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9780822362012

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""This book is a welcome contribution that can assist in ensuring that [C. L. R.] James continues to educate future generations of activists."" -- Brian Richardson * Socialist Review * ""What the The Black Jacobins Reader accomplishes is a masterful dialogue not only with respect to The Black Jacobins itself, but with historical writing in general, bringing together some of the most notable voices in Haitian and Caribbean intellectual history to consider the incredible durability of James’s work. The Black Jacobins Reader also manages to stage this dialogue as one that is preoccupied with the ongoing predicament of our time – that of asking the question, time and again: what is freedom?"" -- Bedour Alagraa * Contemporary Political Theory * ""Provides the most thorough and wide-ranging study of James’s seminal text to date.... The Reader reminds us of the audacity of James’s text in its time and the inspiration it provided to generations of readers...."" -- Kate Quinn * French Studies * “First, and most importantly, the Reader offers a documentary history of how The Black Jacobins has been studied and how it helped to inspire new knowledge and new movements. Second, the Reader persistently portrays James’s meditations on the Haitian Revolution as contributions to the philosophy of history.” -- Jesse Olsavsky * The Black Scholar * ""Containing rare primary materials, new scholarship, and personal reflections from an impressive array of activists, writers, and scholars, The Black Jacobins Reader affirms the enduring relevance of James’s achievement. Forsdick and Høgsbjerg’s Black Jacobins Reader stands as testament to the fact that some 80 years after its first publication, The Black Jacobins continues to inspire, challenge, and provoke."" -- Philip Kaisary * Slavery & Abolition * ""This exhaustive collection of essays, reflections, and introductions to James’s epic treatment of the Haitian Revolution will be the authoritative companion to his history for decades to come. . . . An important contribution to postcolonial and Caribbean studies . . . A bracing and consequential collection."" -- Justin Rogers-Cooper * SX Salon * ""The Black Jacobins Reader provides a wealth of bibliographical sources and historical documents (including a fascinating conversation between James and Studs Terkel about Black Jacobins), new scholarship, and reminiscences about James and the contexts in which Black Jacobins was used during the 1960s and 1970s. . . . The Black Jacobins Reader is an invaluable tool for contextualizing one of the great classics of the black Marxist tradition."" -- James Smethurst * Science & Society *

The Black Jacobins, with its unforgettable story of Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution, is one of the great books of the twentieth century. The Black Jacobins Reader provides us with a rich selection of reflections on C. L. R. James's achievement and his own rethinkings over time. Whether understood as a cultural history of revolution before cultural history, a classic text for revolutionaries; a meditation on universal history; a pioneering Marxist analysis of the slave trade, slavery, and modern capitalism; an inspiration for generations of historians; an exploration of what it means to be 'West Indian'; a disruption of orthodox notions of historical temporality' or a provocation to think about the relation between the past and the present; or indeed any combination of these, it is undoubtedly a book that continues to inspire many. Black activists in U.S. prisons, writers, and historians are amongst those who remind us, in different ways, of the power of a text such as this one that wrote the history of a people supposedly without history. --Catherine Hall

This is the most authoritative confirmation to date of the intellectual stature of C. L. R. James and the prophetic grandeur of his great classic, The Black Jacobins. Some eighty years after its first publication, readers of different generations and across a diversity of national origins document their admiration of the depth and spontaneity of James's analytical interpretation of the Haitian Revolution. It was the first and only example in modern history of a successful slave revolt when a population of enslaved Africans defeated three European armies and converted a slave plantation into the Independent Republic of Haiti. The nineteenth century had judged it inconceivable; and ever since it has survived a universal silence. -- George Lamming The Black Jacobins, with its unforgettable story of Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution, is one of the great books of the twentieth century. The Black Jacobins Reader provides us with a rich selection of reflections on C. L. R. James's achievement and his own rethinkings over time. Whether understood as a cultural history of revolution before cultural history; a classic text for revolutionaries; a meditation on universal history; a pioneering Marxist analysis of the slave trade, slavery, and modern capitalism; an inspiration for generations of historians; an exploration of what it means to be 'West Indian'; a disruption of orthodox notions of historical temporality or a provocation to think about the relation between the past and the present; or indeed any combination of these; it is undoubtedly a book that continues to inspire many. Black activists in U.S. prisons, writers, and historians are amongst those who remind us, in different ways, of the power of a text such as this-one that wrote the history of a people supposedly without history. -- Catherine Hall

The Black Jacobins Reader provides a wealth of bibliographical sources and historical documents (including a fascinating conversation between James and Studs Terkel about Black Jacobins), new scholarship, and reminiscences about James and the contexts in which Black Jacobins was used during the 1960s and 1970s. . . . The Black Jacobins Reader is an invaluable tool for contextualizing one of the great classics of the black Marxist tradition. -- James Smethurst * Science & Society * This exhaustive collection of essays, reflections, and introductions to James's epic treatment of the Haitian Revolution will be the authoritative companion to his history for decades to come. . . . An important contribution to postcolonial and Caribbean studies . . . A bracing and consequential collection. -- Justin Rogers-Cooper * Small Axe Project * Containing rare primary materials, new scholarship, and personal reflections from an impressive array of activists, writers, and scholars, The Black Jacobins Reader affirms the enduring relevance of James's achievement. Forsdick and Hogsbjerg's Black Jacobins Reader stands as testament to the fact that some 80 years after its first publication, The Black Jacobins continues to inspire, challenge, and provoke. -- Philip Kaisary * Slavery & Abolition * First, and most importantly, the Reader offers a documentary history of how The Black Jacobins has been studied and how it helped to inspire new knowledge and new movements. Second, the Reader persistently portrays James's meditations on the Haitian Revolution as contributions to the philosophy of history. -- Jesse Olsavsky * The Black Scholar * Provides the most thorough and wide-ranging study of James's seminal text to date.... The Reader reminds us of the audacity of James's text in its time and the inspiration it provided to generations of readers.... -- Kate Quinn * French Studies * What the The Black Jacobins Reader accomplishes is a masterful dialogue not only with respect to The Black Jacobins itself, but with historical writing in general, bringing together some of the most notable voices in Haitian and Caribbean intellectual history to consider the incredible durability of James's work. The Black Jacobins Reader also manages to stage this dialogue as one that is preoccupied with the ongoing predicament of our time - that of asking the question, time and again: what is freedom? -- Bedour Alagraa * Contemporary Political Theory * This book is a welcome contribution that can assist in ensuring that [C. L. R.] James continues to educate future generations of activists. -- Brian Richardson * Socialist Review *

Author Information

Charles Forsdick is James Barrow Professor of French at the University of Liverpool. Christian HØgsbjerg is Teaching Fellow in Caribbean History at University College London's Institute of the Americas. Robert A. Hill is Research Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles.

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