A dialogue held in Amherst, Massachusetts, where Rodney discussed his own political and intellectual development, and exchanged views on the role of the Black intellectual

In 1974, Walter Rodney, author of How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, The Groundings with My Brothers and other works, visited the historic institute of the Black World in Atlanta, Georgia. With the institute's members, he discussed his own political and intellectual development and exchanged views on the role of the black intellectual. Her talked at length about the dramatic struggles taking place in southern Africa and about the political economy of African American society. This special book grew out of that dialog, which was never resumed because of Rodney's politically motivated assassination in his native Guyana. Walter Rodney lived with and among black and progressive peoples on four continents and in several areas of the Caribbean. He worked in all these contexts as a historian, university teacher, popular lecturer, social critic and political theorist, and he was an unswerving advocate of the oppressed and exploited classes, especially those of the black world. He was actively involved in the global struggle for freedom... In this work of sustained reflection, Walter tells us in his own words how he came to be the person that he was. He reflects on the nature and meaning of his life at a critical juncture in his career. ...He also discusses his view on the leading political and social trends in Africa, the Caribbean and Black America during the mid-1970s--a period of critical shifts in Pan-African and world affairs. For all who seek to continue grounding with this brother, this work is essential. -From the Introduction by Howard Dodson Chief, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library Walter Rodney delivered many hundreds of speeches. One day, we hope, a selection of those speeches that survive will be made available. The present work will fulfill its purpose if it contributes toward that goal by providing the public with a small but significant example of Walter Rodney's incomparable intellectual penetration, a gift he eloquently employed in order to make the most complex political and historical subjects fully comprehensible to a popular audience. -From the Foreword by Robert A. Hill Editor, Marcus Garvey Papers at the University of California at Los Angeles

"I have sat on a little oil drum, rusty and in the midst of garbage, and some black brothers and I have grounded together." - Walter Rodney In his short life, the Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution, leading movements in North America, South America, the African continent, and the Caribbean. In each locale, Rodney found himself a lightning rod for working class Black Power. His deportation catalyzed 20th century Jamaica's most significant rebellion, the 1968 Rodney riots, and his scholarship trained a generation how to think politics at an international scale. In 1980, shortly after founding of the Working People's Alliance in Guyana, the 38-year-old Rodney would be assassinated. In this classic work published in the heady days of international black power, Groundings with My Brothers details the global circulation of emancipatory ideas, but also offers first-hand reports of Rodney's mass movement organizing. Introduced and contextualized by leading Caribbean scholar-activists, this updated edition brings Rodney's legacy to a new generation of radicals.

“A call to arms in the class struggle for racial equity”—the hugely influential work of political theory and history, now powerfully introduced by Angela Davis (Los Angeles Review of Books). This legendary classic on European colonialism in Africa stands alongside C.L.R. James’ Black Jacobins, Eric Williams’ Capitalism & Slavery, and W.E.B. Dubois’ Black Reconstruction. In his short life, the Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution, leading movements in North America, South America, the African continent, and the Caribbean. In each locale, Rodney found himself a lightning rod for working class Black Power. His deportation catalyzed 20th century Jamaica's most significant rebellion, the 1968 Rodney riots, and his scholarship trained a generation how to think politics at an international scale. In 1980, shortly after founding of the Working People's Alliance in Guyana, the 38-year-old Rodney would be assassinated. In his magnum opus, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Rodney incisively argues that grasping "the great divergence" between the west and the rest can only be explained as the exploitation of the latter by the former. This meticulously researched analysis of the abiding repercussions of European colonialism on the continent of Africa has not only informed decades of scholarship and activism, it remains an indispensable study for grasping global inequality today.

African news making headlines today is dominated by disaster: wars, famine, HIV. Those who respond - from stars to ordinary citizens - are learning that real solutions require more than charity. This book provides a comprehensive, panoramic view of US activism in Africa from 1950 to 2000, activism grounded in a common struggle for justice. It portrays organisations, activists and networks that contributed to African liberation and, in turn, shows how African struggles informed US activism, including the civil rights and black power movements.

A never-before published history of the Russian Bolshevik Revolution and its post-colonial legacy, woven together from lecture excerpts by the renowned Pan-African revolutionary socialist theorist In his short life, Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the foremost thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution, leading movements in North America, Africa, and the Caribbean. Wherever he was, Rodney was a lightning rod for working-class Black Power organizing. His deportation sparked Jamaica’s Rodney Riots in 1968, and his scholarship trained a generation how to approach politics on an international scale. In 1980, shortly after founding the Working People’s Alliance in Guyana, the 38-year-old Rodney was assassinated. Walter Rodney’s The Russian Revolution collects surviving texts from a series of lectures he delivered at the University of Dar es Salaam, an intellectual hub of the independent Third World. It had been his intention to work these into a book, a goal completed posthumously with the editorial aid of Robin D.G. Kelley and Jesse Benjamin. Moving across the historiography of the long Russian Revolution with clarity and insight, Rodney transcends the ideological fault lines of the Cold War. Surveying a broad range of subjects—the Narodniks, social democracy, the October Revolution, civil war, and the challenges of Stalinism—Rodney articulates a distinct viewpoint from the Third World, one that grounds revolutionary theory and history with the people in motion.

Early in life, Walter Rodney became a major revolutionary figure in a dizzying range of locales that traversed the breadth of the Black diaspora: in North America and Europe, in the Caribbean and on the African continent. He was not only a witness of a Pan-African and socialist internationalism; in his efforts to build mass organizations, catalyze rebellious ferment, and theorize an anti-colonial path to self-emancipation, he can be counted among its prime authors. Decolonial Marxism records such a life by collecting previously unbound essays written during the world-turning days of Black revolution. In drawing together pages where he elaborates on the nexus of race and class, offers his reflections on radical pedagogy, outlines programs for newly independent nation-states, considers the challenges of anti-colonial historiography, and produces balance sheets for a dozen wars for national liberation, this volume captures something of the range and power of Rodney's output. But it also demonstrates the unbending consistency that unites his life and work: the ongoing reinvention of living conception of Marxism, and a respect for the still untapped potential of mass self-rule.

Walter Rodney is revered throughout the Caribbean as a teacher, a hero, and a martyr. This book remains the foremost work on the region.

Political science emerged as a response to the challenges of imperial administration and the demands of colonial rule. While not all political scientists were colonial cheerleaders, their thinking was nevertheless framed by colonial assumptions that influence the study of politics to this day. This book offers students a lens through which to decolonize the main themes and issues of political science - from human nature, rights, and citizenship, to development and global justice. Not content with revealing the colonial legacies that still inform the discipline, the book also introduces students to a wide range of intellectual resources from the (post)colonial world that will help them think through the same themes and issues more expansively. Decolonizing Politics is a much-needed critical guide for students of political science. It shifts the study of political science from the centers of power to its margins, where the majority of humanity lives. Ultimately, the book argues that those who occupy the margins are not powerless. Rather, marginal positions might afford a deeper understanding of politics than can be provided by mainstream approaches.​

Half a century after independence poverty and disease continues to ravage more than 70% of the inhabitants of the most resource rich continent of the world. State corruption persists as the only industry with steady growth while those that should offer employment to the majority inhabitants of the continent are on the decline. How Africa Underdevelops Africa presents an exegesis of how corruption and its numerous effects are playing out in Africa. With the myth of Asias rise here demystified, Africa has no longer just the Western world to learn from, it could and should necessarily borrow from the social capital values of the East to ensure even distribution of the wealth which at the present rests with an avaricious few who with their cronies tag themselves leaders of Africa.