Best regards, Andrew Stewart
Begin forwarded message: > From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <[email protected]> > Date: February 18, 2021 at 11:17:03 AM EST > To: [email protected] > Cc: H-Net Staff <[email protected]> > Subject: H-Net Review [H-Africa]: Thornton on Douglas, 'Making The Black > Jacobins: C. L. R. James and the Drama of History' > Reply-To: [email protected] > > Rachel Douglas. Making The Black Jacobins: C. L. R. James and the > Drama of History. Durham Duke University Press, 2019. 320 pp. > $104.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-4780-0427-1; $27.95 (paper), ISBN > 978-1-4780-0487-5. > > Reviewed by John K. Thornton (Boston University) > Published on H-Africa (February, 2021) > Commissioned by David D. Hurlbut > > I recall clearly seeing the cover of C. L. R. James's _Black > Jacobins_ in the window of Follett's bookstore in Ann Arbor just > before Christmas break in 1968. A similar picture, drawn from the > same source, adorns the cover of Rachel Douglas's finely researched > history of that book and the larger project it was embedded in. I > bought it instantly and read it on my flight back home, and I can > safely say that it helped shape me as a historian. I was delighted to > read Douglas's book. > > Douglas reveals what the vast majority of readers do not know, that > the book was a long-term project of James's spanning over thirty > years and producing plays as well as books and articles. She does a > great service to all who admire, even with some skepticism, a book > that has been so influential and can remain in print and be relevant > nearly a century later. > > The subtitle of the book makes it clear that _Black Jacobins_ was as > much, or perhaps more, a drama as it was a historical text, even > though the plays that drove it were not widely performed, and only > long after the first appearance of the text. It is in the careful > analysis of the plays, in fact, that Douglas does a great part of the > work. > > James was not a professional historian; he was much more a literary > figure and activist, and one inclined to dramatic presentations, even > in his history. But he felt, Douglas argues, that drama would serve > his activist needs better than a purely academic book, while at the > same time, he also realized that he had to do historical work to make > the drama. > > _Making_ _the Black Jacobins_ is both an intellectual biography of > James himself as well as a biography of the book and associated > dramatic works and as such follows a roughly chronological outline, > while separating chapters on the historical work from those on the > dramatic ones. It is an organization that works well, and the book is > easy to follow. The project began, Douglas demonstrates, as a play > and one inspired by a short response to a racist diatribe by an > English scientist, fitting well into a long Caribbean tradition of > such responses. > > At the same time that James was moving to London and writing his > first play, he also embraced Marxism and soon became an important > figure in Western Marxism. The Marxist drive quickly engulfed simple > antiracism, and both _Black Jacobins_ and James's wider-reaching but > less famous _A History of Negro Revolt_ (1938) push racial redemption > aside for socialist internationalism. > > In the intervening sections, Douglas traces how James constantly > revises his vision of how to combine the redemptive narrative with > the socialist one. On one side, James began his vision of the Haitian > Revolution as the master work of one man--Toussaint > L'Ouverture--while recognizing that the socialist had to give credit > to the rank-and-file slaves who carried the revolution out. > > Revisions, traced in detail in both the plays and the 1963 second > edition of _Black Jacobins_, reveal that balance, refined through > Douglas's deploying of a vast array of drafts, revisions, > commentaries, and self-criticisms by James. These written texts have > then been reinforced by interviews with those who remembered the > period and knew James himself, at least in the later stages of the > long project. > > Douglas takes on a number of other writers about James, such as David > Scott or the various contributors to the _Black Jacobin Reader, _and > uses her deep knowledge of James's development to make good points > and commentary about their work. As a literary scholar, Douglas does > her job thoroughly and critically. > > A historian, however, misses some things in this fine book. For > example, we learn relatively little about how James did his > historical research, aside from that he spent a good deal of time in > France, though his French trips were both research- and > activist-oriented. _Black Jacobins_ is actually only lightly equipped > with footnotes, sometimes many pages pass between them, and the > footnotes are themselves vague--a reference to a whole archive, or a > major subset of archives without sufficient information to locate > them, as I discovered when I checked the footnotes in _Black > Jacobin_. Douglas rightly notes that he was more content to rework a > secondary source to suit his argument than to engage in original > critical reading. > > James's reliance on repurposing the factual elements of secondary > literature is particularly revealed in his dialogue with Lothrop > Stoddard's _The French Revolution in San Domingo _(1914). Stoddard > was a convinced racist and saw the revolution as simply a race war, > and not surprisingly, James does indeed drub Stoddard in the text and > at times in the footnotes. But Stoddard also did very extensive > research, by far the most of any historian up to his day, including > extensive research in the ninety-three cartons of the D-XXV section > of the French national archives, the core of any research agenda on > the revolution. James cites D-XXV occasionally, but then often uses > Stoddard for facts as well, where Stoddard has cited D-XXV > extensively. > > While Douglas does mention other works on the revolution, especially > Carolyn Fick's excellent and very well-researched book, she does not > fully present it in terms of the larger historiography on the > revolution. Instead, she only partially covers the historiography > extant relevant to _Black Jacobins_ and more recently, since James > was still working on the revolution into the 1970s. She admirably > traces its impact on the arts and of course in theater as well as > among activists, but spends less time on its (considerable) impact on > historiography. > > Likewise, in recognizing James's battle between his heroic Toussaint > and his Toussaint as leader-follower of the masses, James himself > sometimes lost track of the masses as having much to say, outside of > revolutionary fervor. To some degree he made up for this in the plays > following the original edition of the book, perhaps influenced, as > Douglas suggests, by the emergence of studies of the revolution from > below, but did not do much to revise the history in 1963 to reflect > his newer thinking. The African origin of the Haitian masses on the > eve of the revolution is scarcely touched in James's work, and more > to the point, the masses' actual lives and their agency outside of > making revolution are only poorly explored. > > Douglas also leaves another paradox in _Black Jacobins _unexplained, > which is the outcome of the revolution. James stopped his book with > the French leaving following Charles LeClerc's disastrous attempt to > retake the island. But aside from gaining independence, James never > discussed the later aftermath of the revolution, where one might > expect to see the building of some sort of proto-socialist state or > at least something along lines acceptable in Marxism. In some ways > that did happen in fact, as Laurent DuBois's book on the aftermath of > the revolution shows. One suspects that dwelling on Haiti's plight in > the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries may have seemed > embarrassing to James, as reflected in his not always cordial > relationships with Haitian intellectuals in Paris. > > However, Douglas's work is not a work of historiography and never > claims to be one. It is the study of a long project and its maker, > and one that is admirably researched and carefully argued. It is a > work that stands a chance of being a definitive one for its chosen > subject, in a field that is already well worked. > > Citation: John K. Thornton. Review of Douglas, Rachel, _Making The > Black Jacobins: C. L. R. James and the Drama of History_. H-Africa, > H-Net Reviews. February, 2021. > URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=55901 > > This work is licensed under a Creative Commons > Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States > License. > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#6491): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/6491 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/80733187/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
