Fanon: In Search of the African Revolution

First published in 1986. Fanon: In Search of the African Revolution is different from other books on Fanon in that it approaches him as both a political philosopher and political sociologist of the African experience. It suggests that Fanon's political writings be viewed in terms of his concern with how relations are structured in colonial and post-colonial Africa and the implications of those structural arrangements for political conflict in Africa. Fanon's attempt to explain the pathologies and contradictions of African politics in terms of class and the historical processes that influence and constrain class political behavior is provocative and insightful. But the moral dimension that informs Fanon's theoretical perspectives is no less important, if only because it attests to his strong advocacy of the need for revolutionary change as a condition for the restructuring of African political systems.