Decolonial Marxism (essays From The Pan-african Revolution)

By (author) Rodney Walter; Foreword by Thiong'o, Ngugi
Short description/annotation:
A previously unpublished collection of Rodney''s essays on Marxism, spanning his engagement with of Black Power, Ujamaa Villages, and the everyday people who put an end to a colonial era
Description:
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 on the African continent. He was not only a witness of a Pan-African and socialist internationalism; in his efforts to build mass organizations, catalyze 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 pages where he elaborates on the nexus of race and class, offers his reflections on radical pedagogy, outlines programs for newly independent nation-states, considers the challenges of anti-colonial historiography, and produces balance sheets for a dozen wars for national liberation, this volume captures something of the range and power of Rodney''s output. But it also demonstrates the unbending consistency that unites his life and work: the ongoing reinvention of living conception of Marxism, and a respect for the still untapped potential of mass self-rule.
Table of contents:
Editorial Note
Introduction

Part 1: Marxist Theory and Mass Action
1. A Brief Tribute to Amilcar Cabral
2. Masses in Action
3. Marxism and African Liberation
4. Marxism as a Third World Ideology
5. Labour as a Conceptual Framework for Pan-African Studies
6. The Angolan Question
Part 2: Development and Underdevelopment
7. The Historical Roots of African Underdevelopment
8. Problems of Third World Development
9. Slavery and Underdevelopment
Part 3: Their Pedagogy and Ours
10. The British Colonialist School of African Historiography and the Question of African Independence
11. Education in Colonial Africa
12. Education in Africa and Contemporary Tanzania
Part 4: Building Socialism
13. Tanzanian Ujamaa and Scientific Socialism
14. Class Contradictions in Tanzania
15. Transition
16. Decolonization
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If Walter Rodney''s assassins were under the impression that they could arrest the flow of his ideas by destroying his body, they could have not been more wrong ... In the context of the new resistance to global capitalism, his captivating analysis resonates more than ever before.
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Rodney''s perspective is alive, dazzling with the potential of revolution.
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Highly original ... It is very rare to find a thinker in the contemporary world who is equally committed to both theory and action and perhaps Rodney is one those few who does it seamlessly and that is what marks him as unique.
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Walter Rodney galvanised liberation by awakening radical Pan-African consciousness ... [Decolonial Marxism''s] messages are consequential for our day and age.
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Decolonial Marxism offers an essential corrective to popular misrepresentations of the legacies of Marxist thought and its alleged incompatibility with anticolonial struggles.
Biographical note:
In his short life, the Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution, leading movements in North America, the African continent, and the Caribbean. In each locale, Rodney found himself a lightning rod for working class Black