C. L. R. James (1901–1989)

Like cold water to drink in the desert, the first half or so of this book has no equal. I didn't know I needed to read an essay on the totalitarian goals of Ahab, and the banality of evil in the rest of the crew. The second half of the book was less even, but forgivable to this reader as James was writing in a vain attempt to stave off his deportation from the US.

I am so glad I stumbled across this, and look forward to reading more CLR James.

A forgotten masterpiece.

What we have here is a magnificent alternative history; not in the typical sense of the word but rather in the way that James presents his version of the event of the Haitian revolution. Originally written at the almost inconceivably early date of 1938, James gains everything from his distance from what we now consider to be the norms of historiography and loses nothing. The writing is fresh and cutting and perceptive in a way that any book written in 2022 could only aspire to be, even as it show more is closing in on 100 years old. One of the great degenerations of discourse (whether it be in politics, journalism,or academia) as it stands today is the loss of the guiding light of ideology. In pursuit of a moderate, neutral, “objective” view of reality, those who take it upon themselves to make sense of the world have surrendered the incredible tool that is an overt and proactive world view. The Black Jacobins is one of the best pieces of nonfiction writing I’ve ever come across that bears out how powerful a good writer with a good agenda can be. James comes from a Marxist perspective, and for a word so often bandied about, the popular conception of Marxism ignores what is its greatest strength, its historical clarity. Marx himself was the master of tracing historical trends and following them into possible futures. The facts and figures that often give people the impression that his work is dry and boring are, for the sensitive reader, imbued with prerogatives to work for a system that is fairer and that in the end will mean a better life for the mass majority of people. Throughout James’s book, you are constantly made aware of the reverberations the actions of the brave ex-slaves that overthrew their colonial oppressors as they course down through the years to the present day - James never lets you forget that the forces that made the destruction of San Domingo a necessity are still very much with us to this day. He, following the precepts first set out by Marx, understands that whatever evil ,vicious, inhumane behavior man commits, our basic nature is determined by our role in the power chain, reified in cold hard cash. Throughout the book, we are made to understand that the “race war” that the revolution eventually spiraled into was not the result of any essential difference in black or white, but rather the racial identities coming to perfectly equate with that persons role in the immensely profitable twin systems of colonialism and slavery. This point of view is so often lost in modern discussions of racism in the USA, accurately identified as a gaping shame on our country, but not often talked about as the symptom of an essential arrangement of economics and power, rather then the source of the problem itself. The fact that the final stages of the revolution resulted in the massacre of all the whites on the island was the direct result of the whites identifying themselves as the “masters” for the entirely of the preceding colonial history of San Domingo. How could slavery be truly and forever abolished when the people who only a few short years before had set themselves up as those with a biological imperative to rule and oppress were still living on the island? This of course is how systematic racism, being a convenient excuse for the grossest exploitation of labor, finally cuts the other way. show less

In late 1949, the West Indian intellectual C L R James sat down in his residence in Compton, California and, in a burst of creative energy, composed what turned out to be a frightfully prophetic analysis of the historical fate of democracy in the United States. Titled ‘Notes on American Civilization’, the piece was a thick prospectus for a slim book (never started) in which James promised to show how the failed historical promise of its unbridled liberalism had prepared the contemporary show more republic for a variant of totalitarian rule. ‘I trace as carefully as I can the forces making for totalitarianism in modern American life,’ explained the then little-known radical. ‘I relate them very carefully to the degradation of human personality under Hitler and under Stalin.’ (**Seems to be a great opening. I have yet to read the book). show less

Um livro obrigatório de história da civilização, narrando as complexidades e reviravoltas intrincadas da história da colônia mais lucrativa do século XVIII, atual Haiti, em meio à ganância capitalista, a impulsionar o racismo e a escravatura conforme lhe é vantajoso. James tem a tarefa de corrigir visões preconceituosas dos eventos que deixam de notar o que se torna dolorosamente óbvio: a imensa crueldade da elite escravocrata branca, incomparável, mesmo com todas as show more vicissitudes de um enfrentamento de anos, das táticas conciliatórias do herói negro Toussaint L'Ouverture (o verdadeiro portador do universal tem de ser um periférico, marginal, ex-escravo), até a guerra-guerrilha de emancipação e independência, em que finalmente mulatos e negros se unem. Focado em São Domingo, o livro aborda os eventos conturbados na França, da revolução até Napoleão, e o papel infame das intrigas inglesas na desestabilização da possível unidade do povo da colônia, jogando contra quem quer que seja (contra a elite branca, ao final), desde que interesses comerciais fossem beneficiados. O ideal da revolução francesa, que se confronta com contradições e tensões internas no movimento revolucionário, até a reviravolta burguesa e imperialista, contando com muitas táticas de propaganda, encontra, no entanto, na colônia, outro lugar e contexto para se realizar. Certamente o livro de história mais emocionante que já li. show less