C.L.R. James: A Political Biography (Suny Series, Interruptions--Border Testimony(Ies) and Critical Discourse/S)

C. L. R. James, West Indian author and historian, sometime cricket correspondent for The Manchester Guardian, Africanist, Marxist and black intellectual, is an extraordinary 20th century figure. His history of the Haitian slave revolution, The Black Jacobins, is a masterpiece of humanity and empathy, a classic. He lived in Britain and the United States, where he was friendly with the New York left and the emerging black writers, Richard Wright and . Yet he lived most of his life on the fringe, his ideas disseminated through tiny groups. Paradoxically, he loved America. His study of , essentially an attack on Stalinism, was written while imprisoned on Ellis Island awaiting deportation during the McCarthy era. Kent Worcester has written an in-depth biography.