Walter Rodney S Intellectual And Political Thought

Placing Rodney's work in the larger tradition of West Indian involvement with continental Africa, Walter Rodney's Intellectual and Political Thought traces the evolution of Walter Rodney's political ideas through biography, analysis of his writings on Africa and the Caribbean, and his political practice. Rooted in transatlantic history and politics, Rodney's intellectual and political thought critiqued the British Empire and capitalism in the diasporic locations of Guyana, Jamaica, London and Tanzania, as well as the processes of recolonisation. A West Indian, Pan-Africanist and Marxist, Walter 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 in Jamaica during the 1950s and 1960s - although his post-colonial-era perspective also set him apart from these earlier figures and movements.

In 1974, Walter Rodney, author of How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, The Groundings with My Brothers and other works, visited the historic institute of the Black World in Atlanta, Georgia. With the institute's members, he discussed his own political and intellectual development and exchanged views on the role of the black intellectual. Her talked at length about the dramatic struggles taking place in southern Africa and about the political economy of African American society. This special book grew out of that dialog, which was never resumed because of Rodney's politically motivated assassination in his native Guyana. Walter Rodney lived with and among black and progressive peoples on four continents and in several areas of the Caribbean. He worked in all these contexts as a historian, university teacher, popular lecturer, social critic and political theorist, and he was an unswerving advocate of the oppressed and exploited classes, especially those of the black world. He was actively involved in the global struggle for freedom... In this work of sustained reflection, Walter tells us in his own words how he came to be the person that he was. He reflects on the nature and meaning of his life at a critical juncture in his career. ...He also discusses his view on the leading political and social trends in Africa, the Caribbean and Black America during the mid-1970s--a period of critical shifts in Pan-African and world affairs. For all who seek to continue grounding with this brother, this work is essential. -From the Introduction by Howard Dodson Chief, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library Walter Rodney delivered many hundreds of speeches. One day, we hope, a selection of those speeches that survive will be made available. The present work will fulfill its purpose if it contributes toward that goal by providing the public with a small but significant example of Walter Rodney's incomparable intellectual penetration, a gift he eloquently employed in order to make the most complex political and historical subjects fully comprehensible to a popular audience. -From the Foreword by Robert A. Hill Editor, Marcus Garvey Papers at the University of California at Los Angeles

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 Rodney's 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.

The classic work of political, economic, and historical analysis, powerfully introduced by Angela Davis In his short life, the Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution, leading movements in North America, South America, the African continent, and the Caribbean. In each locale, Rodney found himself a lightning rod for working class Black Power. His deportation catalyzed 20th century Jamaica's most significant rebellion, the 1968 Rodney riots, and his scholarship trained a generation how to think politics at an international scale. In 1980, shortly after founding of the Working People's Alliance in Guyana, the 38-year-old Rodney would be assassinated. In his magnum opus, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Rodney incisively argues that grasping "the great divergence" between the west and the rest can only be explained as the exploitation of the latter by the former. This meticulously researched analysis of the abiding repercussions of European colonialism on the continent of Africa has not only informed decades of scholarship and activism, it remains an indispensable study for grasping global inequality today.

The life of the great Guyanese scholar and revolutionary Walter Rodney burned with a rare intensity. The son of working class parents, Rodney showed great academic promise and was awarded scholarships to the University of the West Indies in Jamaica and the School of African and Oriental Studies in London. He received his PhD from the latter at the age of twenty-four, and his thesis was published as A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, now a classic of African history. His most famous work, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, is a mainstay of radical literature and anticipated the influential world systems theory of Immanuel Wallerstein. Not content merely to study the world, Rodney turned to revolutionary politics in Jamaica, Tanzania, and in Guyana. In his homeland, he helped form the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) and was a consistent voice for the oppressed and exploited. As Rodney became more popular , the threat of his revolutionary message stirred fears among the powerful in Guyana and throughout the Caribbean, and he was assassinated in 1980. This book presents a moving and insightful portrait of Rodney through by the words of academics, writers, artists, and political activists who knew him intimately or felt his influence. These informal recollections and reflections demonstrate why Rodney is such a widely admired figure throughout the world, especially in poor countries and among oppressed peoples everywhere.

Preface by Jesse Benjamin and the Walter Rodney Foundation Introduction by Robin D.G. Kelley Afterword by Vijay Prashad In his short life, the Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading revolutionary thinkers of the Black Sixties. He became a leading force of dissent throughout the Caribbean and a lightning rod of controversy. The 1968 Rodney Riots erupted in Jamaica when he was prevented from returning to his teaching post at the University of the West Indies. In 1980, Rodney was assassinated in Guyana, reportedly at the behest of the government. In the mid-'70s, Rodney taught a course on the Russian Revolution at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. A Pan-Africanist and Marxist, Rodney sought to make sense of the reverberations of the October Revolution in a decolonising world marked by Third World revolutionary movements. He intended to publish a book based on his research and teaching. Now historians Jesse Benjamin, Robin D. G. Kelley, and Vijay Prashad have edited Rodney's polished chapters and unfinished lecture notes, presenting the book that Rodney had hoped to publish in his lifetime. 1917 is a signal event in radical publishing, and will inaugurate Verso's standard edition of Walter Rodney's works.

"I have sat on a little oil drum, rusty and in the midst of garbage, and some black brothers and I have grounded together." - Walter Rodney In his short life, the Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution, leading movements in North America, South America, the African continent, and the Caribbean. In each locale, Rodney found himself a lightning rod for working class Black Power. His deportation catalyzed 20th century Jamaica's most significant rebellion, the 1968 Rodney riots, and his scholarship trained a generation how to think politics at an international scale. In 1980, shortly after founding of the Working People's Alliance in Guyana, the 38-year-old Rodney would be assassinated. In this classic work published in the heady days of international black power, Groundings with My Brothers details the global circulation of emancipatory ideas, but also offers first-hand reports of Rodney's mass movement organizing. Introduced and contextualized by leading Caribbean scholar-activists, this updated edition brings Rodney's legacy to a new generation of radicals.

Hirji makes a case that Rodney's seminal work retains its value for understanding where Africa has come from, where it is going, and charting the path towards genuine development for its people. It is a succinct, coherent defence of an intellectual giant who lived and died for humanity, an essential read for anyone interested in Africa.