Frantz Fanon and Richard Philcox's "The Wretched of the Earth": A Classic Analysis of Colonialism

Aran Joseph Canes: There is one reason the Wretched of the Earth continues to be read today. While billed as a foundational text in anti-colonialism it is actually a guide to Marxist praxis.

In it, Fanon discusses how the intelligentsia should be handled, when to rely on the proletariat and when to rely on peasants and how to engage in successful guerrilla warfare against an occupier.

While some of the goals are laudable and some of his analysis of colonialism prescient there are also a number of sentences that were to have awful repercussions; most significantly, his claim that it is moral to kill those settlers who are not even members of the army or police to advance the revolution.

I can’t say I recommend this book unless you want to understand how radical some parts of the Marxist-Critical school still are. For example a line like, “Modern Europe was built on the sweat and labor of the colonized” and the use of the pejorative term “whiteness” seem to resonate beyond the 1960s into the present day. But the book is really intended as a field guide to staging a Marxist takeover of a colonized nation. As such, it should now have limited interest.

United States on Aug 31, 2023

mike wilson: As a dialectician, Fanon surpasses Machiavelli. His analyses of class and race are meticulously detailed. One disturbing aspect of his work is that, because it’s so irrefutable, it may not be possible to use it as a guide for avoiding missteps; e.g., his warning that urban socialists must reach out to anti-scientific rural masses (which we see today in the wide ideological chasm between progressive socialist liberals and the exploited evangelical Christian middle and working classes). Because of the insurmountable human traits of short-sighted ego thinking and strategies formed in ideological silos, this work could be subtitled, “What to expect when you’re having a revolution.”

United States on Sep 05, 2022

padre viejo: i am 90 years old. i was a student in the 60s but i had already served in the military so i was already in my 30s. Which meant with a wife and twins i was more concerned with earning a living and finishing my doctorate than participating BUT it was a time when we swung one way as a nation and we were part of the post war swing of the world. The world had developed empires, WW1 began their downfall, ww2 pretty much finished the rest BUT it opened the door for new imperialism. On one hand colonialism melted away. The greatest empire ever, the British faded to legend and an island itself breaking up. American imperialism sprouted along with Soviet. And now China and Russia. One old model, Russia, one new model China. But the world i cyclical not progressive so China may become another imperial power. Fanon is an antidote as are other writers of the 60s so good to see new editions. Many rebels are now out of print. History is always ignored but it is always present.

United States on Jul 12, 2022

Lee: This is a must read for everyone.

Canada on Jul 26, 2021

Anthony M.: One of the best books to convert racists into anti-racists.

Canada on Aug 17, 2020

Bryhre K. Cormack: This book exceeded my expectations.

Canada on Jul 22, 2020

Amazon Customer: It is a very well written book and I will highly recommend it to my friends. I am now probably going to read the original version.

India on Jun 29, 2020

Fredric Henderson: Many will try and dismiss The Wretched of the Earth as a irrelevant product of the Third World militantism of the 60's but should think again. The movements Fanon believed in may be in the past but dangerously increasing inequality is creating a world of a growing class of the wretched, just as enraged as Fanon's subjects. Now, however, this disparity is not just between the First and Third world's, it is everywhere.

Mexico on Dec 25, 2019

Shava Nerad: I actually like the idea of supporting a press that is publishing Fanon.

When I was growing up with my dad working with the SCLC and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as part of the night security crew for the summer marches, I was probably more aware than most Americans -- certainly most Americans outside of the black community -- of how much permeability there was between the nonviolent SCLC, and the Black Panther movement, for which Fanon was a seed influence.

Youth in the SNCC organization, the youth group associated with the SCLC, often went back and forth between SNCC and the Panthers as they developed their activist identity and their ideas of how justice might be achieved.

The phrase "by any means necessary" used by the Panthers often scared the bejeezus out of the white community. But when I sat down with my father -- who was an adherent of formal nonviolence -- he handed me Fanon to read, and told me that it was a valid investigation as to whether violence should be considered if nonviolent means were not entertained by the state.

To my dad, who was a peaceful but fiercely justice-oriented man (for those of you who know the idiom "fire of Amos" he...

United States on Mar 28, 2019