Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War

Howard French combines in-depth, rigorous historical research with real-world investigative detail that provides a unique and essential inquiry into the last 500 years of world history. This provides a much richer view of intra-continental politics and developments than I've seen anywhere else, as well as a more holistic examination of the interactions between different African polities and European powers. The analysis doesn't get any less insightful when venturing to the Americas, covering in detail the importance of the sugar industry in driving the slave trade and occupation of the West Indies, the Haitian Revolution, and more. Highly recommend.

As an aside, "Capital and Ideology" by Thomas Piketty would be a great companion read to this book, as it goes more into the quantitative aspects (economic, demographic, etc.) of many of the events covered here.