The Wretched of the Earth [Paperback]

Frantz Fanon (Author), Richard Philcox (Translator), Jean-Paul Sartre (Preface), Homi K. Bhabha (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 12, 2005

A distinguished psychiatrist from Martinique who took part in the Algerian Nationalist Movement, Frantz Fanon was one of the most important theorists of revolutionary struggle, colonialism, and racial difference in history. Fanon’s masterwork is a classic alongside Edward Said’s Orientalism or The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and it is now available in a new translation that updates its language for a new generation of readers. The Wretched of the Earth is a brilliant analysis of the psychology of the colonized and their path to liberation. Bearing singular insight into the rage and frustration of colonized peoples, and the role of violence in effecting historical change, the book incisively attacks the twin perils of postindependence colonial politics: the disenfranchisement of the masses by the elites on the one hand, and intertribal and interfaith animosities on the other. Fanon’s analysis, a veritable handbook of social reorganization for leaders of emerging nations, has been reflected all too clearly in the corruption and violence that has plagued present-day Africa. The Wretched of the Earth has had a major impact on civil rights, anticolonialism, and black consciousness movements around the world, and this bold new translation by Richard Philcox reaffirms it as a landmark.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Frantz Fanon (1925-61) was a Martinique-born black psychiatrist and anticolonialist intellectual; The Wretched of the Earth is considered by many to be one of the canonical books on the worldwide black liberation struggles of the 1960s. Within a Marxist framework, using a cutting and nonsentimental writing style, Fanon draws upon his horrific experiences working in Algeria during its war of independence against France. He addresses the role of violence in decolonization and the challenges of political organization and the class collisions and questions of cultural hegemony in the creation and maintenance of a new country's national consciousness. As Fanon eloquently writes, "[T]he unpreparedness of the educated classes, the lack of practical links between them and the mass of the people, their laziness, and, let it be said, their cowardice at the decisive moment of the struggle will give rise to tragic mishaps."

Although socialism has seemingly collapsed in the years since Fanon's work was first published, there is much in his look into the political, racial, and social psyche of the ever-emerging Third World that still rings true at the cusp of a new century. --Eugene Holley, Jr. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

“The writing of Malcolm X or Eldridge Cleaver or Amiri Baraka or the Black Panther leaders reveals how profoundly they have been moved by the thoughts of Frantz Fanon. —The Boston Globe

“Have the courage to read this book.”—Jean-Paul Sartre

“This century’s most compelling theorist of racism and colonialism.” –Angela Davis

“The value of The Wretched of the Earth [lies] in its relation to direct experience, in the perspective of the Algerian revolution. . . . Fanon forces his readers to see the Algerian revolution—and by analogy other contemporary revolutions—from the viewpoint of the rebels.”—Conor Cruise O’Brien, Nation

“The Wretched of the Earth is an explosion.”—Emile Capouya, Saturday Review

“This is not so much a book as a rock thrown through the window of the West. It is the Communist Manifesto or the Mein Kampf of the anticolonial revolution, and as such it is highly important for any Western reader who wants to understand the emotional force behind that revolution.”—Time

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; Reprint edition (March 12, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802141323
• ISBN-13: 978-0802141323
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.9 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14,296 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #2 in Books > History > Africa > Algeria
  • #3 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > International & World Politics > African
  • #7 in Books > History > Africa > North Africa

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 38 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fanon, champion of the Third World November 5, 2004

By Rachel L. Steen

Format:Paperback

Almost all prominent black revolutionaries of the 1960s, from Malcolm X, Huey Newton, Nelson Mandela carried heavy influences from Fanon's writings in their struggles from social change and racial equality. However, Fanon's "wretched of the Earth" could arguably be the ultimate manifesto, or bible of Third World liberation. Fanon was no Gandhi, though. ; he makes his strongest point to suggest that all solutions to decolonization lay on violent revolution by using the Frech-colonized Algeria as a model and his Manichean (Good Vs. Evil), or bipolar portrayal of the endless antagonism that naturally arises between the colonized and the settler.

Fanon describes the conditions that emerge to allow for a war of liberation to take a foothold, the wave of repression unleashed

by the occupying army to put down the rebellions, and most interestingly - because it is what has taken place ever since - the prospects of continued exploitation by the established relationship between the new "revolutionary" bourgeoisie and the former colonizer country after the nationalist struggle and pressure at home had forced its withdrawal.

Fanon gives psychologycal analyses to testimonies given by his Algerians and French patients during the war period, and who had been affected directly or otherwise by the war. Cases involving French soldiers and police's torture, selective asassinations, surviving a mass killing, and gang rapes of rebels' wives by the French are some of which Fanon describes with chilling detail in the appendix.

"The Wretched of the Earth" remains an invaluable document that testify to the often overlooked argument made by numerous armed movements of the 1960s as revolutions broke out throughout the ex-colonized World.

