Discourse on Colonialism

Book Description

"CÃ©saire's essay stands as an important document in the development of third world consciousness--a process in which [he] played a prominent role."
--Library Journal

This classic work, first published in France in 1955, profoundly influenced the generation of scholars and activists at the forefront of liberation struggles in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Nearly twenty years later, when published for the first time in English, Discourse on Colonialism inspired a new generation engaged in the Civil Rights, Black Power, and anti-war movements and has sold more than 75,000 copies to date.

AimÃ© CÃ©saire eloquently describes the brutal impact of capitalism and colonialism on both the colonizer and colonized, exposing the contradictions and hypocrisy implicit in western notions of "progress" and "civilization" upon encountering the "savage," "uncultured," or "primitive." Here, CÃ©saire reaffirms African values, identity, and culture, and their relevance, reminding us that "the relationship between consciousness and reality are extremely complex. . . . It is equally necessary to decolonize our minds, our inner life, at the same time that we decolonize society." An interview with CÃ©saire by the poet RenÃ© Depestre is also included.

Customer Reviews:

happy customer.......2007-09-22

the quality of the product was the very best. it also arrived when i expected it too. i needed it in a crunch time and it came through beautifully.

revolutionary appeal for decolonization.......2007-07-16

This is a fascinating book for folks interested in the international decolonization movement of the 50s and 60s, and its relation to the Black Power movement in the States. The Discourse is beautifully written and passionately argued. The interview helps clarify Cesaire and Senghor's concept of "Negritude" as an early form of Black pride, rather than racial essentialism. The essay introduction is worthwhile since it puts the book in relation to Cesaire's poetic work and the Surrealist movement in France, America, and the Antilles. It's unduly dismissive of Cesaire's Marxist politics, especially since it goes against the spirit of the interview appended at the end.

A Passionate Argument Against Colonialism.......2005-12-25

This was a required text for a class I took this past semester, Introduction to African Studies. The author, Aime Cesaire, is known in Africa and France for his moving poetry, but he was also a politician. Born and raised in Martinique, a Caribbean island that was then a colony of France and is now a "departement", Cesaire studied in Paris on a scholarship. While he was there, he met Sedar Senghor and Leon Damas, and together they founded the Negritude movement, which rejected French colonialism in favor of a transnational black identity. After World War II, Cesaire was elected to the French National Assembly to represent Martinique, as a member of the French Communist Party. But he eventually became disillusioned, both with the Communist Party's lack of effort to address race issues and with the idea that Martinique continued on as a French colony. It was around this time, in 1955, that he published Discourse on Colonialism. This is Cesaire's attempt to describe the far-reaching impact colonialism has on both the oppressor and the oppressed. He also stresses the idea of one black identity, encompassing the peoples of Africa, African Americans in the United States, and those that live in the Caribbean. Cesaire's writing is very strong and passionate, and what I thought was most interesting about his arguments is that he uses the very words of notable European writers and philosophers to demonstrate how the colonizers' efforts often resulted in barbarization rather than civilization. It is very easy to see why this book had such a great impact on the pan-African and civil rights movements in America. Five stars for both writing and enjoyment.

For the US, an Eyeopener with our involvement with IRAQ.......2005-03-14

In Aimé Césaire's "Discourse on Colonialism," She very blatantly voices her opinion that a (European) civilization that is:

...incapable of solving the problems it creates is a decadent civilization. A civilization that chooses to close its eyes to the most crucial problems is a stricken civilization. [and finally] A civilization that uses its principles for trickery and deceit is a dying civilization. (31)

As well as applying for both Britain's presence in Southeast Asia and the Caribbean, and France's colonial presence in Africa and the Caribbean, this powerful statement could become an equation for the line drawn between one country's involvements with another.

