Black Jacobins (Penguin Modern Classics)

'James is a titan of twentieth-century politics and culture' Sunday Times

'The Black Jacobins is not only a groundbreaking historical work; it is a masterpiece in storytelling and analysis' Gary Younge

The iconic study of the Haitian revolution, by one of the most important historians of the twentieth century

C. L. R. James's pioneering account of the 1791 San Domingo slave revolt and the creation of the republic of Haiti changed the way colonial history was written. By putting the experiences of the slave rebels, led by Toussaint L'Ouverture, centre stage, James made them agents of their own story. His work, written as part of the fight to end colonialism in Africa, helped inspire radical liberation movements worldwide, from Black Power to Castro's revolution in the Caribbean.

With an Introduction by Christienna Fryar

Reviews

Reading and rereading The Black Jacobins, I am struck by its incredible wit and humanity, and James' determination to write a history of slavery in the Caribbean in which people of African descent appear as thinking, feeling human agents - in other words, as the protagonists of their own history and not background characters in an essentially European story.