![]() ![]() There's more to it than just political theory: James is clearly fascinated by the complicated interactions between the different social groups within the French colony (slaves, free blacks, Maroons, "Mulattoes", white administrators, and the slave-owning plantocracy) as well as the effect of the rapidly-changing political situation in France (the Paris mob and the left-wing intellectuals opposed to slavery on the one hand the maritime bourgeoisie with shares in the sugar or shipping trades on the other), and of course the periodic involvement of Britain, Spain and the USA, also torn between preserving their own stakes in slavery and doing down the French. is a classic bit of Marxist historical writing, in which James sets out the case for seeing the slave labourers of the Caribbean sugar plantations as the first modern industrial proletariat. ![]() James was a revolutionary Marxist who somehow managed to combine a highly successful day job as a cricket writer (his memoir is still often cited as one of the best cricket books ever) with a long career of political activism in which he was, inter alia, adviser to many of the future leaders of postcolonial Africa. ![]()
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