Recommended Books:
An annotated bibliography
Classic works on colonialism
Fanon, Frantz. 1967. Black Skin, White Masks. Translated by Charles Lam Markmann. New York: Grove Press.
The works of Frantz Fanon were widely read in the Third World during the 1960s and 1970s. Born in 1925 in the French Caribbean colony of Martinique, Fanon was the son of a government civil servant who was of mixed indigenous, African, and European heritage. He studied psychiatry in France, and he applied psychiatric insights to the colonial situation in Black Skin, White Masks, which was published in French in 1952. Fanon develops the concept of “the psychological complex of the colonized” to describe what he considered a desire to be white among the colonized.
Fanon, Frantz. 1968. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press.
In 1953, Fanon took a position in a psychiatric hospital in the French colony of Algeria. The Algerian war of independence began in 1954, and it continued until Fanon’s death from leukemia in 1961. Many of his reflections during this stage of his life were published in The Wretched of the Earth, originally published in French in 1961. His reflections on the revolutionary process were based on encounter with patients who were soldiers on both sides of the conflict. On the basis of his experiences in the French colonies of Martinique and Algeria, he reformulated the concepts of classical Marxism, adapting them to the colonial situation of the Third World. In addition, he maintained that violence against the colonizer, as an act of total rejection of the colonizer and colonialism, enables a psychic liberation from the psychological complex of the colonized.
Dubois, W.E.B. 1965. The World and Africa. New York: International Publishers.
The distinguished African-American sociologist and intellectual W.E.B. DuBois was a major figure in the global Pan-African movement of the 1920s, and he continued to be an important public intellectual until his death in 1963. The World and Africa was originally published in 1935, and it was an early description of the conquest of Africa by Europe and its promotion of the underdevelopment of Africa.
Memmi, Albert. 1965. The Colonizer and the Colonized. Boston: Beacon Press.
An insightful description of the relation between the colonizer and the colonized.
Nkrumah, Kwame. 1966. Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism. New York: International Publishers.
Kwame Nkrumah was a prominent figure in the Pan-African movement, the head of state of newly independent Ghana, and one of the founding fathers of the Non-Aligned Movement. The book describes the “economic stranglehold” in which the former colonial powers held newly-independent Africa, a phenomenon he called “neo-colonialism,” thus giving wide currency to the term.
Nyerere, Julius. 1968. Ujamaa: Essays in Socialism. New York: Oxford University Press.
A collection of essays and speeches by the first Prime Minister of independent Tanganyika (later Tanzania). Nyerere formulates a vision of a socialist society based on traditional African society, especially on the traditional institution of ujamaa, a Swahili word referring to extended family relations. Nyerere maintains traditional African society was a socialist society, characterized by very limited levels of inequality.
Odinga, Oginga. 1967. Not Yet Uhuru. New York: Hill and Wang.
Autobiography of the Kenyan political leader, maintaining that political independence has led to neocolonialism and not true freedom [uhuru].
Rodney, Walter. 1986. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Washington, DC: Howard University Press.
A classic work that describes the economic and cultural development of Africa prior to the European conquest and the promotion of underdevelopment during European colonialism.
Rodney, Walter. 1990. Walter Rodney Speaks: The Making of an African Intellectual. Introduction by Robert Hill. Forward by Howard Dodson. Trenton: Africa World Press, 1990.
Williams, Eric. 1966. Capitalism & Slavery. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, Capricorn Books.
In this classic work, originally published in 1944, Eric Williams documents the role of the slave trade and British-West Indian commerce in promoting the economic development of British industry and banks.
Achebe, Chinua. 1959. Things Fall Apart. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett.
A novel by a principle African writer that depicts the impact of colonial domination on Ibo society.
Lenin, V.I. 1996. Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. Introduction by Norman Lewis and James Malone. Chicago: Pluto Press.
Written in 1917, this classic work by the leader of the Russian Revolution described important new dynamics in the development of capitalism, including the concentration of industry and banking, the emergence of monopoly capital, the division of the world by the large corporations and the great powers, and the investment of surplus capital in peripheral and semi-peripheral zones. Lenin discerned that colonial possessions provide corporations with control of the raw materials of the colonial territories, and that the division of the world into colonizer and colonized is an important feature of capitalism in its finance and monopoly stage.
Books by Immanuel Wallerstein
Immanuel Wallerstein has made two important contributions to social theory. First, he has described the historical development of the modern world-system and the modern world-economy, demonstrating that the geographical division of labor between core and periphery promoted and promotes the development of the core and the underdevelopment of the periphery. Secondly, in his method of investigation, he has cast aside the assumptions and the boundaries of the social scientific disciplines, thus forging in practice the foundation for a comprehensive universal philosophical-historical-social science that is linked to human liberation. On the other hand, I believe that Wallerstein does not sufficiently understand the Third World national liberation movements, and he does not discern that they are constructing an alternative knowledge and political practice that are the basis of hope for the future of humanity. Further development of these reflections can be found in my blog, particularly two posts: Immanuel Wallerstein (7/30/2013); and Wallerstein: A Critique (7/31/2014).
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974. The Modern World System, Vol. I. New York: Academic Press.
__________. 1979. The Capitalist World Economy. New York: Cambridge University Press.
__________. 1980. The Modern World System, Vol. II. New York: Academic Press.
__________. 1982. “Crisis as Transition” in Samir Amin, Giovanni Arrighi, Andre Gunder Frank and Immanuel Wallerstein, Dynamics of Global Crisis. New York: Monthly Review Press.
__________. 1989. The Modern World System, Vol. III. New York: Academic Press.
__________. 1990. "Antisystemic Movements: History and Dilemmas" in Samir Amin, Giovanni Arrighi, Andre Gunder Frank and Immanuel Wallerstein, Transforming the Revolution: Social Movements and the World-System. New York: Monthly Review Press.
