Black Jacobins Reader

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.

• Foreword / Robert A. Hill  xiiiHaiti / David M. Rudder  xxiAcknowledgments  xxiiiIntroduction: Rethinking The Black Jacobins / Charles Forsdick and Christian HØgsbjerg  1Part I. Personal Reflection1. The Black Jacobins in Detroit: 1963 / Dan Georgakas  552. The Impact of C. L. R. James's The Black Jacobins / Mumia Abu-Jamal  583. C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins, and The Making of Haiti / Carolyn E. Fick  604. The Black Jacobins, Education, and Redemption / Russell Maroon Shoatz  705. The Black Jacobins, Past and Present / Selma James  73Part II. The Haitian Revolution: Histories and Philosophies6. Reading The Black Jacobins: Historical Perspectives / Laurent Dubois  877. Haiti and Historical Time / Bill Schwarz  938. The Theory of Haiti: The Black Jacobins and the Poetics of Universal History / David Scott  1159. Fragments of a Universal History: Global Capital, Mass Revolution, and the Idea of Equality in The Black Jacobins / Nick Nesbitt  13910. "We Are Slaves and Slaves Believe in Freedom": The Problematizing of Revolutionary Emancipation in The Black Jacobins / Claudius Fergus  16211. "To Place Ourselves in History": The Haitian Revolution in British West Indies Thought before The Black Jacobins / Matthew J. Smith  178Part III. The Black Jacobins: Texts and Contexts12. The Black Jacobins and the Long Haitian Revolution: Archives, History, and the Writing of Revolution / Anthony Bogues  19713. Refiguring Resistance: Historiography, Fiction, and the Afterlives of Toussaint Louverture / Charles Forsdick  21514. On "Both Sides" of the Haitian Revolution? Rethinking Direct Democracy and National Liberation in The Black Jacobins / Matthew Quest  23515. The Black Jacobins: A Revolutionary Study of Revolution, and of a Caribbean Revolution / David Austin  25616. Making Drama our of the Haitian Revolution from Below: C. L. R. James's The Black Jacobins Play / Rachel Douglas  27817. "On the Wings of Atalanta" / Aldon Lynn Nielsen  297Part IV. Final Reflections18. Afterword to The Black Jacobins's Italian Edition / Madison Smartt Bell  31319. Introduction to the Cuban Edition of The Black Jacobins / John H. Bracey  322Appendix 1. C. L. R. James and Studs Terkel Discuss The Black Jacobins on WFMT Radion (Chicago), 1970  329Appendix 2. The Revolution in Theory / C. L. R. James  353Appendix 3. Translator's Foreword by Pierre Naville to the 1949 / 1983 French Editions  367Bibliography  383Contributors  411Index  415

"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)