C. L. R. James: A Radical West Indian Vision of American Studies

Abstract

To MILLIONS OF WEST INDIANS, CANADIANS, AND LATIN AMERICANS, is more than the United States: it is North, Central, and South and the Caribbean-the Western Hemisphere. As a hemispheric endeavor Studies takes on a broader, more profound, nuanced, and radical significance than that which confines America to the United States. The history and contemporary reality of the various cultures are so intertwined that it is impossible to understand America in either its limited or its broader sense without reference to the experience of all the hemispheric inhabitants. At the Harvard commencement in 1983, Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes spoke for Latin Americans: We need your memory and your imagination or ours shall never be complete. You need our memory to redeem your past, and our imagination to complete your future.I C. L. R. James (1901-1989) was a West Indian whose works, like those of Fuentes, offer the possibility of enhancing our understanding of America and American Studies. James was an activist, an intellectual, and a revolutionary artist whose many books and essays dealt with radical politics, revolution, race and class, sports, culture, and pan-Africanism. He is the subject of two recent biographies.2 James's importance has been highlighted by a recent surge of interest in his work, reflected in the publication of new editions of many of his books and three volumes of selected writings.3 This essay examines