__________. 1995. After Liberalism. New York: The New Press.
Hopkins, Terence K., and Immanuel Wallerstein. 1996. The Age of Transition: Trajectory of the World System, 1945-2025. New Jersey: Zed Books.
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1999. The End of the World as We Know It: Social Science for the Twenty-First Century. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.
__________. 2001. Unthinking Social Science: The Limits of Nineteenth-Century Paradigms, 2nd Edition. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
__________. 2003. The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World. New York: The New Press.
__________. 2004. The Uncertainties of Knowledge. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
__________. 2006. European Universalism: The Rhetoric of Power. New York: The New Press.
__________. 2011. The Modern World System IV: Centralist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789-1914. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Works that complement the world-systems perspective of Immanuel Wallerstein
Genovese, Eugene D. 1967. The Political Economy of Slavery. New York: Random House, Vintage Books.
Frank, Andre Gunder. 1967. Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Frank, Andre Gunder. 1969. Latin America: Underdevelopment or Revolution. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Frank, Andre Gunder. 1979. Dependent Accumulation and Underdevelopment. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Galeano, Eduardo. 1997. The Open Veins of Latin America: Five centuries of the pillage of a continent, 25th Anniversary Edition. Translated by Cedric Belfrage. Forward by Isabel Allende. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Galeano, Eduardo. 2004. Las Venas Abiertas de América Latina, tercera edición, revisada. México: Siglo XXI Editores.
Cuba
García, María del Carmen, Gloria García and Eduardo Torres-Cuevas. 1994. Historia de Cuba: La Colonia: Evolución Socioeconómica y formación nacional de los orígenes hasta 1867. La Habana: Editora Política.
Instituto de Historia de Cuba. 1996. Las luchas por la independencia nacional y las transformaciones estructurales 1868-98. La Habana: Editora Política.
Instituto de Historia de Cuba. 1998. La neocolonia. La Habana: Editora Política.
Arboleya, Jesús. 2008. La Revolución del Otro Mundo: Un análisis histórico de la Revolución Cubana. La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.
The Revolution of the Other World describes the history of Cuba and the Cuban Revolution in relation to the development of US foreign policies and political culture. In describing the developing relation between the two nations during the course of the twentieth century, the book formulates an important description of the components of neocolonialism. Arboleya is Professor of History at the University of Havana and at the Higher Institute of International Relations in Cuba, and he worked for thirty years as a Cuban diplomat, including service as head of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington. His writing demonstrates a keen understanding of the political cultures of both Cuba and the United States. To my knowledge, La Revolución del Otro Mundo is not available in English, but it should be. If someone would be able to undertake the task of translation, please contact Charles McKelvey.
August, Arnold. 1999. Democracy in Cuba and the 1997-98 Elections. Havana: Editorial José Martí.
Arnold August is a Canadian intellectual with considerable experience in Cuba, where his works are widely read. Democracy in Cuba and the 1997-98 Elections describes in vivid detail elections in Cuba and the Cuban practice of popular democracy.
Martínez Martínez, Osvaldo. 1999. Neoliberalismo en Crisis. La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.
__________. 2005. Neoliberalismo, ALCA y libre comercio. La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.
These two collections of essays are written by an economist with political conviction and powerful prose. They maintain that neoliberalism is full of internal logical contradictions and is based on false premises about the world-economy; and that it has been rejected by the peoples and social movements of the world, who have discovered in experience its negative consequences. Osvaldo Martínez is Director of the Center for Research on the World Economy in Havana and is a prominent intellectual in Cuba. He received a bachelor’s degree in economics at the University of Havana and doctorate in economics at the Institute of International Relations in Potsdam, Germany. He represented Cuba in the Second Commission of the General Assembly of the United Nations from 1974 to 1979, and he serves as advisor to Cuban delegations to the UN General Assembly. He is a delegate in the Cuban national assembly of popular power.
Arboleya, Jesús. 1997. La Contrarrevolución Cubana. La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.
__________. 2002. The Cuban Counterrevolution. Translated by Damián Donéstevez. La Habana: Editorial José Martí.
La Contrarrevolución Cubana describes the counterrevolution, both prior to and after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. With penetrating insight, Arboleya, a former Cuban diplomat in the United States, describes how the Cuban-American counterrevolution was able to insert itself into the US political process following the right-wing turn of the United States in 1980, thus enabling the maintenance of the US economic, commercial and financial blockade of Cuba.
Arboleya, Jesús. 2009. El Otro Terrorismo: Medio siglo de política de los Estados Unidos hacia Cuba. La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.
Describes state-sponsored terrorism by the United States against Cuba.
Latin America today
Regalado, Roberto. 2007. Latin America at the Crossroads: Domination, Crisis, Popular Movements, and Political Alternatives. New York: Ocean Press.
__________. 2006. América Latina Entre Siglos: Dominación, crisis, lucha social y alternativas políticas de la izquierda. México D.F.: Ocean Sur.
__________. 2008. Encuentros y desencuentros de la izquierda latinoamericana: Una mirada desde el Foro de São Paulo. México D.F.: Ocean Sur.
Roberto Regalado an investigator at the Center for US and Hemispheric Studies. He is a prominent Cuban intellectual, who frequently appears on La Mesa Redonda, a Cuban news discussion program. He is a founding member of the Sao Paulo Forum, which since 1990 has organized regular and sustained dialogue among representatives of more than 140 political parties and movements of the Latin American and Caribbean Left. Regalado participated in the Forum as a part of the delegations of the Communist Party of Cuba. His writing succinctly and insightfully describes historical and contemporary dynamics in Latin America.