For example, here is an unmistakable connection here to the US' involvement in Iraq. Are we as a nation decadent? Stricken? Dying? The over $155B spent in Iraq (...) instead of other national priorities. Cesaire's points are very relevant to the times as she brings further knowledge and past histories into the damage of Colonialism: "...at the present time the barbarism of Western Europe...being only surpassed...by the barbarism of the United States" (47).
She talks about the `gangrene' of impartiality, in regards to the French hearing stories that are disturbing and pornographic. "Colonization, I repeat, dehumanizes even the most civilized man" (Césaire 41). A theme prevalent in films such as Black Girl, Chocolat, and Xala. It is easy to be impartial when one is ignorant.

good perception.......2004-01-23

I read Cesaire's 'discours sur le colonialisme' in one afternoon at a coffe place and it was captivating in how intellectually he wrote, with tinges of attitude in the words. A lot of the things he wrote about I already knew from studying a lot about Africa before and what ethnocentricism vs. ethno relativism means when applying yourself and perceptions of other cultures. This book is as applicable in the 1950's as today, I found that America seems to be the new France and Britain, as far as imperialism goes.

This book has so many good points about how one must look at the non Occidental world. Whenever I hear people talking about Africa in a degrading way in that the continent needs the Western world to give it medicine, schools, etc . . .it infuriates me with the lack of research these people have done. Although one can't expect everyone to know, but they would at least get a glimpse if they read this. They would see that it is the fault of the Occidentaux which is why Africa is in the state it is now. Before Europeans went there, the people of this rich, great continent had their own cultures, laws, languages, writing, religions that worked very well for them. Because they were different than Europes ways, they were viewed as primitive and uncivilized, but you can't measure a civilization by the same standards of another, far different one. Just because they didn't write their history down, doesn't mean they didn't have it. They used oral tradition for this, which is just one example of the European's prejudice. If Europe never went there, these African civilizations very well could have flourished and become great as the passage of time went along.

Colonization has done it's damage, Cesaire talks about decolonizing our minds, I wonder how long that will take to accomplish? I would recommend this short read to anyone who wants to try to get out of their own cultural shell and think about the way the world is viewed from the viewpoint of others.

Frantz Fanon is a more compelling read though, try "black skin, white masks" or "l'an V de la revolution algerienne/a dying colonialism"

Colonialism/Postcolonialism (The New Critical Idiom)

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INTRODUCING THE POST COLONIAL
A good introduction to colonialism and postcolonialism

Colonialism/Postcolonialism (The New Critical Idiom)
Ania Loomba
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0415350646

Book Description

Colonialism/Postcolonialism is a remarkably comprehensive yet accessible guide to the historical and theoretical dimensions of colonial and postcolonial discourses. It is the essential introduction to the vibrant, crucially important areas of literary and cultural study usually known as postcolonial theory, postcolonial studies and colonial discourse theory.

Building on her widely acclaimed first edition, Ania Loomba examines:
* the key features of the ideologies and history of colonialism
* the relationship of colonial discourse to literature
* challenges to colonialism, including anticolonial discourses
* recent developments in postcolonial theories and histories
* issues of sexuality and colonialism, and the intersection of feminist and postcolonial thought
* debates about globalization and postcolonialism

Fully updated for the second edition, with an entirely new discussion of globalization, Colonialism/Postcolonialism should be on the shelf of every student of literature culture or history.

Customer Reviews:

INTRODUCING THE POST COLONIAL.......2003-10-05

Comqests and Exodus are as old as human race&hence colonising is no new thing.But when we speak about colonialism we now mean the domination of Asia Africa &the far east by euoropean powers.Ania loomba analyses the phenomenon with unusual insight .
Loomba explores the mindset which lead to the conquest of the orient with the help of the wellknown Edward said book"orientalism"but never loses sight of the ground realities.Nor does she forgets the struggles of the oriental people which began almost simultaneous with the colonisation itself.She never loses sight of the great leaders GANDHI fANON &THE LIKE
She also mentions with prophetic insight the impending danger of neo colonialism.On the whole I feel It is the best Introduction to the theory called Post colonialism

