

–   Chokwe Expansion, 1850–1900, Madison 1969;

–   “Cokwe Trade and Conquest”, in: David Birmingham and Richard Gray (eds.), Pre-colonial African Trade. Essays on Trade in Central and Eastern Africa before 1900. London 1970, pp. 175-201;

–   “Slaves, Slavers and Social Change in Nineteenth Century Kasanje”, in: Franz-Wilhelm Heimer (ed.), Social Change in Angola. München 1973, pp. 9-29;

–   “Nzinga of Matamba in a New Perspective”, Journal of African History 16, 1975, pp. 201-216;

–   Kings and Kinsmen. Early Mbundu States in Angola. Oxford 1976 (Angolan edition: Luanda 1995);

–   “The Dynamics of Oral Tradition in Africa”, in: B. Bernardi, C. Poni, and A. Triulzi (eds.), Fonti Orali: Antropologia e Storia. Franco Angeli Editore 1978, pp. 75-101;

–   (ed.) The African Past Speaks: Essays on Oral Tradition and History. Dawson and Sons and Archon Books 1980;

–   “Lineages, Ideology, and the History of Slavery in Western Central Africa”, in: Paul E. Lovejoy (ed.), The Ideology of Slavery in Africa. Sage Publications 1981, pp. 40-71;

–   “The significance of Drought, Disease, and Famine in the Agriculturally Marginal Zones of West Central Africa”, Journal of African History 23 (1), 1982, pp. 17-61;

–   “The paradoxes of impoverishment in the Atlantic zone”, in: David Birmingham and Phyllis Martin (eds.), History of Central Africa. London and New York 1983, II, pp. 118-159;

– Way of Death. Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade 1730–1830, London 1988;

–   (ed. with R. W. Harms, D. S. Newbury and M. D. Wagner), Paths to the African Past: African Historical Essays in Honor of Jan Vansina. ASA Press 1994;

–   “Worlds Apart: Africans’ Encounter and Africa’s Encounters with the Atlantic in Angola, Before 1800”, in Actas do Seminário “Encontro de Povos e Culturas em Angola”, Lisbon 1997, pp. 227-280;

–   "O Atlântico escravista: açúcar, escravos e engenhos". In: Afro-Ásia 19/20, 1997, pp. 9-36

–   "Angola central e sul por volta de 1840". In: Estudos Afro-Asiáticos 32, 1997, pp. 7-54.

–   “History and Africa/Africa and History” (presidential address, American Historical Association), American Historical Review, 104 (1), 1999, pp. 1-32;

–   A Economia Política do Tráfico Angolana de Escravos no Século XVIII. In: Selma Pantoja and José Flávio Sombra Saraiva (eds.): Angola e Brasil nas Rotas do Atlântico Sul. Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil 1999, pp. 11-67.

–    “Central Africa during the Era of the Slave Trade, c. 1490s–1805s”, in: Linda Heywood (ed.), Central Africans and Cultural Transformations in the American Diaspora. Cambridge 2001.

Abstract:

 “Communication and Commercialization in Central Africa: Angola in the Context of World-Historical Processes of Modernity”