Speeches and writings of Third World charismatic leaders
Popular revolutions are characterized by the emergence of charismatic leaders, who are persons with an exceptional capacity to understand, capable of unifying the different tendencies in the revolutionary movement and forging a coherent program. Their discourses are formulated in the context of a practical situation, in which it becomes necessary to define a direction in order to address a political problem or to overcome a division that has emerged within the revolutionary process. Although they are political leaders with new ideas, charismatic leaders have engaged in serious intellectual work and have studied the writings and speeches of intellectuals and revolutionary leaders who emerged before them, in their own nations and in other regions of the world. They formulate new understandings in the name of the earlier revolutionary leaders and the national revolutionary moral and intellectual tradition. They thus forge a further development in revolutionary theory, a development integrally tied to practice. Study of the writings and speeches of the charismatic leaders that have been lifted up by the peoples of the world can enable us to understand the essential components of revolution and the possibilities for global popular revolution in our time.
Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro has forged a creative synthesis of Marxism-Leninism with an anti-neocolonial Latin American perspective, particularly the thinking of the late nineteenth century Cuban revolutionary José Marti. Adapting Marxism-Leninism to the neocolonial conditions of Cuba, Fidel’s understanding represents an important evolution in Marxism-Leninism.
Deutschmann, David and Deborah Shnookal. 2007. Fidel Castro Reader. Melbourne, Australia: Ocean Press.
An excellent collection of 20 major speeches by Fidel from 1953 to 2004, translated into English; includes a useful chronology.
Castro Ruz, Fidel. 1983. La crisis económica y social del mundo: sus repercusiones en los países desarrollados, sus perspectiva sombrías, y la necesidad de luchar si queremos sobrevivir: Informe a la VII Cumbre de los Países No Alineados. La Habana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado.
In a report prepared in conjunction with Cuba’s first presidency of the Non-Aligned Movement, Fidel demonstrates an exceptional capacity to understand the dynamics of the capitalist world-economy and the challenges that the Third World nations confront.
__________. 1989. Fidel Castro y la Deuda Externa. La Habana: Editora Política.
A collection of speeches on the Third World debt, providing a penetrating analysis of the origin of the Third World debt in the problem of excess capital in the banks of the North. The speeches include a call to Third World nations to cooperate with one another in insisting on a just solution to the problem.
__________. 1990. Informe Central: I, II, y III Congreso Del Partido Comunista de Cuba. La Habana: Editora Política.
Fidel’s report to the First Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba in 1974 took 18 hours to deliver. Much time was consumed by detailed descriptions of the social problems encountered by the revolution at time of its triumph in 1959 and the concrete steps that were taken to address the problems. A section on the lack of buses for school children in rural mountainous areas but the availability of luxury cars in Havana, and the creative steps that were taken to address the problem, shows Fidel at his best, speaking ironically and with a touch of humor, while educating the people. The speech as a whole reveals a man with a concern for the difficulties that the people confront, a mastery of the details that must be addressed, and a passionate commitment to defend those whom history had cast aside. It seems to me impossible to deliver such a speech, if sincerity had been lacking. The reading of the speech more than 20 years after its delivery was an important component of my arriving to the conclusion that, in Fidel, we have a man of exceptional qualities: an unusual capacity to understand national and global issues and to mobilize people for collective action combined with a commitment to social justice.
__________. 1996. Por un Mundo de Paz, Justicia y Dignidad: discursos en conferencias cumbre, 1991-1996. La Habana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado.
__________. 2000. Capitalism in Crisis: Globalization and World Politics Today. Edited by David Deutschmann. Melbourne: Ocean Press.
A collection of address in various international forums during the 1990s.
__________. 2011. El Partido, Una Revolución en la Revolución: Selección Temática, 1961-2005. La Habana: Editora Política.
Excerpts from speeches in various contexts from 1961 to 2005 that focus on the theme of the role of a vanguard party in the revolutionary process.
Guerra López, Delores, Orlando Abel Martínez Fernández, Yolanda González Plasencia, Eds. 2012. Fidel Castro: Unidad e Independencia de América (selección temática 1959-2010). La Habana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado de la República de Cuba.
Excerpts from speeches in various contexts from 1959 to 2010 that focus on the theme of Latin American unity as indispensable for genuine independence.
Interviews with Fidel Castro
Three interviews with Fidel, all translated into English, provide an excellent introduction to the Cuban revolution and the thinking and values of its historic charismatic leader.
Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado. 1985. Fidel y la Religión: Conversaciones con Frei Betto. La Habana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado.
English translation: Fidel and Religion: Conversations with Frei Betto on Marxism and Liberation Theology. Melbourne: Ocean Press.
__________. 1988. Un Encuentro con Fidel: Entrevista realizada por Gianni Miná. La Habana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado.
English translation: Mina, Gianni. 1991. An Encounter With Fidel. Translated by Mary Todd. Melbourne: Ocean Press.
__________. 2006. Cien Horas con Fidel: Conversaciones con Ignacio Ramonet. La Habana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado.
English translation: Ramonet, Ignacio. 2009. Fidel Castro: My Life: A Spoken Autobiography. Scribner.
Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh was formed by the anti-colonial nationalism of the traditional Vietnamese scholar-gentry class, and he subsequently encountered socialism in Paris and the Third International of Lenin, culminating in a period of study in the Soviet Union. As is known, he led to Vietnamese people to triumph in opposition to the colonial wars unleashed by France and the United States. A reformer within Marxism-Leninism, seeking to adapt it to the conditions of Vietnam and Indochina, Ho represents, along with Fidel Castro, one of the principal formulators of a more advanced understanding of Marxism-Leninism.
Collections of his speeches and writings are available in English:
Ho Chi Minh. 2007. Down with Colonialism. Introduction by Walden Bello. London: Verso.