A good introduction to colonialism and postcolonialism.......2000-04-09

I read the book in the process of selecting a text-book that would serve the purpose of introducing my students to the tricky issues pertaining to colonialism and post-colonialism. I would have given it five stars if it were not for the author's failure sometimes in sufficiently expalining some of the terminology in connection with thinkers who influenced this discipline. I had no trouble sailing through her review of Said, Althusser, Fucault and other thinkers whose work I am familiar with but my students are not. I would definitely recommend this book for anyone interested in a conscise introduction to colonialism and postcolonialism but I have to warn you that some background reading is required first or else the first 30 or 40 pages would read like Double-Dutch to the uninformed or first-timer.

Society and Space: Colonialism, Nationalism, and Postcolonial Identity in Sri Lanka (Transitions : Asia and Asian America)

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Society and Space: Colonialism, Nationalism, and Postcolonial Identity in Sri Lanka (Transitions : Asia and Asian America)
Nihal Perera
Manufacturer: Westview Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

Sri Lanka | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

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Book Description

Society and Space traces the historical construction of contemporary social space in Sri Lanka. Utilizing a world-systems perspective, landscape interpretation, and theories of colonial architecture and urbanism, Nihal Perera looks at colonized, decolonized, and postcolonial Sri Lanka through the lens of successive spatial transformations. Writing from a position in the "postcolonial periphery," the author argues that the politics governing the construction of space of primary importance for those seeking to understand a particular society and culture.

Living with Colonialism: Nationalism and Culture in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan

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Powerful insights into an elites failure of imagination

Living with Colonialism: Nationalism and Culture in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan
Heather J. Sharkey
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Africa | History | Subjects | Books

Sudan | Africa | History | Subjects | Books

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Egypt | Middle East | History | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0520235592

Book Description

Histories written in the aftermath of empire have often featured conquerors and peasant rebels but have said little about the vast staffs of locally recruited clerks, technicians, teachers, and medics who made colonialism work day-to-day. Even as these workers maintained the colonial state, they dreamed of displacing imperial power. This book examines the history of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1898-1956) and the Republic of Sudan that followed in order to understand how colonialism worked on the ground, affected local cultures, influenced the rise of nationalism, and shaped the postcolonial nation-state.
Relying on a rich cache of Sudanese Arabic literary sources, including poetry, essays, and memoirs, as well as on colonial documents and photographs, this perceptive study examines colonialism from the viewpoint of those who lived and worked in its midst. By integrating the case of Sudan with material on other countries, particularly India, Sharkey gives her book broad comparative appeal. She shows that colonial legacies--such as inflexible borders, atomized multi-ethnic populations, and autocratic governing structures--have persisted, hobbling postcolonial nation-states. Thus countries like Sudan are still living with colonialism, struggling to achieve consensus and stability within borders that a fallen empire has left behind.

Customer Reviews:

Powerful insights into an elites failure of imagination.......2005-04-25

An eye opening book. Details how the British ruled the colonial Sudan by helping create and educated, at the Gordon Memorial College (present day University of Khartoum), a technocratic class of lower level clerks and minor civil servants. This literate class collaborated with the Empire in ways that allowed a handful of British bureaucrats to rule the vast area of Sudan. But in many ways there was ambivalence and suspicion of each others motives, and feelings of frustrated ambition on the side of the Sudanese. The British used their own racial and imperial prejudices in selecting Arabic speaking groups and families to draw into this class and excluded Southerners and others they termed "detribalized blacks". In doing so they influencing the class's ideas of itself and their environment, and shaped their very narrow vision of the future post colonial nation. A national vision that proved to be as elitist, statist and unable to incorporate the reality of a diverse and complex Sudan. It is this central lack of vision that lies at the heart of the Sudan's failure to build an inclusive nation. It is a sad commentary that the same elite still sees itself as a conduit for propagating western civilization, in the form of such alien ideologies as "secularism", to an essentially savage nation.