43 of 50 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Must Read March 5, 2004

By LS

Format:Paperback

This is a very useful book to anybody interested in understanding colonialism and its effects in Africa. Colonialism was a military project, and Fanon explained that clearly. Fanon does not shy away from suggesting the use of force, if necessary, to achieved freedom. But this book is not about the use of force/violence to achieve freedom, and should not be regarded as such. It is a book that explains western attitudes towards the colonized world, their willingness to use violence, their assault on African culture, and the curruption of African leaders after independence. Do not forget that independence came to Africa, after the French, the British and Belgians were given a clear warning about the fate that was awaiting them in other parts of Africa by the FLN (in Algeria), the MAU MAU movement (in Kenya), and the very aggressive movement for indepence in the Congo and Ghana. Europe was distoryed after World War II, and their armies could no longer sustain their military projects in Africa. This vulnerability was exploited by African leaders. That is why they failed in maintaining direct colonial control of their former colonies. When you ready this excellent material, you will appreciate Fanon's foresight:-his warning to Africans(and every colonized country)to take their destiny into their own hands: saying that every generation must out of relative obscurity, find its mission, fulfill it or betray it. A warning that most Africans ignored after independence. To anybody interested in the works of people like Dr. Walter Rodney, Aime Cesaire, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, and Basil Davidson, this book is a "Must Read". Please read other Fanon material: Toward African Revolution, Dying Colonism, Black Skin White Masks. Interesting reading! Every African must read Fanon's books!

50 of 61 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fanon Does Not Glorify Violence! (and Other Corrections) July 11, 2003

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Those reviews that castigate Fanon for "glorifying violence" ought to be ignored. Fanon is writing, among other things, a phenomenology of anti-colonialism. It is meant neither as a recommendation nor a condemnation but as a description of the objective truth of a historical condition. That is, for Fanon reverse racist violent nationalism is a stage in the emergence of a political consiciousness that will eventually overcome and, indeed, renounce its own beginnings. What is remarkable is that people at present are so manifestly incapable of reading a dialctical unfolding such as this. The violence of the Algerian War had already largely taken place at the time of Fanon's writing and, let it be recalled, it was primarily the murder of Algerians by the French, for whom African imperialism is still a profitable if somewhat unsavory business.
While Fanon tracks the stages in the evolution of a radical anti-capitalist consciousness in the underdeveloped world, there is no question of his endorsing or advocating violence. One has only to read the final chapter on the psychological effects on both the colonizer and the colonized to see that Fanon is acutely aware of the brutality for all concerned of the Algerian War, even or, indeed, especially, for the oppressors themselves. There is certainly no question of his endorsing the indiscriminate horrors committed that were committed by the FLN against their oppressors.
The other thing, of course, that the petulant, anti-intellectual, ahistorical reactionaries who have shared their opinions here conveniently ignore is the violence inherent in the settler colonialism Fanon was addressing. As for the comparison with India, it is indeed illuminating, and one might profitably develop Fanon into a critique of the post-colonial India elite. After all, the real thrust of the book is its attempt to push anti-imperialism in a genuinely democratic direction, insofar as this was even possible for a largely peasant agricultural society caught within a much larger capitalist cosmos. At any rate, contra one reviewer, in the much-vaunted democracy of India, were peasants substantially liberated by the Indian National Congress from their indebtedness and from coercive labor practices? For his part, Fanon is not content with such liberal eye-wash as the talk of "Indian democracy" achieved through non-violence. In stark contrast to many other romantic commentators, he is keenly aware that there is nothing save radical democratic organized politics that can prevent post-colonial societies from a descent into poverty, despair, and the reactionary resurgence of "leadership" and virulently post-traditional "ethnicities" and "religiosities" though, in the face of the further defeat of the radical left in the West, most likely there is nothing to prevent the implosion of the Third World and the exhaustion (and extermination) of progressive energies there. Pages 95ff. in which Fanon discusses the terrible brutality of the very attempt to create industrialism in a country such as Algeria, and the awful irony of "independence" from the wealth of the colonizer are powerful and utterly ignored by most "radicals" who refuse to see that the resources already exist for the world to enjoy both opulence and sustainability.
Another thing - Fanon is inconceivable without Marxism. It informs his every argument, even if his point is only to criticize actually existing Marxisms. Therefore, the claim that "Fanon is great, except for the Marxist bit" is absurd and puerile. The real problem is that that entire intellectual language and with it the vast majority of the history of 20th century social hope is being actively forgotten. The nuances of so much of Fanon lies in the way he handles, refashions, and pushes up against the limits of the Marxian legacy as it came to him. (The idea that Fanon is a "genius" and that there are none else like him is similarly an indication of a tragic social and political amnesia, and this is not meant to detract in the slightest from the incredible achievement that is both this work and youthful masterwork "Black Skins, White Masks").
Finally, to uncritically drag Fanon into the American context, as some other reviewers want to do, is, it seems to me, potentially extremely misleading. Far more so than "Black Skins," "Wretched" is a book of its time and place. Certainly, any comparison with Malcolm X, who was no leftist and certainly no Marxist, is hopelessly misguided. Never mind the fact that Fanon's project of a liberated Algeria can scarcely be compared with the project of black American radical activists. American blacks were not colonized but forcibly transported and enslaved. More importantly, American blacks live within the heart of capitalism and Fanon's recommendation to the New World descendents of slaves would never be so crackpot as a separatist black nationalism.
There are many good grounds for criticizing Fanon, but since few reviewers seem capable of even approaching those matters, a more basic commentary seemed necessary.