Fall, Bernard B. 1967. Ho Chi Minh On Revolution: Selected Writings, 1920-66. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Publishers.
Hugo Chávez
Hugo Chávez Frías is the principle Third World charismatic leader of the dawn of the twenty-first century. As a student in the Venezuelan military academy, he studied the works of Mao Zedong, and he was influenced by Bolivarian concepts of Latin American independence as well as the Cuban Revolution. Adapting these currents of thought to the political and economic conditions at the close of the twentieth century, he forged in practice a new understanding of socialism, proclaiming “Socialism for the XXI Century.”
Guevara, Aleida. 2005. Chávez, Venezuela, and the New Latin America. Melbourne: Ocean Press.
An interview of Chávez by the daughter of Ernesto Che Guevara
Chávez Frías, Hugo. 2006. La Unidad Latinoamericana. Melbourne: Ocean Sur.
A collection of speeches by the leader of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela and Latin America.
Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende formulated a vision of revolutionary democratic socialism. He was elected president of Chile in 1970 and was able to implement significant changes before being overthrown by a US-supported coup d’état on September 11, 1973. As Fidel would later do with respect to Daniel Ortega, Chávez, Evo Morales and Rafael Correa, Fidel had a personal and political relation with Allende, and each as president visited the country of the other. Allende’s speeches demonstrate a profound understanding of the modern world. Especially important are: The “Inaugural Address” of November 5, 1970; “First Annual Message to the National Congress,” May 21, 1971; and the “Address to the United Nations General Assembly” on December 4, 1972.
Cockcroft, James. D., Ed. 2000. Salvador Allende Reader: Chile´s Voice of Democracy. Edited with an introduction by James D. Cockcroft. With translations by Moisés Espinoza and Nancy Nuñez. New York: Ocean Press.
The African-American Movement
During the second half of the twentieth century, three charismatic leaders emerged in the United States, all of whom identified with the anti-neocolonial movements of the Third World: Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Jesse Jackson.
Clarke, John Henrik. Ed. 1969. Malcolm X: The Man and His Times. Toronto: Collier.
Includes a collection of speeches by Malcolm as well as an important introduction by John Henrik Clark discussing Marcolm’s evolution in the last year of his life.
Malcolm X. 1965. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. With the assistance of Alex Haley. New York: Grove Press.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. 1968. Where Do We Go from Here? New York: Bantan Books.
Where Do We Go from Here? was Dr. King’s last book written at the end of 1967, just a few months prior to his assassination on April 3, 1968. The book demonstrates that by 1967 King had developed a much more advanced understanding since 1963, when the often repeated “I Have a Dream” speech was delivered. The book notes the significance of Third World national liberation movements and laments that the United States was constantly resisting these global democratic movements.
Clemente, Frank, with Frank Watkins, eds. 1989. Keep Hope Alive: Jesse Jackson’s 1988 Presidential Campaign. Boston: South End Press.
This collection of speeches and campaign position papers demonstrates Rev. Jackson’s understanding of national and international issues in the 1980s.
McKelvey, Charles. 1994. The African-American Movement: From Pan-Africanism to the Rainbow Coalition. Bayside, New York: General Hall.
Toussaint L’Ouverture
James, C.L.R. 1989. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, Second Edition, Revised. New York: Vintage Books, Random House.
Toussaint L’Ouverture perhaps was the first charismatic leader of Third World revolutions. The classic work by C.L.R. James documents that Toussaint embraced the values of the French Revolution and emerged as a leader who transformed a slave rebellion into a revolution. Toussaint envisioned the protection of the rights of the freed slaves as citizens of the French Republic, with the cooperation of the Jacobin political forces in France. But with the rise to power of Napoleon Bonaparte, what emerged was a form of political independence that was not genuine independence and that guaranteed Haiti’s destiny as the most impoverished nation of America. For more reflections on Toussaint L’Ouverture based on James, see various blog posts from December 9 to December 18, 2013.
Epistemological Reflections
McKelvey, Charles. 1991. Beyond Ethnocentrism: A Reconstruction of Marx’s Concept of Science. New York: Greenwood Press.
"Charles McKelvey has written a timely book. Its theme is central to our current dilemmas, how to reconstruct our modes of knowledge to overcome the narrow viewpoints of previous generations. McKelvey reminds us of the continuing contribution of Marx to this discussion."-Immanuel Wallerstein
Following my encounter with Black Nationalism in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I began a period of epistemological study. Having discovered through personal encounter that the understanding of the world formulated by black scholars was fundamentally different from the understanding of white social scientists, I asked the question: Is an objective understanding of the social world possible, or are social scientific analyses inevitably relative to social position? If the latter were to be true, it would imply that the true can never be discerned, and thus truth becomes what those in power say that it is. I was encouraged to pursue these questions in the context of my doctoral studies in the sociology department at Fordham University by Father Joseph Fitzpatrick, who had been raising such questions ever since his personal encounter in Puerto Rico as a young priest in the 1950s. Under Father Fitz’s guidance (and protection from the disciplinary rules that generally apply in higher education), I studied the Catholic philosopher Bernard Lonergan as well as classical and contemporary sociological theory, and I wrote my doctoral dissertation on the implications of Lonergan’s cognitional theory for sociological theory. Father Fitz sent me on my way, with his blessings and with instructions to continue to study these epistemological questions through the study of Marx. And I did so, culminating in a book that used Lonergan’s cognitional theory to reconstruct Marx’s concept of science, thus providing a method that enables intellectuals of the North to go beyond ethnocentrism. The thesis of the book is that a universal understanding is possible through cross-horizon encounter with the social movements of the Third World.
For further epistemological reflections, see the blog posts: “What is personal encounter?” 7/25/2013; “What is cross-horizon encounter?” 7/26/2013; “Overcoming the colonial denial” 7/29/2013.
