Nonfiction. Political Science. African American Studies. Marxism. Edited by David Austin. YOU DON'T PLAY WITH REVOLUTION collects seven never-before-published lectures by Marxist cultural critic C.L.R. James, delivered during his stay in Montreal in 1967-1968. Ranging in topic from Marx and Lenin to Shakespeare and Rousseau to Caribbean history and the Haitian Revolution, these lectures demonstrate the staggering breadth and clarity of James's knowledge and interest. Little information exists in print on the critical period James spent working with West Indian intellectuals and students in Canada in the late 1960s; this collection highlights the themes we have come to associate with James's critical project and situates them in a new light. Readers just beginning to delve into James's work will find this collection accessible and engaging, an ideal introduction to a complex and multi-faceted body of scholarship. Editor David Austin has also included two seminal interviews produced with James during his stay in Canada, and a series of letters James exchanged with the West Indian university students who made these lectures possible.

Author City: Trinidad TRI

In the West Indies, C.L.R. James is honored as one of the fathers of independence. In Britain he is feted as a historic pioneer of the black movement. He is generally regarded as one of the major figures in Pan-Africanism, and a leader in developing a current within Marxism that was democratic, revolutionary, and internationalist. His long life and impressive career played out in Trinidad, England, and America. For the last years of his life, he lived in south London and lectured widely on politics, Shakespeare, and other topics. He died there in 1989.