ABSTRACT
I intend not only to question the credibility of a tidy holistic conception of modernity but also to argue for the inversion of the relationship between margin and centre as it has appeared within the master discourses of the master race. In other words, I am seeking to contribute to some reconstructive intellectual labour which, through looking at the modern cultural history of blacks in the modern world, has a great bearing on ideas of what the West was and is today.
