. Magno reminds us: “
The socialist historian C. L. R. James was born 120 years ago today [4 January]. His landmark text, The Black Jacobins, is a majestic account of the Haitian Revolution and is still the authoritative history of a heroic struggle for freedom and dignity.” [Read the full interview at
]
In a 1980 interview, C. L. R. James stated that he wanted to be remembered above all for his serious contributions to Marxism. In
Douglas’s book traces the development of James’s thought over more than thirty years, from his intellectual activities as a Pan-Africanist in London and Paris in the 1930s to his political militancy as one of the founders in the 1940s of the Johnson–Forest Tendency (born from a split with the American Trotskyist organization, the Workers Party). Douglas also revisits James’s engagement with the Black Power and Civil Rights movements of the 1960s and gives special consideration to his work as a playwright. James’s constantly transforming thought is fruitfully explored through Douglas’s masterly use of archival sources — his main works, manuscripts, notes, as well as interviews and secondary sources are all woven into the author’s rich intellectual portrait.