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daustin_94's review against another edition
challenging
informative
slow-paced
4.25
What a challenging but informative book. I was lucky enough to read this in a group setting which made understanding it much easier. This book was an eye opener in terms of racial history and politics and the formation of race (starting in Europe and then going to the Americas).
niceread's review against another edition
3.0
I learned some interesting things about the history of slavery, the Carribean, and Brazil. However, this book was really a slog to finish.
starrybooker's review against another edition
Only took me a year and a bit, but I finally managed it. Black Marxism, while absolutely a political book, is equally a history book. Charting the history of labour through feudal Europe into the Atlantic slave trade and through into 20th century black radicals, Cedric Robinson writes with a knowledge and depth that’s kind of intimidating but ultimately rewarding.
I can’t do justice to have broad his scope is, going across continents and colonies, correcting and expanding the historical record as he goes. Robinson makes clear that enslaved African people weren’t passive in the face of their captivity, and tracks the various revolts and rebellions that helped to drive out slavery as a practise, particularly on the island of Haiti.
This book also serves as a skewering of western Marxism. I’m a huge leftie, but I’m also believe that all ideologies need to be criticised to move forward, especially when said ideology is hundreds of years old. I loved reading the latter chapters where Robinson goes through and analyses the politics of thinkers like W. E. B. Du Bois and Richard Wright, both of whom were drawn in by the communist movement before being disillusioned by the party’s racism and lack of understanding of the racialised nature of western labour.
So yeah, really great book. I wouldn’t necessarily blind-recommend it because it’s definitely not for every reader. It’s extremely dense, and Robinson often assumes prior-knowledge of events and language that I personally had to look up (especially in the opening chapters - I’m a nerd, but there’s only so far my knowledge of medieval European history goes). But if you can get through the academic language and slow pace, it’s a very rewarding read.
I can’t do justice to have broad his scope is, going across continents and colonies, correcting and expanding the historical record as he goes. Robinson makes clear that enslaved African people weren’t passive in the face of their captivity, and tracks the various revolts and rebellions that helped to drive out slavery as a practise, particularly on the island of Haiti.
This book also serves as a skewering of western Marxism. I’m a huge leftie, but I’m also believe that all ideologies need to be criticised to move forward, especially when said ideology is hundreds of years old. I loved reading the latter chapters where Robinson goes through and analyses the politics of thinkers like W. E. B. Du Bois and Richard Wright, both of whom were drawn in by the communist movement before being disillusioned by the party’s racism and lack of understanding of the racialised nature of western labour.
So yeah, really great book. I wouldn’t necessarily blind-recommend it because it’s definitely not for every reader. It’s extremely dense, and Robinson often assumes prior-knowledge of events and language that I personally had to look up (especially in the opening chapters - I’m a nerd, but there’s only so far my knowledge of medieval European history goes). But if you can get through the academic language and slow pace, it’s a very rewarding read.
ciara032's review against another edition
5.0
“Western Marxism [...] has proven insufficiently radical to expose and root out the racialist order that contaminates its analytic and philosophic applications or to come to effective terms with the implications of its own class origins. As a result, it has been mistaken for something it is not: a total theory of liberation.” (p.317)
“Harbored in the African diaspora there is a single historical identity that is in opposition to the systemic privations of racial capitalism. Ideologically, it cements pain to purpose, experience to expectation, consciousness to collective action. It deepens with each disappointment at false mediation and reconciliation, and is crystallized into ever-increasing cores by betrayal and repression. The resoluteness of the Black radical tradition advances as each generation assembles the data of its experience to an ideology of liberation.” (p.317)
Cedric J. Robinson writes in such an intelligent and eloquent way & it’s easy to see why this is such a prominent text. all leftists should read this but specifically white leftists, it is critical to understanding Marxism as it relates to the current state of capitalism and the intersections of class and race.
“Harbored in the African diaspora there is a single historical identity that is in opposition to the systemic privations of racial capitalism. Ideologically, it cements pain to purpose, experience to expectation, consciousness to collective action. It deepens with each disappointment at false mediation and reconciliation, and is crystallized into ever-increasing cores by betrayal and repression. The resoluteness of the Black radical tradition advances as each generation assembles the data of its experience to an ideology of liberation.” (p.317)
Cedric J. Robinson writes in such an intelligent and eloquent way & it’s easy to see why this is such a prominent text. all leftists should read this but specifically white leftists, it is critical to understanding Marxism as it relates to the current state of capitalism and the intersections of class and race.
tiredadventurer's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.75
Interesting book that was a bit of a slog at times. I think it raised valid critique against traditional marxist thought although it felt like it lacked a certain follow through or big picture conclusion to it all.
garberdog's review against another edition
4.0
I read this for fun with a friend who is by far better informed about Marxist theory than I am. Which was important, because although Black Marxism is a rewarding read, it is at times a dense and difficult one.
The argument is that an autonomous, Black radical tradition exists outside of Western Marxism. This book offers an important corrective to hegemonic Western historiography and white Marxism.
However, the author somehow failed to discuss gender or sexuality in any significant way, making for an androcentric text that ignores the crucial contributions of Black women to the struggle for Black liberation. As my friend pointed out, Ida B. Wells did the essential work of exposing lynching as white supremacist violence. How could any account of a Black radical tradition overlook her work, as just one example of many. This was a deeply disappointing component of the text. As such, I would recommend this book be supplemented with Dorothy Robert's Killing the Black Body, Angela Y. Davis' Women, Race, & Class, and Patricia Hill Collins' Black Feminist Thought as necessary complements to this text.
The argument is that an autonomous, Black radical tradition exists outside of Western Marxism. This book offers an important corrective to hegemonic Western historiography and white Marxism.
However, the author somehow failed to discuss gender or sexuality in any significant way, making for an androcentric text that ignores the crucial contributions of Black women to the struggle for Black liberation. As my friend pointed out, Ida B. Wells did the essential work of exposing lynching as white supremacist violence. How could any account of a Black radical tradition overlook her work, as just one example of many. This was a deeply disappointing component of the text. As such, I would recommend this book be supplemented with Dorothy Robert's Killing the Black Body, Angela Y. Davis' Women, Race, & Class, and Patricia Hill Collins' Black Feminist Thought as necessary complements to this text.
daithi's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
A long, but crucial text on racial capitalism and the black radical tradition that rose in resistance to it. Covers a variety of Black radicals in a way that overviews their work and how important they are to the tradition. Links this intellectual tradition to the history of resistance and resisting communities across the world during the expansion of the imperial powers and colonialism.
shapersyris's review against another edition
5.0
The book is definitely a challenging read. It probably challenged me intellectually more so than any other book I have read to date, but it is a phenomenal work of scholarship that every student of the Black Radical Tradition should read at least once in their life.