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The Black Jacobins

Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution

Author C.L.R. James
Introduction by David Scott
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Paperback
$19.00 US
Knopf | Vintage
On sale Oct 23, 1989 | 464 Pages | 9780679724674
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This powerful, intensely dramatic book is the definitive account of the Haitian Revolution of 1791-1803, a revolution that began in the wake of the Bastille but became the model for Third World liberation movements from Africa to Cuba. It is the story of the French colony of San Domingo, where the brutality of slave owners was commonplace and refined in horrifying ways. And it is the story of a barely literate slave, Toussaint L'Ouverture, who led his people in a successful struggle against the successive invasions by  the French, Spanish and English forces, thus forming the first independent Caribbean nation.
C. L. R. JAMES (1901-1989) was a Trinidadian-born historian, literary critic, and philosopher, and a leader of the pan-African movement. A prodigious and eclectic intellectual, he debated Marcus Garvey in England, confronted Trotsky in Mexico, and influenced leaders of African revolutions including Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana. He is perhaps best remembered for his 1938 masterwork, The Black Jacobins, the first major analysis of the Haitian Revolution in the context of the French Revolution. In addition to his works of history and his political activism, he was known for sports writing, playwriting, and fiction; his novel Minty Alley, written in 1927, was the first by a Black person from the West Indies to be published in Britain and his 1963 book, Beyond a Boundary, has been hailed as the best book on cricket ever written.
C.L.R. James View titles by C.L.R. James

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This powerful, intensely dramatic book is the definitive account of the Haitian Revolution of 1791-1803, a revolution that began in the wake of the Bastille but became the model for Third World liberation movements from Africa to Cuba. It is the story of the French colony of San Domingo, where the brutality of slave owners was commonplace and refined in horrifying ways. And it is the story of a barely literate slave, Toussaint L'Ouverture, who led his people in a successful struggle against the successive invasions by  the French, Spanish and English forces, thus forming the first independent Caribbean nation.

Author

C. L. R. JAMES (1901-1989) was a Trinidadian-born historian, literary critic, and philosopher, and a leader of the pan-African movement. A prodigious and eclectic intellectual, he debated Marcus Garvey in England, confronted Trotsky in Mexico, and influenced leaders of African revolutions including Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana. He is perhaps best remembered for his 1938 masterwork, The Black Jacobins, the first major analysis of the Haitian Revolution in the context of the French Revolution. In addition to his works of history and his political activism, he was known for sports writing, playwriting, and fiction; his novel Minty Alley, written in 1927, was the first by a Black person from the West Indies to be published in Britain and his 1963 book, Beyond a Boundary, has been hailed as the best book on cricket ever written.
C.L.R. James View titles by C.L.R. James

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