As a product of this class I am amazed to realize just how narrow this class has remained. Again and again I recognized the actors in this book as being the grandparents of my colleges and friends. In the mid-eighties my educated parents convinced me to withdraw from an English university and return to matriculate at The University of Khartoum. It has been one of the most profound decisions I have ever made.

Cinema, Colonialism, Postcolonialism: Perspectives from the French and Francophone Worlds

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Cinema, Colonialism, Postcolonialism: Perspctives from the French and Francophone Worlds

Cinema, Colonialism, Postcolonialism: Perspectives from the French and Francophone Worlds

Manufacturer: University of Texas Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Movies | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0292777035

Book Description

In this first major study of French colonial and postcolonial cinema, Dina Sherzer compiles essays by some of the foremost scholars on the subject who interrogate and analyze the realities behind the images of the nation's past and present. Through an examination of France and its colonies, multiethnic contemporary France, and cinematic discourses which have been and are being produced about France's colonial past, these authors explore how the images relay underlying assumptions and their relation to historical and political facts. A variety of subjects and viewpoints inform these studies, which cover the entire range of films on that topic.

The authors expound upon the role French and Francophone films are currently playing in reconstructing and imagining France's colonial past. Not only do the essays examine how French cinema has represented the encounter of French citizens with individuals from former colonies during the colonial era; they examine how French cinema has portrayed and has come to terms with the immigration of former colonial subjects to France. In addition, the book features another postcolonial facet by analyzing films of directors from the former colonies who give their own representation of colonialism and presentation of their culture.

This study is a major contribution to postcolonial research. Race, gender, and geography are central themes throughout this book that presents innovative material that contributes to the history of French cinema and emphasizes how cinema participates in and is a part of national culture.

Customer Reviews:

Cinema, Colonialism, Postcolonialism: Perspctives from the French and Francophone Worlds.......2007-05-13

The relationship between colonial/postcolonial studies and cinema as a means of expression has been a hot topic on campuses in recent years, and this book is a good introduction to film's ability to express what sometimes gets lost in written works that have continued to go untranslated.

The Holy Land in Transit: Colonialism And the Quest for Canaan (Middle East Studies Beyond Dominant Paradigms)

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The Holy Land in Transit: Colonialism And the Quest for Canaan (Middle East Studies Beyond Dominant Paradigms)
Steven Salaita
Manufacturer: Syracuse University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

ASIN: 081563109X

Book Description

A pioneering comparative analysis of colonialism in the New World and Holy Land, exploring the ways in which settler societies transform theological narratives into national histories to justify their occupation of foreign land.

Steven Salaita's ambitious and thought-provoking work compares the dynamics of settler colonialism in the United States related to Native Americans with the circumstances in Israel related to the Palestinians, revealing the way in which politics influences literary production.

The author's original approach is based not on similarities between the two disparate settler regions but rather on similarities between the rhetoric employed by early colonialists in North America and that employed by Zionist immigrants in Palestine. Meticulously examining histories, theories, and literary depictions of colonialism and interethnic dialects, Salaita identifies the commonalities in the myths employed by both groups as well as the "counter-discourse" cultivated in the literature of resistance by native peoples. He complements his analysis with personal observations of Palestinians in Lebanese refuge camps, where he encountered a sympathetic perception of American Indians.

Book Description

Long repressed following the collapse of empire, memories of the French colonial experience have recently gained unprecedented visibility. This interdisciplinary volume explores the multiple forms of this upsurge and the forces driving it in popular culture, scholarly research, and public commemorations.

Empire and Poetic Voice: Cognitive and Cultural Studies of Literary Tradition and Colonialism (Suny Series: Explorations in Postcolonial Studies)

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Empire and Poetic Voice: Cognitive and Cultural Studies of Literary Tradition and Colonialism (Suny Series: Explorations in Postcolonial Studies)
Patrick Colm Hogan
Manufacturer: State University of New York Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

African | History & Criticism | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Caribbean & Latin American | History & Criticism | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0791459640

Book Description

Explores the relation of post-colonization authors to literary traditions.

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