20th century
20th century history
A01=David Austin
African-American Studies
Author_David Austin
Black Lives
Black Lives Matter
Black Marxism
Black radical tradition
Black Studies
capitalism
Category=DNBL
Category=JBSL
CLR James
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eq_biography-true-stories
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eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethnicity
forthcoming
political philosophy
political theory
race
radicalism
resistance
Product details
- ISBN 9781509543311
- Publication Date: 24 Sep 2026
- Publisher: Polity Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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C.L.R. James was one of the twentieth century's great minds. A true polymath, he made profound intellectual contributions in the areas of political philosophy, history, sports, literature, literary criticism, and cultural studies. In this critical introduction, David Austin examines James's core ideas and traces his unique perspective to his roots in the Caribbean.
James is best known for his classic study of revolution, The Black Jacobins and Beyond a Boundary, one of the great books written about sport. He also wrote a groundbreaking novel, Minty Alley, but of all his writing, he considered his study of socialist self-organization, Notes on Dialectics: Hegel, Marx, Lenin his most important work. James was also at the center of the international socialist and anti-imperialist movements in London in the 1930s and his work played an important role in African and Caribbean anticolonial movements in the 1950 and 1960s.
Today his writing on American popular culture and the potential for totalitarianism in the U.S. (American Civilization and Mariners, Renegades, and Castaways: The Story of Herman Melville and the World We Live In) couldn't be timelier. And in all his work, he expressed his belief in the capacity of so-called ordinary people to achieve the extraordinary.
James is best known for his classic study of revolution, The Black Jacobins and Beyond a Boundary, one of the great books written about sport. He also wrote a groundbreaking novel, Minty Alley, but of all his writing, he considered his study of socialist self-organization, Notes on Dialectics: Hegel, Marx, Lenin his most important work. James was also at the center of the international socialist and anti-imperialist movements in London in the 1930s and his work played an important role in African and Caribbean anticolonial movements in the 1950 and 1960s.
Today his writing on American popular culture and the potential for totalitarianism in the U.S. (American Civilization and Mariners, Renegades, and Castaways: The Story of Herman Melville and the World We Live In) couldn't be timelier. And in all his work, he expressed his belief in the capacity of so-called ordinary people to achieve the extraordinary.
David Austin is a professor in the Humanities, Philosophy and Religion Department at John Abbott College in Montreal, and McGill University's Institute for the Study of Canada.
He is the author of Fear of a Black Nation: Race, Sex, and Security in 1960s Montreal, winner of the 2014 Casa de las Americas Prize (also translated into Spanish and into French); and Dread Poetry and Freedom: Linton Kwesi Johnson and the Unfinished Revolution (2018) and is the editor of Moving Against the System: The 1968 Congress of Black Writers and the Making of Global Consciousness (2018) and You Don't Play with Revolution: The Montreal Lectures of C.L.R. James (2009). He has produced radio documentaries on C.L.R. James and Frantz Fanon for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's flagship program Ideas.
He is the author of Fear of a Black Nation: Race, Sex, and Security in 1960s Montreal, winner of the 2014 Casa de las Americas Prize (also translated into Spanish and into French); and Dread Poetry and Freedom: Linton Kwesi Johnson and the Unfinished Revolution (2018) and is the editor of Moving Against the System: The 1968 Congress of Black Writers and the Making of Global Consciousness (2018) and You Don't Play with Revolution: The Montreal Lectures of C.L.R. James (2009). He has produced radio documentaries on C.L.R. James and Frantz Fanon for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's flagship program Ideas.
