C L R JAMES - by Dave Renton

Press reviews

Date: 2007-05-19

'CLR James by Dave Renton illuminates a remarkable life. Apart from being one of the greatest writers cricket has known, James was a political activist, an acclaimed historian, and an intellectual. He was also a Marxist, expelled from teh USA for his Trotskyite leanings during the McCarthyite era. In addition, Renton explains how his support for colonial revolt inspired a generation of leaders in newly independent African nations. Who said sport and politics don't mix?' The Observer

'Dave Renton, a sociologist at Johannesburg University, writes crisply and well about James's politics. He justly praises The Black Jacobins, a marvellous study of a slave revolt led by the 'electrifying' Toussaint L'Ouverture against the French in Haiti in 1791. ... Renton is an admirer, but not uncritical. He laments that James's analyses were often over-abstract, shunning concrete realities. This may help to explain why James's novel, Minty Alley is nothing like as good as those of his fellow-Trinidadian VS Naipaul, but also why his literary criticism is almost always fr better than the other man's. While working for leftist groups in the US, James wrote a brilliant study of Melville's Moby-Dick, which he saw as a prediction of a scientific technocracy quite incapable of dealing with social crises.' DECLAN KIBERD, The Irish Times (Eire) read the whole article  

THE WISDEN CRICKETER – January 2008
Review by Stephen Fay

‘Readers drawn to Dave Renton’s readable biography by their love of James’s cricket writing will become better acquainted than they ever imagined they would … That is precisely what Renton wants: “One hope of this book is to persuade Marxists of the joys of cricket and followers of cricket of the calibre of James and James’s Marxism.” In this respect Renton’s biography is unique in the extensive canon of cricket literature.’

For a full review:

http://content-www.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/329055.html

 ‘C.L.R. James was many things: acclaimed historian, doyen of the Trotskyite left, friend and adviser to a generation of Caribbean and African independence leaders, and lifelong devotee of cricket. His Beyond a Boundary is widely regarded as the best book on the sport.
Dave Renton is nothing if not ambitious in his aim to “persuade Marxists of the joys of cricket, and followers of cricket of the calibre of James’ Marxism”. I doubt there will be many converts in the Pavilion at Lord’s, but the Trinidad-born polymath is a worthy subject.
Renton is clearly fascinated by James’s political journey. But he seems unwilling to engage with the contradictions of a man who combined great charisma with a reluctance to commit, either to people or to ideas.’ Lorien Kite, Financial Times Magazine November 24 2007
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/723bea20-9704-11dc-b2da-0000779fd2ac.html

Review in Cricketworld.com
New biography of the great 20th Century black intellectual, known as the ‘Cricketing Marxist’ and author of one of the finest cricket books ‘Beyond the Boundary’.

http://www.cricketworld.com/books/article/?aid=13226

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