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Walter Rodney's Intellectual and Political Thought Rupert Charles Lewis

Placing Walter Rodney's (1942-1980) work in the larger tradition of West Indian involvement with continental Africa, this study traces the evolution of Rodney's political ideas through examination of his life, his writings on Africa and the Caribbean, and his political practice. A West Indian, Pan-Africanist, and Marxist, Rodney functioned in the intellectual tradition of C. L. R. James, Henry Sylvester-Williams, and George Padmore of Trinidad and Tobago, Theophilus Scholes and Marcus Garvey of Jamaica, and the collective force of the Rastafarian movement—although his post-colonial-era perspective set him apart from these earlier figures. Continuing to receive critical attention today, Rodney's work is largely concerned with reconstructing the political economy of the Atlantic slave trade and analyzing its consequences for Africa, Europe, and the Americas.

"Lewis's book is a readable and well-organized study of an eminent Caribbean intellectual who made major contributions to the history and analysis of colonialism and decolonization, capitalism, slavery, and underdevelopment, in Africa and the Caribean."—CHOICE "Rupert Charles Lewis' observations attest not only to Rodney's brilliance, but eqaually to the author's shrewd insights into the critical and necessary issues involved . . ."—Perry Mars, Wayne State University

African American Life Series $44.95s cloth / ISBN 0-8143-2743-5 OUT OF PRINT 296 pages 1998 For sale only in the United States and Canada Co-published with the Press University of the West Indies