Race Against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, 1937-1957 / Edition 1

From the Publisher

"This story of the potential—and the obstacles—in building a solidarity movement across national boundaries retains its full relevance in today's world, even as it reveals an important chapter in the history of both African Americans and of the U.S. left."—Robert Schaffer, Monthly Review

"Race Against Empire . . . breaks much ground in current historiography on cold war and anti-colonial practices. . . . Race Against Empire is useful for its analysis of America's cold war policies; how these policies affected black political movements in the international sphere and how, ultimately, this led to the collapse of the prominent opponents of colonialism and significant challenges to US foreign policy abroad. But Race Against Empire is also important because it identifies a little-known constellation of intellectuals who, through creative and energetic insurgency in the context of cold war repressions, articulated the links necessary for building a movement of international solidarity among all oppressed peoples."—Larvester Gaither, Race and Class

"Although her central arguments are straightforward, they have a deep historical grounding. She gives attentionto the many long- and short-term conditions influencing the form and content of a diasporan identity in the 1940's. . . On the whole, Von Eschen paints a riveting portrait of a time in which radical anticolonialism and domestic Black civil rights marched hand in hand, before weathering the challenges of the Truman and Eisenhower years."—Clarence Long, Against the Current. January/February, 2000.

"Von Eschen has made an important contribution to the history of the black diaspora."—The International History Review

"Scholars of race, social movements, political science, or the mass media will find great value in this unsentimental account of a disturbing history."—Contemporary Sociology

"Highly readable, excellently researched and documented and containing numerous illustrations, Von Eschen's Race Against Time is to be highly recommended."—Black and Asian Studies Assoc. Newsletter