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The Black Jacobins Reader is out now,co-edited with Christian Høgsbjerg"This is the most authoritative confirmation to date of the intellectual stature of C. L. R. James and the prophetic grandeur of his great classic, The Black Jacobins. Some eighty years after its first publication, readers of different generations and across a diversity of national origins document their admiration of the depth and spontaneity of James's analytical interpretation of the Haitian Revolution. It was the first and only example in modern history of a successful slave revolt when a population of enslaved Africans defeated three European armies and converted a slave plantation into the Independent Republic of Haiti. The nineteenth century had judged it inconceivable; and ever since it has survived a universal silence." — George Lamming"The Black Jacobins, with its unforgettable story of Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution, is one of the great books of the twentieth century. The Black Jacobins Reader provides us with a rich selection of reflections on C. L. R. James's achievement and his own rethinkings over time. Whether understood as a cultural history of revolution before cultural history; a classic text for revolutionaries; a meditation on universal history; a pioneering Marxist analysis of the slave trade, slavery, and modern capitalism; an inspiration for generations of historians; an exploration of what it means to be 'West Indian'; a disruption of orthodox notions of historical temporality or a provocation to think about the relation between the past and the present; or indeed any combination of these; it is undoubtedly a book that continues to inspire many. Black activists in U.S. prisons, writers, and historians are amongst those who remind us, in different ways, of the power of a text such as this—one that wrote the history of a people supposedly without history." — Catherine HallContaining a wealth of new scholarship and rare primary documents, The Black Jacobins Reader provides a comprehensive analysis of C. L. R. James's classic history of the Haitian Revolution. In addition to considering the book's literary qualities and its role in James's emergence as a writer and thinker, the contributors discuss its production, context, and enduring importance in relation to debates about decolonization, globalization, postcolonialism, and the emergence of neocolonial modernity. The Reader also includes the reflections of activists and novelists on the book's influence and a transcript of James's 1970 interview with Studs Terkel.Contributors: Mumia Abu-Jamal, David Austin, Madison Smartt Bell, Anthony Bogues, John H. Bracey Jr., Rachel Douglas, Laurent Dubois, Claudius K. Fergus, Carolyn E. Fick, Charles Forsdick, Dan Georgakas, Robert A. Hill, Christian Høgsbjerg, Selma James, Pierre Naville, Nick Nesbitt, Aldon Lynn Nielsen, Matthew Quest, David M. Rudder, Bill Schwarz, David Scott, Russell Maroon Shoatz, Matthew J. Smith, Studs TerkelContents:Foreword / Robert A. Hill  xiiiHaiti / David M. Rudder  xxiAcknowledgments  xxiiiIntroduction: Rethinking The Black Jacobins / Charles Forsdick and Christian Høgsbjerg  1Part I. Personal Reflection1. The Black Jacobins in Detroit: 1963 / Dan Georgakas  552. The Impact of C. L. R. James's The Black Jacobins / Mumia Abu-Jamal  583. C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins, and The Making of Haiti / Carolyn E. Fick  604. The Black Jacobins, Education, and Redemption / Russell Maroon Shoatz  705. The Black Jacobins, Past and Present / Selma James  73Part II. The Haitian Revolution: Histories and Philosophies6. Reading The Black Jacobins: Historical Perspectives / Laurent Dubois  877. Haiti and Historical Time / Bill Schwarz  938. The Theory of Haiti: The Black Jacobins and the Poetics of Universal History / David Scott  1159. Fragments of a Universal History: Global Capital, Mass Revolution, and the Idea of Equality in The Black Jacobins / Nick Nesbitt  13910. "We Are Slaves and Slaves Believe in Freedom": The Problematizing of Revolutionary Emancipation in The Black Jacobins / Claudius Fergus  16211. "To Place Ourselves in History": The Haitian Revolution in British West Indies Thought before The Black Jacobins / Matthew J. Smith  178Part III. The Black Jacobins: Texts and Contexts12. The Black Jacobins and the Long Haitian Revolution: Archives, History, and the Writing of Revolution / Anthony Bogues  19713. Refiguring Resistance: Historiography, Fiction, and the Afterlives of Toussaint Louverture / Charles Forsdick  21514. On "Both Sides" of the Haitian Revolution? Rethinking Direct Democracy and National Liberation in The Black Jacobins / Matthew Quest  23515. The Black Jacobins: A Revolutionary Study of Revolution, and of a Caribbean Revolution / David Austin  25616. Making Drama our of the Haitian Revolution from Below: C. L. R. James's The Black Jacobins Play / Rachel Douglas  27817. "On the Wings of Atalanta" / Aldon Lynn Nielsen  297Part IV. Final Reflections18. Afterword to The Black Jacobins's Italian Edition / Madison Smartt Bell  31319. Introduction to the Cuban Edition of The Black Jacobins / John H. Bracey  322Appendix 1. C. L. R. James and Studs Terkel Discuss The Black Jacobins on WFMT Radion (Chicago), 1970  329Appendix 2. The Revolution in Theory / C. L. R. James  353Appendix 3. Translator's Foreword by Pierre Naville to the 1949 / 1983 French Editions  367Bibliography  383Contributors  411Index  415