An annotated bibliography
Classic works on colonialism
Fanon, Frantz. 1967. Black Skin, White Masks. Translated by Charles Lam Markmann. New York: Grove Press.
The works of Frantz Fanon were widely read in the Third World during the 1960s and 1970s. Born in 1925 in the French Caribbean colony of Martinique, Fanon was the son of a government civil servant who was of mixed indigenous, African, and European heritage. He studied psychiatry in France, and he applied psychiatric insights to the colonial situation in Black Skin, White Masks, which was published in French in 1952. Fanon develops the concept of “the psychological complex of the colonized” to describe what he considered a desire to be white among the colonized.
Fanon, Frantz. 1968. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press.
In 1953, Fanon took a position in a psychiatric hospital in the French colony of Algeria. The Algerian war of independence began in 1954, and it continued until Fanon’s death from leukemia in 1961. Many of his reflections during this stage of his life were published in The Wretched of the Earth, originally published in French in 1961. His reflections on the revolutionary process were based on encounter with patients who were soldiers on both sides of the conflict. On the basis of his experiences in the French colonies of Martinique and Algeria, he reformulated the concepts of classical Marxism, adapting them to the colonial situation of the Third World. In addition, he maintained that violence against the colonizer, as an act of total rejection of the colonizer and colonialism, enables a psychic liberation from the psychological complex of the colonized.
Dubois, W.E.B. 1965. The World and Africa. New York: International Publishers.
The distinguished African-American sociologist and intellectual W.E.B. DuBois was a major figure in the global Pan-African movement of the 1920s, and he continued to be an important public intellectual until his death in 1963. The World and Africa was originally published in 1935, and it was an early description of the conquest of Africa by Europe and its promotion of the underdevelopment of Africa.
Memmi, Albert. 1965. The Colonizer and the Colonized. Boston: Beacon Press.
An insightful description of the relation between the colonizer and the colonized.
Nkrumah, Kwame. 1966. Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism. New York: International Publishers.
Kwame Nkrumah was a prominent figure in the Pan-African movement, the head of state of newly independent Ghana, and one of the founding fathers of the Non-Aligned Movement. The book describes the “economic stranglehold” in which the former colonial powers held newly-independent Africa, a phenomenon he called “neo-colonialism,” thus giving wide currency to the term.
Nyerere, Julius. 1968. Ujamaa: Essays in Socialism. New York: Oxford University Press.
A collection of essays and speeches by the first Prime Minister of independent Tanganyika (later Tanzania). Nyerere formulates a vision of a socialist society based on traditional African society, especially on the traditional institution of ujamaa, a Swahili word referring to extended family relations. Nyerere maintains traditional African society was a socialist society, characterized by very limited levels of inequality.
Odinga, Oginga. 1967. Not Yet Uhuru. New York: Hill and Wang.
Autobiography of the Kenyan political leader, maintaining that political independence has led to neocolonialism and not true freedom [uhuru].
Rodney, Walter. 1986. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Washington, DC: Howard University Press.
A classic work that describes the economic and cultural development of Africa prior to the European conquest and the promotion of underdevelopment during European colonialism.
Rodney, Walter. 1990. Walter Rodney Speaks: The Making of an African Intellectual. Introduction by Robert Hill. Forward by Howard Dodson. Trenton: Africa World Press, 1990.
Williams, Eric. 1966. Capitalism & Slavery. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, Capricorn Books.
In this classic work, originally published in 1944, Eric Williams documents the role of the slave trade and British-West Indian commerce in promoting the economic development of British industry and banks.
Achebe, Chinua. 1959. Things Fall Apart. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett.
A novel by a principle African writer that depicts the impact of colonial domination on Ibo society.
Lenin, V.I. 1996. Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. Introduction by Norman Lewis and James Malone. Chicago: Pluto Press.
Written in 1917, this classic work by the leader of the Russian Revolution described important new dynamics in the development of capitalism, including the concentration of industry and banking, the emergence of monopoly capital, the division of the world by the large corporations and the great powers, and the investment of surplus capital in peripheral and semi-peripheral zones. Lenin discerned that colonial possessions provide corporations with control of the raw materials of the colonial territories, and that the division of the world into colonizer and colonized is an important feature of capitalism in its finance and monopoly stage.
Books by Immanuel Wallerstein
Immanuel Wallerstein has made two important contributions to social theory. First, he has described the historical development of the modern world-system and the modern world-economy, demonstrating that the geographical division of labor between core and periphery promoted and promotes the development of the core and the underdevelopment of the periphery. Secondly, in his method of investigation, he has cast aside the assumptions and the boundaries of the social scientific disciplines, thus forging in practice the foundation for a comprehensive universal philosophical-historical-social science that is linked to human liberation. On the other hand, I believe that Wallerstein does not sufficiently understand the Third World national liberation movements, and he does not discern that they are constructing an alternative knowledge and political practice that are the basis of hope for the future of humanity. Further development of these reflections can be found in my blog, particularly two posts: Immanuel Wallerstein (7/30/2013); and Wallerstein: A Critique (7/31/2014).
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974. The Modern World System, Vol. I. New York: Academic Press.
__________. 1979. The Capitalist World Economy. New York: Cambridge University Press.
__________. 1980. The Modern World System, Vol. II. New York: Academic Press.
__________. 1982. “Crisis as Transition” in Samir Amin, Giovanni Arrighi, Andre Gunder Frank and Immanuel Wallerstein, Dynamics of Global Crisis. New York: Monthly Review Press.
__________. 1989. The Modern World System, Vol. III. New York: Academic Press.
__________. 1990. "Antisystemic Movements: History and Dilemmas" in Samir Amin, Giovanni Arrighi, Andre Gunder Frank and Immanuel Wallerstein, Transforming the Revolution: Social Movements and the World-System. New York: Monthly Review Press.
