Decolonial Marxism

 One of those books that made me wish that I had discovered them earlier in my own education. Walter Rodney's Decolonial Marxism is descriptively subtitled "Essays from the Pan-African Revolution." For once the publisher's blurb on the back cover describes the book's contents accurately: 

Early in life, Walter Rodney became a major revolutionary figure in a dizzying range of locales that traversed the breadth of the Black diaspora: in North America and Europe, in the Caribbean, and in Africa. He not only witnessed a Pan-African and socialist internationalism; in his efforts to build mass organisations, catalyse rebellious ferment, and theorize an anti-colonial path to self-emancipation, he can be counted among its prime authors.

Decolonial Marxism records such a life by collecting previously unbound essays written during the world-turning days of Black revolution. In drawing together pieces in which Rodney elaborates on the nexus of race and class, offers his reflections on radical pedagogy, outlines programmes for newly independent nation-states, considers the challenges of anti-colonial historiography, and takes stock of a dozen struggles for national liberation, this volume captures something of the range and power of his work. It also demonstrates the unbending consistency that unites his life and work: the ongoing reinvention of a living conception of Marxism, and a respect for the still untapped potential of mass self-rule.


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