African and Caribbean Politics from Kwame Nkrumah to the Grenada Revolution: From Kwame Nkrumah To Maurice Bishop (Haymarket)

African and Caribbean Politics from Kwame Nkrumah to the Grenada Revolution: From Kwame Nkrumah To Maurice Bishop (Haymarket)

by Manning Marable (Author)

Synopsis

What explains the proliferation of authoritarian regimes some calling themselves socialist in contemporary African and Caribbean politics?

One of America s leading black scholars assesses the historical and social forces that have undermined democracy and social reform in the societies of Africa and its diaspora. In a brilliant historical sketch of the evolution of revolutionary nationalism, Marable illustrates how the legacies of slavery, forced labor and colonialism have combined to stunt the development of popular self-representation. Considering in detail the key cases of Ghana and Guyana, he explains why mass anti-colonial movements eventually decayed into personalistic and repressive cults around Nkrumah and Burnham.

The core of the book is an impassioned and searching analysis of the tragic self-destruction of the Grenadian Revolution in 1983. Increasing reliance on a corrupted democratic centralism within the New Jewel Movement led to its violent implosion followed by Reagan s invasion. While defending the achievements of the martyred Bishop regime, Marable argues that African and Caribbean socialism must find new commitments to egalitarian democracy and pluralism.

$29.71

Quantity

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 328
Publisher: Verso Books
Published: 06 Jun 1987

ISBN 10: 086091884X
ISBN 13: 9780860918844

Media Reviews
His work ... is authoritative, full of enlightening allusion, but always passionate. Los Angeles Times
Author Bio
Manning Marable (1950 2011) was M. Moran Weston/Black Alumni Council Professor of African-American Studies, and Professor of Public Affairs, History and Political Science at Columbia University in New York City. Marable wrote, edited or contributed to several books, including How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America (1983), Black American Politics (1985), Black Leadership (1998), The Great Wells of Democracy (2002), Living Black History (2006), and Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (2011).