__________. 1995. After Liberalism. New York: The New Press.
Hopkins, Terence K., and Immanuel Wallerstein. 1996. The Age of Transition: Trajectory of the World System, 1945-2025. New Jersey: Zed Books.
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1999. The End of the World as We Know It: Social Science for the Twenty-First Century. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.
__________. 2001. Unthinking Social Science: The Limits of Nineteenth-Century Paradigms, 2nd Edition. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
__________. 2003. The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World. New York: The New Press.
__________. 2004. The Uncertainties of Knowledge. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
__________. 2006. European Universalism: The Rhetoric of Power. New York: The New Press.
__________. 2011. The Modern World System IV: Centralist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789-1914. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Works that complement the world-systems perspective of Immanuel Wallerstein
Genovese, Eugene D. 1967. The Political Economy of Slavery. New York: Random House, Vintage Books.
Frank, Andre Gunder. 1967. Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Frank, Andre Gunder. 1969. Latin America: Underdevelopment or Revolution. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Frank, Andre Gunder. 1979. Dependent Accumulation and Underdevelopment. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Galeano, Eduardo. 1997. The Open Veins of Latin America: Five centuries of the pillage of a continent, 25th Anniversary Edition. Translated by Cedric Belfrage. Forward by Isabel Allende. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Galeano, Eduardo. 2004. Las Venas Abiertas de América Latina, tercera edición, revisada. México: Siglo XXI Editores.
Cuba
García, María del Carmen, Gloria García and Eduardo Torres-Cuevas. 1994. Historia de Cuba: La Colonia: Evolución Socioeconómica y formación nacional de los orígenes hasta 1867. La Habana: Editora Política.
Instituto de Historia de Cuba. 1996. Las luchas por la independencia nacional y las transformaciones estructurales 1868-98. La Habana: Editora Política.
Instituto de Historia de Cuba. 1998. La neocolonia. La Habana: Editora Política.
Arboleya, Jesús. 2008. La Revolución del Otro Mundo: Un análisis histórico de la Revolución Cubana. La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.
The Revolution of the Other World describes the history of Cuba and the Cuban Revolution in relation to the development of US foreign policies and political culture. In describing the developing relation between the two nations during the course of the twentieth century, the book formulates an important description of the components of neocolonialism. Arboleya is Professor of History at the University of Havana and at the Higher Institute of International Relations in Cuba, and he worked for thirty years as a Cuban diplomat, including service as head of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington. His writing demonstrates a keen understanding of the political cultures of both Cuba and the United States. To my knowledge, La Revolución del Otro Mundo is not available in English, but it should be. If someone would be able to undertake the task of translation, please contact Charles McKelvey.
August, Arnold. 1999. Democracy in Cuba and the 1997-98 Elections. Havana: Editorial José Martí.
Arnold August is a Canadian intellectual with considerable experience in Cuba, where his works are widely read. Democracy in Cuba and the 1997-98 Elections describes in vivid detail elections in Cuba and the Cuban practice of popular democracy.
Martínez Martínez, Osvaldo. 1999. Neoliberalismo en Crisis. La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.
__________. 2005. Neoliberalismo, ALCA y libre comercio. La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.
These two collections of essays are written by an economist with political conviction and powerful prose. They maintain that neoliberalism is full of internal logical contradictions and is based on false premises about the world-economy; and that it has been rejected by the peoples and social movements of the world, who have discovered in experience its negative consequences. Osvaldo Martínez is Director of the Center for Research on the World Economy in Havana and is a prominent intellectual in Cuba. He received a bachelor’s degree in economics at the University of Havana and doctorate in economics at the Institute of International Relations in Potsdam, Germany. He represented Cuba in the Second Commission of the General Assembly of the United Nations from 1974 to 1979, and he serves as advisor to Cuban delegations to the UN General Assembly. He is a delegate in the Cuban national assembly of popular power.
Arboleya, Jesús. 1997. La Contrarrevolución Cubana. La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.
__________. 2002. The Cuban Counterrevolution. Translated by Damián Donéstevez. La Habana: Editorial José Martí.
La Contrarrevolución Cubana describes the counterrevolution, both prior to and after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. With penetrating insight, Arboleya, a former Cuban diplomat in the United States, describes how the Cuban-American counterrevolution was able to insert itself into the US political process following the right-wing turn of the United States in 1980, thus enabling the maintenance of the US economic, commercial and financial blockade of Cuba.
Arboleya, Jesús. 2009. El Otro Terrorismo: Medio siglo de política de los Estados Unidos hacia Cuba. La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.
Describes state-sponsored terrorism by the United States against Cuba.
Latin America today
Regalado, Roberto. 2007. Latin America at the Crossroads: Domination, Crisis, Popular Movements, and Political Alternatives. New York: Ocean Press.
__________. 2006. América Latina Entre Siglos: Dominación, crisis, lucha social y alternativas políticas de la izquierda. México D.F.: Ocean Sur.
__________. 2008. Encuentros y desencuentros de la izquierda latinoamericana: Una mirada desde el Foro de São Paulo. México D.F.: Ocean Sur.
Roberto Regalado an investigator at the Center for US and Hemispheric Studies. He is a prominent Cuban intellectual, who frequently appears on La Mesa Redonda, a Cuban news discussion program. He is a founding member of the Sao Paulo Forum, which since 1990 has organized regular and sustained dialogue among representatives of more than 140 political parties and movements of the Latin American and Caribbean Left. Regalado participated in the Forum as a part of the delegations of the Communist Party of Cuba. His writing succinctly and insightfully describes historical and contemporary dynamics in Latin America.
