Amazon.com description: Product Description: From rear cover notes: "...Russia and the Negro: Blacks in Russian History and Thought provides an intriguing look at native Russians of African descent and black immigrants and visitors against the cultural and social background of Russian history, from antiquity to the present. Abram Hannibal, the ingenious military engineer; his descendant, nineteenth century writer Alexander Pushkin; thespian Ira Aldridge; and prominent African-Americans, such as writers Claude McKay and Langston Hughes, performing artist Paul Robeson, and political activists George Padmore and Angela Davis are included among the accounts of celebrated Negro inhabitants or visitors to Russia and the Soviet Union. Russia and the Negro provides a scholarly examination of Russia's centuries-old relationship with black Africa and Africans in the diaspora. it is an outstanding comparative study that provides insights for the scholar and general reader alike."