Taking his native country and its colonial master as a case study, Caulker (English and African literature, U. of New Haven, Connecticut) explores the literary interweaving of Europe and Africa from the late 17th century through the early 19th. He discusses long 18th-century fictive literature and filling the vacuum of Africa; British-African treaty making and the construction of a British colonial state in Sierra Leone; the Sierra Leone Company and its ties to emergent colonial, economic, and moral philosophy of the long 18th century; natural science, exploration and the colonial project in West Africa; and Syl Cheney-Coker's 1991 novel The Last Harmatton of Alusine Dunbar and bringing the long 18th-century archival past into the postcolonial present. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)