Speeches and writings of Third World charismatic leaders
Popular revolutions are characterized by the emergence of charismatic leaders, who are persons with an exceptional capacity to understand, capable of unifying the different tendencies in the revolutionary movement and forging a coherent program. Their discourses are formulated in the context of a practical situation, in which it becomes necessary to define a direction in order to address a political problem or to overcome a division that has emerged within the revolutionary process. Although they are political leaders with new ideas, charismatic leaders have engaged in serious intellectual work and have studied the writings and speeches of intellectuals and revolutionary leaders who emerged before them, in their own nations and in other regions of the world. They formulate new understandings in the name of the earlier revolutionary leaders and the national revolutionary moral and intellectual tradition. They thus forge a further development in revolutionary theory, a development integrally tied to practice. Study of the writings and speeches of the charismatic leaders that have been lifted up by the peoples of the world can enable us to understand the essential components of revolution and the possibilities for global popular revolution in our time.
Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro has forged a creative synthesis of Marxism-Leninism with an anti-neocolonial Latin American perspective, particularly the thinking of the late nineteenth century Cuban revolutionary José Marti. Adapting Marxism-Leninism to the neocolonial conditions of Cuba, Fidel’s understanding represents an important evolution in Marxism-Leninism.
Deutschmann, David and Deborah Shnookal. 2007. Fidel Castro Reader. Melbourne, Australia: Ocean Press.
An excellent collection of 20 major speeches by Fidel from 1953 to 2004, translated into English; includes a useful chronology.
Castro Ruz, Fidel. 1983. La crisis económica y social del mundo: sus repercusiones en los países desarrollados, sus perspectiva sombrías, y la necesidad de luchar si queremos sobrevivir: Informe a la VII Cumbre de los Países No Alineados. La Habana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado.
In a report prepared in conjunction with Cuba’s first presidency of the Non-Aligned Movement, Fidel demonstrates an exceptional capacity to understand the dynamics of the capitalist world-economy and the challenges that the Third World nations confront.
__________. 1989. Fidel Castro y la Deuda Externa. La Habana: Editora Política.
A collection of speeches on the Third World debt, providing a penetrating analysis of the origin of the Third World debt in the problem of excess capital in the banks of the North. The speeches include a call to Third World nations to cooperate with one another in insisting on a just solution to the problem.
__________. 1990. Informe Central: I, II, y III Congreso Del Partido Comunista de Cuba. La Habana: Editora Política.
Fidel’s report to the First Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba in 1974 took 18 hours to deliver. Much time was consumed by detailed descriptions of the social problems encountered by the revolution at time of its triumph in 1959 and the concrete steps that were taken to address the problems. A section on the lack of buses for school children in rural mountainous areas but the availability of luxury cars in Havana, and the creative steps that were taken to address the problem, shows Fidel at his best, speaking ironically and with a touch of humor, while educating the people. The speech as a whole reveals a man with a concern for the difficulties that the people confront, a mastery of the details that must be addressed, and a passionate commitment to defend those whom history had cast aside. It seems to me impossible to deliver such a speech, if sincerity had been lacking. The reading of the speech more than 20 years after its delivery was an important component of my arriving to the conclusion that, in Fidel, we have a man of exceptional qualities: an unusual capacity to understand national and global issues and to mobilize people for collective action combined with a commitment to social justice.
__________. 1996. Por un Mundo de Paz, Justicia y Dignidad: discursos en conferencias cumbre, 1991-1996. La Habana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado.
__________. 2000. Capitalism in Crisis: Globalization and World Politics Today. Edited by David Deutschmann. Melbourne: Ocean Press.
A collection of address in various international forums during the 1990s.
__________. 2011. El Partido, Una Revolución en la Revolución: Selección Temática, 1961-2005. La Habana: Editora Política.
Excerpts from speeches in various contexts from 1961 to 2005 that focus on the theme of the role of a vanguard party in the revolutionary process.
Guerra López, Delores, Orlando Abel Martínez Fernández, Yolanda González Plasencia, Eds. 2012. Fidel Castro: Unidad e Independencia de América (selección temática 1959-2010). La Habana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado de la República de Cuba.
Excerpts from speeches in various contexts from 1959 to 2010 that focus on the theme of Latin American unity as indispensable for genuine independence.
Interviews with Fidel Castro
Three interviews with Fidel, all translated into English, provide an excellent introduction to the Cuban revolution and the thinking and values of its historic charismatic leader.
Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado. 1985. Fidel y la Religión: Conversaciones con Frei Betto. La Habana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado.
English translation: Fidel and Religion: Conversations with Frei Betto on Marxism and Liberation Theology. Melbourne: Ocean Press.
__________. 1988. Un Encuentro con Fidel: Entrevista realizada por Gianni Miná. La Habana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado.
English translation: Mina, Gianni. 1991. An Encounter With Fidel. Translated by Mary Todd. Melbourne: Ocean Press.
__________. 2006. Cien Horas con Fidel: Conversaciones con Ignacio Ramonet. La Habana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado.
English translation: Ramonet, Ignacio. 2009. Fidel Castro: My Life: A Spoken Autobiography. Scribner.
Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh was formed by the anti-colonial nationalism of the traditional Vietnamese scholar-gentry class, and he subsequently encountered socialism in Paris and the Third International of Lenin, culminating in a period of study in the Soviet Union. As is known, he led to Vietnamese people to triumph in opposition to the colonial wars unleashed by France and the United States. A reformer within Marxism-Leninism, seeking to adapt it to the conditions of Vietnam and Indochina, Ho represents, along with Fidel Castro, one of the principal formulators of a more advanced understanding of Marxism-Leninism.
Collections of his speeches and writings are available in English:
Ho Chi Minh. 2007. Down with Colonialism. Introduction by Walden Bello. London: Verso.
