The Black Jacobins, C.L.R. James
The Black Jacobins, C.L.R. James
List: $29.99 | Sale: $21.00
Club: $14.99

The Black Jacobins
Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution

Author: C.L.R. James

Narrator: Ron Butler

Unabridged: 14 hr 22 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 04/30/2019

Synopsis

A classic and impassioned account of the first revolution in the Third World.

This powerful, intensely dramatic book is the definitive account of the Haitian Revolution of 1794–1803, a revolution that began in the wake of the Bastille but became the model for the Third World liberation movements from Africa to Cuba. It is the story of the French colony of San Domingo, a place where the brutality of master toward slave was commonplace and ingeniously refined. And it is the story of a barely literate slave named Toussaint L'Ouverture, who led the black people of San Domingo in a successful struggle against successive invasions by overwhelming French, Spanish, and English forces and in the process helped form the first independent nation in the Caribbean.

About C.L.R. James

C. L. R. James was born January 4, 1901, in Trinidad. In 1918 James received his teaching certificate from Queens Royal College. One of his pupils, Eric Williams, was later the first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago. During the 1930s and after World War II, he covered cricket for the Manchester Guardian. In 1938 James came to the United States, but he was deported fifteen years later, during the McCarthy era. While interned on Ellis Island, James wrote Mariners, Renegades and Castaways: The Story of Herman Melville and the World We Live In. His other books include Minty Alley, World Revolution, A History of Negro Revolt, Notes on Dialects, and At the Rendezvous of Victory. The United States government allowed James to return in 1970, and became a member of the faculty at Federal City College in Washington. Before his death on May 31, 1989, in London, James was awarded Trinidad and Tobago's highest honor, the Trinity Cross.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Naeem on November 29, 2024

James' masterpiece. It's considered one of the most important histories ever written. I consider it a landmark in my own life. It had explosive effects on my thinking. There is no way to do justice to this book in a review. But let me try. I am going to rave about this book. But there is also plenty......more

Goodreads review by BookOfCinz on December 20, 2018

There is no possible way I can convey how important reading this book is. I am not a major reader of history books but in reading this I learned so much. I joked with my friend that when I finish this book I should be given a BA in Haitian History and rightly so. The Black Jacobins gives an in-dep......more

Goodreads review by Andrea on February 01, 2012

This is a fascinating and tragic story, one I knew very little about, and on the most basic level of simply understanding an incredibly complex part of history, this does a very engaging job. He writes the history of places like Haiti the way they should always be written, as playing a part on a wor......more

Goodreads review by Kiran on April 05, 2023

The Black Jacobins is an enlightening and thought-provoking tome which is a must-read for anyone who is an avid student of Caribbean colonial history. CLR James skillfully and meticulously describes the vicissitudes of the Haitian war of independence which lasted from 1791 until Haiti won its indepe......more

Goodreads review by Malcolm on August 03, 2011

James's history of the anti-colonial rising in what is now Haiti during the French revolution and its suppression by the revolutionary regime is one of the great analyses of colonial rebellion and struggles for liberation. Essential reading for a grasp of imperialism and colonialism – and I was deli......more

Add to Cart
Add to Wish List