Includes bibliographical references (p. [409]-429) and index.

Radical capitalism: the nonobjective character of capitalist development
The English working class as the mirror of production
Socialist theory and nationalism
The process and consequences of Africa's transmutation
The Atlantic slave trade and African labor
The historical archaeology of the Black radical tradition
The nature of the Black radical tradition
The formation of an intelligentsia
Historiography and the Black radical tradition
C.L.R. James and the Black radical tradition
Richard Wright and the critique of class theory

In this work, first published in 1983, Cedric Robinson demonstrates that efforts to understand Black people's history of resistance solely through the prism of Marxist theory are incomplete and inaccurate. Marxist analyses tend to presuppose European models of history and experience that downplay the significance of Black people and Black communities as agents of change and resistance. Black radicalism must be linked to the traditions of Africa and the unique experiences of Blacks on western continents, Robinson argues, and any analyses of African American history need to acknowledge this.