A distinguished psychiatrist from Martinique who took part in the Algerian Nationalist Movement; Frantz Fanon was one of the most important theorists of revolutionary struggle; colonialism; and racial difference in history. Fanon’s masterwork is a classic alongside Edward Said’s Orientalism or The Autobiography of Malcolm X; and it is now available in a new translation that updates its language for a new generation of readers. The Wretched of the Earth is a brilliant analysis of the psychology of the colonized and their path to liberation. Bearing singular insight into the rage and frustration of colonized peoples; and the role of violence in effecting historical change; the book incisively attacks the twin perils of postindependence colonial politics: the disenfranchisement of the masses by the elites on the one hand; and intertribal and interfaith animosities on the other. Fanon’s analysis; a veritable handbook of social reorganization for leaders of emerging nations; has been reflected all too clearly in the corruption and violence that has plagued present-day Africa. The Wretched of the Earth has had a major impact on civil rights; anticolonialism; and black consciousness movements around the world; and this bold new translation by Richard Philcox reaffirms it as a landmark.
#1059246 in Books 2010-03-25 2010-03-25Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.00 x .40 x 6.00l; .50 #File Name: 0801894697160 pages
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Five StarsBy jpaskillgreat book. very interesting into the pre-Civil War politics life in D.C.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Five StarsBy Daisymomhad to read3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Examination of a Singular Event Falls ShortBy JLafayetteIt is pretty much impossible to write about the immediate pre-Civil War years without mentioning the caning of Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner by South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks. That less than one minute attack is properly seen as one of a series of extraordinary events--the Kansas-Nebraska Act; the Dred Scott Decision; John Brown's attack on Harper's Ferry; and the Election of Abraham Lincoln--that precipitated the war.Undoubtedly the Sumner caning is important; if only because it underlined for the North the feeling that the South had become violently irrational on the topic of slavery; while Southerners felt that the Sumner speech precipitating the attack was only the most recent sign that Northerners really did despise the South and would be more than happy to inspire slave rebellions.The problem with this book is that it is; in the end; more of a rhetorical argument than history. I continuously felt in reading it that I was sitting in a university auditorium listening to the musings of a guest lecturer. Nothing wrong with that; of course. But as scholarship; the book never really goes beyond that surface level. The author in his footnotes displays a familiarity with the standard historical works on the period; but uses no archival resources at all. As a result we get the standard snapshot profiles of Sumner and Brooks; with little beneath the surface.There are also references that entirely slip away. The author at one point says "All of the papers examined for this study issued an editorial response" (p. 87) to the Sumner caning. But he never tells us what newspapers he is referring to; nor what they said.In the end; I would not recommend this book for anyone who knows little about the Sumner caning. And even for those who know a lot; I would say it is a work of only transitory value.
