The Wretched of the Earth

I actually like the idea of supporting a press that is publishing Fanon. When I was growing up with my dad working with the SCLC and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as part of the night security crew for the summer marches, I was probably more aware than most Americans -- certainly most Americans outside of the black community -- of how much permeability there was between the nonviolent SCLC, and the Black Panther movement, for which Fanon was a seed influence. Youth in the SNCC organization, the youth group associated with the SCLC, often went back and forth between SNCC and the Panthers as they developed their activist identity and their ideas of how justice might be achieved. The phrase "by any means necessary" used by the Panthers often scared the bejeezus out of the white community. But when I sat down with my father -- who was an adherent of formal nonviolence -- he handed me Fanon to read, and told me that it was a valid investigation as to whether violence should be considered if nonviolent means were not entertained by the state. To my dad, who was a peaceful but fiercely justice-oriented man (for those of you who know the idiom "fire of Amos" he had it), he considered that without the counterpoint of the Panthers, MLK would never have gotten a hearing in Washington DC. Just the idea that there were revolutionaries in American society looking at American "apartheid" and saying, "We are willing to take care of our own if you separate us. We see our situation as that of a post-colonial slavery society and use the model of African liberation as our model. We are willing to be peaceful if we are given justice in peace, but we do not believe that you are acting in good faith and will use whatever means necessary to see you follow your own promises of justice and see justice for our own people if you will not see that done." That was actually a step down from Fanon. That was actually optimism. But all white Americans heard out of any of that was: "...by any means necessary." They didn't think of how they were creating the circumstances that might precipitate violence. That whites had created a system that instituted violence to keep slaves, and later free blacks, contained and preserve power and privilege for the white majority. It is hard for most Americans to even realize that America -- although we became independent from England -- continued as a colonial nation and economy on our own continent and territory. That all the institutions of the repression and destruction of indigenous and imported-slave cultures that happened "over there" in countries that Europeans colonized far from home, we did at home as a break-away colony, and the Europeans who conquered America never relented, compromised, or acknowledged that colonial reality in the way that the Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, French, and British Empires did in their colonial domains. So Fanon is someone worth reading, not only for Africans, or for African-Americans, but for any American or anyone else in the world who wants to better ponder white privilege in America and how it became so very different from colonial privilege as that faded in Africa, through the lens of this Algerian revolutionary philosopher, who so influenced our Panthers. I remain committed to nonviolence personally, but I understand intensely how MLK and Malcolm balance each other. And how that can actually lead to better peaceful solutions, in a social justice conflict where the status quo has been preserved by judicial and extrajudicial violence by a superior force. This is still relevant in puppet regimes all over the world. In client states of capitalist powers and of Russia and China. In the conflicts surrounding Israel, and the conflicts throughout the Middle East and Central Asia that are often couched in sectarian terms or sectarian vs secular terms. It is vital to understanding countries like Zimbabwe or South Africa, where the dynamics of early black leadership as colonial-wannabes are creating environments of corruption and scandal, and robbing their own people. Everyone should read Fanon. If you can't afford the book here, you can find it online free. This book, and Black Skin, White Masks, both highly recommended. If you don't like Marxist/Socialist politics, try to suspend disbelief a bit. The philosophy, sociology, and psychology is amazing.

classic work on imperialism

This is a review of the 2004 Grove paperback edition of Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth The Wretched of the Earth is the most famous work of Algerian revolutionary Franz Fanon (1925-1961) finished and published shortly before his death (he died of leukemia). Fanon is known above all as a theorist of revolutionary violence and a champion of its therapeutic good for the oppressed. However, this book is not about armed struggle only; it covers many other topics: theory of class conflict in colonies, revolutionary process and subjects of social change in the Third World, the future of new independent states (former colonies), strategies of building Third World—First World relations in a right way, the relationship between the struggle for national culture and national liberation struggles, consequences of colonialism for both the colonizer and the colonized, etc. It’s a book of an angry man; the author's revolutionary pathos and standing with the oppressed (‘the wretched of the earth’) are noticeable. Though Fanon wrote his book drawing on the experience of the Africa of the 1950s an acute reader can easily notice similarities and parallels with what’s going on in the underdeveloped countries all over the world. The book can be of particular use for anthropologists, historians, philosophers, sociologists, as well as for those interested in cultural studies. I prefer Richard Philcox’s translation to the one published in 1963. Citizens of the global South can skip Jean-Paul Sartre’s preface; let the author speak for himself.

Fanon describes the character of (European) colonialists, the colonised Africans (the "masses" - rural and urban, the elites, the nationalists, the tribalists) wonderfully. The book is wonderfully written - Fanon must have been a good writer. Fanon is a psychiatrist, and worked in Algeria as psychiatrist, but he many have travelled other African countries too. His book shows his deep knowledge of both African and European sociology, psychology and politics. The book is still relevant; his analysis as to what will happen after the liberation of African countries is amazingly valid. He is in a way one of the most important African (though he is born in Latin America) sociologist and political scientist. Fanon's book starts on "violence", he doesn't shy away from prescribing violence in the struggle for liberation. Some find Fanon advocating violence, but that is not the case. He puts in perspective the violence perpetrated by colonists against the resulting reaction that culminates in the violence of the colonised. His clear analysis demystifies the violence that still grips Africa. Unfortunately Fanon seems to put all European in Africa as colonists. Many cases from South Africa show that that should not be the case. But his views may be due to the brutal repression he has to witness and experience in Algeria by the French government and French citizens there.

The type of text that can bring about a breakthrough in consciousness, it places world affairs in perspective for the seeker of an authentic African consciousness.

Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth is an important document in the history of imperialism capturing the state of the Algerian revolution and the struggle for independence in the Third World at a crucial time. The year was 1961, and the book was published just before Fanon's premature death. Algeria was a year away from independence. The Congo had just achieved a travesty of independence. The Cuban revolution was still fresh. Fanon was born in Martinique but was fully committed to the Algerian cause by the end of his life. His insights into the pitfalls threatening newly-independent nations have proved to be uncannily accurate. His voice is of his time and ahead of his time. I would recommend this book to those wanting to learn more about the Algerian War and to those curious about the huge effect of this book on the leftists of the 1960s.

i am 90 years old. i was a student in the 60s but i had already served in the military so i was already in my 30s. Which meant with a wife and twins i was more concerned with earning a living and finishing my doctorate than participating BUT it was a time when we swung one way as a nation and we were part of the post war swing of the world. The world had developed empires, WW1 began their downfall, ww2 pretty much finished the rest BUT it opened the door for new imperialism. On one hand colonialism melted away. The greatest empire ever, the British faded to legend and an island itself breaking up. American imperialism sprouted along with Soviet. And now China and Russia. One old model, Russia, one new model China. But the world i cyclical not progressive so China may become another imperial power. Fanon is an antidote as are other writers of the 60s so good to see new editions. Many rebels are now out of print. History is always ignored but it is always present.

The Wretched of the Earth is a classic work that is essential reading for scholars and students who seek to understand the ravages of western imperialism over centuries. It interrogates the psychological consequences of imperialism on people of the third world. Essential reading.

Many will try and dismiss The Wretched of the Earth as a irrelevant product of the Third World militantism of the 60's but should think again. The movements Fanon believed in may be in the past but dangerously increasing inequality is creating a world of a growing class of the wretched, just as enraged as Fanon's subjects. Now, however, this disparity is not just between the First and Third world's, it is everywhere.

Great condition

Print quality is good. First ever book of Grove press. Good quality. Better than the Penguin Modern Classic edition.

The book explores nationalism, imperialism and the colonialism with enviable clarity and purpose.

Excelente.