Fall, Bernard B. 1967. Ho Chi Minh On Revolution: Selected Writings, 1920-66. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Publishers.
Hugo Chávez
Hugo Chávez Frías is the principle Third World charismatic leader of the dawn of the twenty-first century. As a student in the Venezuelan military academy, he studied the works of Mao Zedong, and he was influenced by Bolivarian concepts of Latin American independence as well as the Cuban Revolution. Adapting these currents of thought to the political and economic conditions at the close of the twentieth century, he forged in practice a new understanding of socialism, proclaiming “Socialism for the XXI Century.”
Guevara, Aleida. 2005. Chávez, Venezuela, and the New Latin America. Melbourne: Ocean Press.
An interview of Chávez by the daughter of Ernesto Che Guevara
Chávez Frías, Hugo. 2006. La Unidad Latinoamericana. Melbourne: Ocean Sur.
A collection of speeches by the leader of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela and Latin America.
Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende formulated a vision of revolutionary democratic socialism. He was elected president of Chile in 1970 and was able to implement significant changes before being overthrown by a US-supported coup d’état on September 11, 1973. As Fidel would later do with respect to Daniel Ortega, Chávez, Evo Morales and Rafael Correa, Fidel had a personal and political relation with Allende, and each as president visited the country of the other. Allende’s speeches demonstrate a profound understanding of the modern world. Especially important are: The “Inaugural Address” of November 5, 1970; “First Annual Message to the National Congress,” May 21, 1971; and the “Address to the United Nations General Assembly” on December 4, 1972.
Cockcroft, James. D., Ed. 2000. Salvador Allende Reader: Chile´s Voice of Democracy. Edited with an introduction by James D. Cockcroft. With translations by Moisés Espinoza and Nancy Nuñez. New York: Ocean Press.
The African-American Movement
During the second half of the twentieth century, three charismatic leaders emerged in the United States, all of whom identified with the anti-neocolonial movements of the Third World: Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Jesse Jackson.
Clarke, John Henrik. Ed. 1969. Malcolm X: The Man and His Times. Toronto: Collier.
Includes a collection of speeches by Malcolm as well as an important introduction by John Henrik Clark discussing Marcolm’s evolution in the last year of his life.
Malcolm X. 1965. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. With the assistance of Alex Haley. New York: Grove Press.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. 1968. Where Do We Go from Here? New York: Bantan Books.
Where Do We Go from Here? was Dr. King’s last book written at the end of 1967, just a few months prior to his assassination on April 3, 1968. The book demonstrates that by 1967 King had developed a much more advanced understanding since 1963, when the often repeated “I Have a Dream” speech was delivered. The book notes the significance of Third World national liberation movements and laments that the United States was constantly resisting these global democratic movements.
Clemente, Frank, with Frank Watkins, eds. 1989. Keep Hope Alive: Jesse Jackson’s 1988 Presidential Campaign. Boston: South End Press.
This collection of speeches and campaign position papers demonstrates Rev. Jackson’s understanding of national and international issues in the 1980s.
McKelvey, Charles. 1994. The African-American Movement: From Pan-Africanism to the Rainbow Coalition. Bayside, New York: General Hall.
Toussaint L’Ouverture
James, C.L.R. 1989. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, Second Edition, Revised. New York: Vintage Books, Random House.
Toussaint L’Ouverture perhaps was the first charismatic leader of Third World revolutions. The classic work by C.L.R. James documents that Toussaint embraced the values of the French Revolution and emerged as a leader who transformed a slave rebellion into a revolution. Toussaint envisioned the protection of the rights of the freed slaves as citizens of the French Republic, with the cooperation of the Jacobin political forces in France. But with the rise to power of Napoleon Bonaparte, what emerged was a form of political independence that was not genuine independence and that guaranteed Haiti’s destiny as the most impoverished nation of America. For more reflections on Toussaint L’Ouverture based on James, see various blog posts from December 9 to December 18, 2013.
Epistemological Reflections
McKelvey, Charles. 1991. Beyond Ethnocentrism: A Reconstruction of Marx’s Concept of Science. New York: Greenwood Press.
"Charles McKelvey has written a timely book. Its theme is central to our current dilemmas, how to reconstruct our modes of knowledge to overcome the narrow viewpoints of previous generations. McKelvey reminds us of the continuing contribution of Marx to this discussion."-Immanuel Wallerstein
Following my encounter with Black Nationalism in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I began a period of epistemological study. Having discovered through personal encounter that the understanding of the world formulated by black scholars was fundamentally different from the understanding of white social scientists, I asked the question: Is an objective understanding of the social world possible, or are social scientific analyses inevitably relative to social position? If the latter were to be true, it would imply that the true can never be discerned, and thus truth becomes what those in power say that it is. I was encouraged to pursue these questions in the context of my doctoral studies in the sociology department at Fordham University by Father Joseph Fitzpatrick, who had been raising such questions ever since his personal encounter in Puerto Rico as a young priest in the 1950s. Under Father Fitz’s guidance (and protection from the disciplinary rules that generally apply in higher education), I studied the Catholic philosopher Bernard Lonergan as well as classical and contemporary sociological theory, and I wrote my doctoral dissertation on the implications of Lonergan’s cognitional theory for sociological theory. Father Fitz sent me on my way, with his blessings and with instructions to continue to study these epistemological questions through the study of Marx. And I did so, culminating in a book that used Lonergan’s cognitional theory to reconstruct Marx’s concept of science, thus providing a method that enables intellectuals of the North to go beyond ethnocentrism. The thesis of the book is that a universal understanding is possible through cross-horizon encounter with the social movements of the Third World.
For further epistemological reflections, see the blog posts: “What is personal encounter?” 7/25/2013; “What is cross-horizon encounter?” 7/26/2013; “Overcoming the colonial denial” 7/29/2013.