Lexington Books
Pages: 456
Trim: 6¼ x 9¼
978-0-7391-0775-1 • Hardback • December 2004 • $161.00 • (£125.00)
978-0-7391-0925-0 • Paperback • December 2004 • $56.99 • (£44.00)
978-0-7391-5311-6 • eBook • December 2004 • $54.00 • (£42.00)
John H. McClendon III is Associate Professor of African American Studies and American Cultural Studies at Bates College.
Chapter 1 Reminiscences of the James Legacy
Chapter 2 Political Context and Philosophical Locus: The Trotskyite/Stalinist Polemic
Chapter 3 James on Understanding and Reason: Kant, Hegel, and German Idealism
Chapter 4 Hegel's Idealism: Marxist Materialist Reading and Inversion
Chapter 5 James's Locus as Marxist Philosopher: The Humanist/Anti-Humanist Debate
Chapter 6 Comparing Notes: James and Lenin on Hegel and Dialectical Materialism
Chapter 7 Lenin's Theory of the Vanguard Party: Contra James's Self-Activity of the Proletariat
8 Afterword: Beyond the Boundary of the Johnson-Forest Tendency
In passing over stodgy traditional Marxist writings, McClendon has focused on the stupendous West Indian thinker, C. L. R. James. Having received from James a personal copy of James' treatise, McClendon magnificently dissects and clarifies this research, persuasively arguing that James's Notes should be the first read for all contemporary Marxist scholars.
— Malik Simba, California State University, Fresno
John McClendon is a rare breed: he's got the uncommon and uncanny ability to talk about complicated (or complicated-sounding) things in an accessible, engaging way. John's powers of explanation are of extraordinary value to the Left — and to political discourse more generally.
— C.S. Soong, host of Against the Grain on KPFA (Pacifica) Radio
This is a remarkable book, and certainly one of the most sophisticated treatments of James I have read. It is thoroughly researched and tightly argued. And it is an unsurpassed tribute to C. L. R. James. . . . In addition to being the only major treatise on what is perhaps James' most significant contribution to Marxist theory, this book also fills a major gap in the literature on contemporary Marxism, most of which has been written by European or North American authors who have ignored the works of James.
— Alex Dupuy, Wesleyan University