Walter Rodney (Paperback)

Rupert Lewis

ISBN 10: 9766409285 / ISBN 13: 9789766409289

Editore: University of the West Indies Press, Kingston, 2024

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Paperback. Among the critical questions that Rodney dealt with whether he was in Tanzania, Jamaica or his native Guyana (formerly British Guiana) was the character of the postcolonial state and its relationship with the working people. It is his engagement with politics that guided his research into African and Caribbean history. In the post-World War II era the colonial powers had regrouped and were rebuilding Europe with the strong financial and political support of the capitalist United States. The Soviet Union, one of the victors over German fascism, was the other power on the world scene. It was communist, and engaged in a Cold War with the United States, the dominant global power. China under Mao Tse Tung was the other communist state that had emerged after the 1949 revolution with a huge rural population, much poverty and a low level of industrialization. Capitalist and socialist powers vied for the hearts and minds of the peoples of Asia, Africa and the Caribbean that were shaking off the shackles of colonialism. Latin American countries which had achieved their political independence in the nineteenth century were caught up in this nationalist surge as they battled with neo-colonialism. They battled with Spain their colonial overlord, but also with the United States which regarded Latin America and the Caribbean as its backyard and intervened as it saw fit to pursue its strategic military, political and economic goals. The Garvey and labor movements of the 1920s and 1930s in the Caribbean as well as communist and national liberation movements in the twentieth century helped to shape Walter Rodneys political awareness. His parents generation was actively involved in the anti-colonial movement in British Guiana in the 1940s and 1950s, and in the 1960s and 1970s Rodney himself helped to shape the ideas around African and Caribbean decolonization, Pan-Africanism, and Marxism. Among the critical questions that Walter Rodney dealt with whether he was in Tanzania, Jamaica or his native Guyana (formerly British Guiana) was the character of the postcolonial state and its relationship with the working people. It is his engagement with politics that guided his research into African and Caribbean history. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.

Codice articolo 9789766409289

Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: Walter Rodney (Paperback)
• Editore: University of the West Indies Press, Kingston
• Data di pubblicazione: 2024
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 9766409285
• ISBN 13: 9789766409289
• Rilegatura: Paperback
• Condizione: new

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

Walter Rodney wasan exceptional scholar-activist who not only interpreted the consequences ofcenturies of transatlantic slavery, colonialism and neocolonialism but alsoengaged in the struggles to change their racial, social and economic legacies.As these legacies persist into the twenty-first century, his life and writingsremain profoundly relevant.

 

He contributed toa distinctive intellectual blend of Black Power and Marxism, that had masssupport in the movements of the 1960s and 1970s in the Caribbean and Africa. Hehad a capacity for listening to people which drew Rastafari youth activists andothers to his “groundings”. When the Jamaican government banned him fromreturning to work at the University of the West Indies in October 1968, there wasa mass upheaval, and these demonstrations stimulated the Black Power andsocialist movements throughout the Caribbean. His most productive years were atthe University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, where he taught developmentstudies and wrote his seminal work, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Aprofound scholar of the history of the working people of his native Guyana, heembraced the democratic struggles of Africans and Indians. His radical activismand mass appeal as a leader of the Working People’s Alliance in Guyana ledPresident Forbes Burnham to have him assassinated.

Informazioni sull'autore

Rupert Lewis is professor emeritus of political thought, the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. He was editor of Bongo-Man magazine which published Rodney's articles and one of the editors of the Abeng newspaper published in Kingston in 1969 that signalled the era of the Black Power movement in the Caribbean. For over fifty years, he has been a public educator on Marcus Garvey and has authored key works on Garvey and Rodney, including Marcus Garvey: Anti-Colonial Champion and Walter Rodney's Intellectual and Political Thought. He is currently working on a volume of Garvey's Jamaican writings.