In The African Diaspora, Toyin Falola gives voice to Black Nationalism and Afrocentrism by acknowledging the values of black and African scholars' identities, knowledge, political thoughts, and epistemologies in the crusade to rise above racial domination and Western hegemonic power. The work revolves round four components: identities created by members of New African Diaspora; the Diaspora created by recent migrants to the United States; identity and power-politics created by the Atlantic slave trade; and, the Diaspora as a legacy of the slave trade. Falola distinguishes the Old Diaspora, rooted in the transatlantic slave trade with the various identities of Afro-Cubans, Afro-Brazilians, and African American from the New Diaspora comprised of recent voluntary migrations of individuals seeking greener pastures, known as ‘transnationalists/recent migrants’. This book is divided into three parts with twelve chapters, excluding the introduction and postscript.

The first part, ‘The Old Dispora: Slavery and Identity Politics’, is devoted to the formation of identity and identity politics in the context of transatlantic slave trade. Chapter One argues that no issue or event more strongly influences Africa's position in global politics than slavery and the slave trade. This chapter focuses on the effects of slavery on African history, the continued existence of slavery in the modern world, and new kinds of exploitation. Chapter Two examines slave revolts and rebellions. He makes an example of the Amistad Revolt of 1839; the revolt reveals the difficulties black people faced in making their own histories and identities in ways favourable to them. The analysis is limited to three interrelated themes: the struggles of the slaves to reclaim their history; the manipulation of historical memory for political reasons; and, the transition from the control of people to the control of land.

Chapter Three explains how African and African American scholars have conceptualized a distinctive black community and have engaged in the creation of that community through their writing, teaching, and research. The legacy of slavery necessitated that amateur and professional analysts generate a substantial body of knowledge about black civilisation. The chapter also explores how these analysts constructed the true history, memory, and identity of the black community against those who said Africa's people had no history and values. Chapter Four broadly examines leading events, causes, and consequences of the ties that bind Africa, Africans, and the diaspora. Falola offers seven suggestions on how these ties could be managed, strengthened, sustained, and used to bring progressive changes in Africa and African descent: media, regional and continental networks, cultural amnesia, indigenous language, ethnicity and politics, economies/resources, and the spirit of Pan-Africanism.

The second part of the book, ‘An African Case Study: Yoruba Ethnicity in the Diaspora’, is comprised of three chapters. Chapter Five discusses the forces that prompted Yoruba migration within the diaspora, the effects of Atlantic Yoruba dispersal, and the renovation and regeneration of the Yoruba ancestral cultural entities. Chapter Six discusses the role of slavery in the formation of contemporary Yoruba identity and politics. These issues include the ways the Yoruba confronted servitude, slavery, and pawnship since the nineteenth-century wars; the rise of professional lenders following the decline of slavery; and, the adjustment of slaves to new conditions and experiences. Chapter Seven focuses on various themes such as how the legacies of Orisa traditions, including music and dance, remain part of new modernity; how African Diasporic imagination has been globalised; and, how Orisa traditions provide ideas for globalising Orisa and make it open to hybridization.

The third parts titled ‘The New Diaspora: Transnationalism and Globalisation’ covers the history and experience of voluntary migrants in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Chapter Eight pinpoints the importance of Western education in the promotion and propagation of black/African studies. Falola argues that education is the main instrument in creating equality, political stability, and economic development. Chapter Nine focuses on the deliberate creation of exchanges and actions taken by diasporic communities to understand the identities of the ‘self and other’. It also explores how displaced people think about their ancestral home and how the connection to their place of origin is intellectualised. Chapter Ten explores how two New African Diasporas, Ojaide and Ogundiran, improve on African/black studies in the content and context of globalisation intellectualism. Chapter Eleven treats the concept of creativity as a main factor of empowering African cultures in Africa and the Diaspora. It examines how creativity could provide the opportunity to create a counter discourse in hegemonic representations of blackness. He buttresses his argument with Nollywood movies and Dr. Aderonke Adesanya's art and poetry. Chapter Twelve explains how features of culture are critical in shaping African Diasporic identity and history. Falola concludes that we could only achieve progressive change by creating a mental resolution to change our values and behaviours. The postscript sees the presidency of Barack Obama as another event that enhances the relationship between Africa and United States.