Publication date:
16 July 2014Length of book:
386 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksISBN-13: 9780739192108
By examining Amilcar Cabral’s theories and praxes, as well as several of the antecedents and major influences on the evolution of his radical politics and critical social theory, Concepts of Cabralism:Amilcar Cabral and Africana Critical Theory simultaneously reintroduces, chronicles, and analyzes several of the core characteristics of the Africana tradition of critical theory. Reiland Rabaka’s primary preoccupation is with Cabral’s theoretical and political legacies—that is to say, with the ways in which he constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed theory and the aims, objectives, and concrete outcomes of his theoretical applications and discursive practices. The book begins with the Negritude Movement, and specifically the work of Léopold Senghor, Aimé Césaire, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Next, it shifts the focus to Frantz Fanon’s discourse on radical disalienation and revolutionary decolonization. Finally, it offers an extended engagement of Cabral’s critical theory and contributions to the Africana tradition of critical theory. Ultimately, Concepts of Cabralism chronicles and critiques, revisits and revises the black radical tradition with an eye toward the ways in which classical black radicalism informs, or should inform, not only contemporary black radicalism, African nationalism, and Pan-Africanism, but also contemporary efforts to create a new anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist, and anti-imperialist critical theory of contemporary society—what has come to be called “Africana critical theory.”
Rabaka contributes to radical black politics and Africana critical social theory and exceeds expectations on both counts. Six chapters guide readers through a corpus that 'draws from a diverse array of often eclectic and enigmatic sources and, therefore, offers no closed system or absolute truths.'. . . .Rabaka's critical introduction outlines Cabral’s biography and the genealogy of his thought. Chapter 1 begins with a provocative claim: 'in many respects Frantz Fanon and Amilcar Cabral represent the pillars and pinnacle of the Africana tradition of critical theory in the second half of the 20th century.' The author situates the dialectic task before black thinkers as 'challenging both whites’ demonization and Blacks’ romanticism' of Africa. Chapter 2 carefully outlines Fanon’s challenge to negritude. Fanon’s method for apprehending the totalizing effects of European colonialism becomes cartographic in Rabaka’s reading of Cabral’s engagement with colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, Marxism, and history. The book ends by articulating Cabral’s usefulness for Rabaka’s larger vision of Africana critical theory. An original contribution to Africana philosophy and studies, critical theory, and currently reemerging anticolonial paradigms throughout the academy. A must-have. Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates and above.