C.L.R. James

C. L. R. JAMES (1901-1989) was a Trinidadian-born historian, literary critic, and philosopher, and a leader of the pan-African movement. A prodigious and eclectic intellectual, he debated Marcus Garvey in England, confronted Trotsky in Mexico, and influenced leaders of African revolutions including Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana. He is perhaps best remembered for his 1938 masterwork, The Black Jacobins, the first major analysis of the Haitian Revolution in the context of the French Revolution. In addition to his many works of history and his political activism, he was known as well for occasional playwriting and fiction; his novel Minty Alley, written in 1927, was the first by a black West Indian to be published in Britain. James was also known as an avid sportsman; he was the cricket writer for The Manchester Guardian beginning in the 1930s, and his 1963 book, Beyond a Boundary, which he described as “neither cricket reminiscences nor autobiography,” has been hailed as the best single book on cricket ever written.