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Cover of The Black Jacobins by C. L. R. James

The Black Jacobins

C. L. R. James

  • 398 pages · about 7 hours
  • First published 1938
  • 25 editions
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1 About this book

The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution is a 1938 book by Trinidadian historian C. L. R. James, and is a history of the Haitian Revolution of 1791–1804. He went to Paris to research this work, where he met Haitian military historian Alfred Auguste Nemours.

James's text places the revolution in the context of the French Revolution, and focuses on the leadership of Toussaint L'Ouverture, who was born a slave but rose to prominence espousing the French Revolutionary ideals of liberty and equality.

These ideals, which many French revolutionaries did not maintain consistently with regard to the black humanity of their colonial possessions, were embraced, according to James, with a greater purity by the persecuted blacks of Haiti; such ideals "meant far more to them than to any Frenchman."

Summary adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Good for readers who want: history and a true life story.

  • History
  • Biography
  • Revolutionaries
  • Social history
  • Generals
  • PRO Gotham Book Mart
  • Haiti
  • Esclavage

2 About C. L. R. James

1901–1989

Cyril Lionel Robert James (4 January 1901 – 31 May 1989), who sometimes wrote under the pen-name J. R. Johnson, was a Trinidadian historian, journalist, activist, and Marxist writer. His works are influential in various theoretical, social, and historiographical contexts. His work is a staple of Marxism, and he figures as a pioneering and influential voice in postcolonial literature.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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