How does Paul Gilroy use imagery in The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness?

The Black Atlantic is perhaps the major theme of the book. The image of the Black Atlantic represents all of the black peoples that were enslaved across the Atlantic after being taken from Africa by force. These communities include the black peoples of the United Kingdom, the United States and the Caribbean. Gilroy spends much of the bookfighting against the idea that the black subcultures of these nations are determined largely by the nations of which they are members. Instead, Gilroy argues that there is a common Black Atlantic transnationalism that runs at least through the thought of many black intellectuals in the 19th and 20th centuries, including W.E.B. Du Bois and Richard Wright.

Gilroy chooses the image of a sailing ship to represent the Black Atlantic. It is mean to represent both what is particular about a black subculture that derives from the Black Atlantic but also what is common among these cultures, i.e. that they were taken across an ocean to foreign nations that would deny them membership and systematically oppress them.