James, C. L. R. (Cyril Lionel Robert), 1901-

Historian, Marxist intellectual of many talents, Cyril Lionel Robert James was born in Chaguanas, Trinidad and Tobago in 1901, and died in London, England in 1989.

James was prominent in the Pan-African and anticolonial movements of the mid-twentieth century; he is well known for historical studies of the black struggle for independence. In the book "The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution," generally regarded as his masterwork, he analyzes the socioeconomic roots and leading personalities of the Haitian revolution of 1791 to 1804, the first and only slave revolt to achieve political independence in world history. According to an interview, C. L. R. James had dramatized "The black Jacobins" in 1936 in England, before he wrote the book, and Paul Robeson played the leading part in 1936. In 1967, when the colonial struggles for emancipation had developed, he re-wrote it. The play was staged in Nigeria, in New York, on the BBC in London, and in Jamaica.