Resistance and Decolonization: (Reinventing Critical Theory)

About the Book

How can a people overthrow 500 years of colonial oppression? What can be done to decolonize mentalities, economic structures, and political institutions? In this book, which includes the first translation of the text ‘Analysis of a Few Types of Resistance’ as well as ‘The Role of Culture in the Struggle for Independence,’ the African revolutionary Amílcar Cabral explores these and other questions. These texts demonstrate his frank and insightful directives to his comrades in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde’s party for independence, as well as reflections on culture and combat written the year prior to his assassination by the Portuguese secret police.
As one of the most important and profound African revolutionary leaders in the 20th century, and justly compared in importance to Frantz Fanon, Cabral’s thoughts and instructions as articulated here help us to rethink important issues concerning nationalism, culture, vanguardism, revolution, liberation, colonialism, race, and history. The volume also includes two introductory essays: the first introduces Cabral’s work within the context of Africana critical theory, and the second situates these texts in the context their historical-political context and analyzes their relevance for contemporary anti-imperialism.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments / Part I. Amílcar Cabral and Critical Theory: Introductions, Investigations, and Interpretations / 1.The Weapon of Critical Theory: Amílcar Cabral, Cabralism, and Africana Critical Theory, Reiland Rabaka / 2. Imbrications of Coloniality: An Introduction to Cabralist Critical Theory in Relation to Contemporary Struggles, Dan Wood / Bibliography to Part I / Translator’s Note / Bibliography to the Translator’s Note / Part II. Analysis of a Few Types of Resistance / 3.Political Resistance / 4. Economic Resistance / 5. Cultural Resistance / 6. Armed Resistance / 7. The Role of Culture in the Struggle for Independence / Index

About the Author :

Amilcar Cabral (1924-1973) was a writer, intellectual and one of Africa’s foremost anticolonial leaders. He led the nationalist movement for Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde Islands and the ensuing revolution for independence in Guinea Bissau. He was assassinated by the Portuguese secret police in January 1973.

Dan Wood, the translator, is a PhD candidate in Philosophy at Villanova University.

Reiland Rabaka is Professor of African, African American and Caribbean Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Review :
Amilcar Cabral defines African critical theory as well as radical African politics. This book shows the unfailing engagement and the rigourous thinking a concrete philosopher needs in order to decolonize a society. That’s true even in contemporary struggles. This book belongs to the “postcolonial library” Resistance and Decolonization is a tour-de-force in the bourgeoning field of Cabral studies and/or the epistemology that can be called Cabralism from the decolonial epistemic perspective. The spectre of Cabral haunts us and the fundamental questions which he raises from the positionality of being dehumanized bring about the unmasking of coloniality in the modern colonial world.Dan Wood’s translation, as a decolonial testament, instils that Cabral still lives and another world is possible. Wood has […] performed a great service with this translation, not just to those who maintain an interest in African philosophy or Global Theory, but to philosophers, cultural critics, political scientists, and political theorists more generally. Cabral offers rich insight into the role and importance of culture in expanding Marxism to address modern national liberation and identity movements. Cabral is then useful to a broad range of philosophers and activists in critical race theory, politics of identity, transitional justice, and decolonialism. More generally, Resistance and Decolonialization is essential and successful in rendering African critical theory and its rich insights more visible. This is a very important and timely publication that adds to existing collections of Amílcar Cabral’s revolutionary writings and is therefore a welcome addition to the works of one of the most original African thinkers of national emancipation during the 20th century. These essays introduce us to Cabral the trans-disciplinary Africana critical social theorist, who picks up the weapon of theory not only in liberation of the wretched of the earth, but also to eradicate ‘the condition of the wretchedness’ and ‘realise anticolonial revolution, trans-ethnic working-class struggle and revolutionary humanism’.