In this new edition of Nkrumah and the Ghana Revolution, C. L. R. James tells the history of the socialist revolution led by Kwame Nkrumah, the first president and prime minister of Ghana. Although James wrote it in the immediate post-independence period around 1958, he did not publish it until nearly twenty years later, when he added a series of his own letters, speeches, and articles from the 1960s. Although Nkrumah led the revolution, James emphasizes that it was a popular mass movement fundamentally realized by the actions of everyday Ghanaians. Moreover, James shows that Ghana’s independence movement was an exceptional moment in global revolutionary history: it moved revolutionary activity to the African continent and employed new tactics not seen in previous revolutions. Featuring a new introduction by Leslie James, an unpublished draft of C. L. R. James's introduction to the 1977 edition, and correspondence, this definitive edition of Nkrumah and the Ghana Revolution offers a revised understanding of Africa’s shaping of freedom movements and insight into the possibilities for decolonial futures.

C. L. R. James (1901–1989), a Trinidadian historian, political activist, and writer, is the author of Beyond a Boundary, World Revolution, 1917–1936: The Rise and Fall of the Communist International, and other books, all also published by Duke University Press.

Editor's Note  vii
Acknowledgments  ix
Introduction. Ghana and the Worlds of C.L.R. James / Leslie James  xi
Nkrumah and the Ghana Revolution
Introduction | 1977 Edition  5
Part I
1. The Myth  23
2. The Masses Set the Stage  33
3. The People in 1947  41
4. The Revolution in Theory  50
5. The Men on the Spot  65
6. The People and the Leader  76
7. Positive Action  104
8. The Party under Fire  113
9. The Tip of the Iceberg  124
Part II
1. Government and Party  135
2. 1962: Twenty Years After  149
3. Slippery Descent  152
4. Lenin and the Problem  158
5. “ . . . Always out of Africa”  179
Appendix 1 | Correspondence, 1957  189
Notes on Appendix 1 / Leslie James  189
Extract of letter from C.L.R. James to the Correspondence Publishing Committee, Addressed to Martin Glaberman  190
Letters from C.L.R. James to the Correspondence Publishing Committee  191
Appendix 2 | “Africa: The Threatening Catastrophe—A Necessary Introduction,” 1964  199
Note on Appendix 2 / Leslie James  199
Introduction from “Nkrumah Then and Now”  200
Notes  221
Index  229