Walter Rodney's Intellectual and Political Thought

Placing Walter Rodney's (1942-1980) work in the larger tradition of West Indian involvement with continental Africa, this study traces the evolution of Rodney's political ideas through examination of his life, his writings on Africa and the Caribbean, and his political practice. A West Indian, Pan-Africanist, and Marxist, Rodney functioned in the intellectual tradition of C. L. R. James, Henry Sylvester-Williams, and George Padmore of Trinidad and Tobago, Theophilus Scholes and Marcus Garvey of Jamaica, and the collective force of the Rastafarian movement-although his post-colonial-era perspective set him apart from these earlier figures. Continuing to receive critical attention today, Rodney's work is largely concerned with reconstructing the political economy of the Atlantic slave trade and analyzing its consequences for Africa, Europe, and the Americas.