Walter Rodney

Walter Rodney
Born	23 March 1942 Georgetown, British Guiana
Died	13 June 1980 Georgetown, Guyana
Cause of death	Assassination by bomb

Walter Rodney was a Guyanese Marxist and anti-imperialist historian, political activist and academic. His works remain highly influential

Early life and Education

Walter Rodney was born in 1942 into a working-class family in Georgetown, Guyana. His parents struggled to get him through primary school. He attended Queens College in Georgetown where he won an open scholarship to the University of the West Indies to read history. In secondary school he distinguished himself in extra-curricula activities. He was in the student cadet corps, as well as being a high jumper and a debater.

He attended the University College of the West Indies in 1960 (in Jamaica) and was awarded a first-class honours degree in history in 1963. He earned a PhD in African History in 1966 at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, at the age of 24. Rodney’s thesis was published by Oxford University Press as A history of the Upper Guinea coast 1545-1800. Before he finished his Doctorate in 1966 he married Patricia Henry from Guyana, who was studying in England. While in London, he organized a Marxist study group that met once a week.

He published journal articles in the Journal of African History on 'Portuguese Attempts At Monopoly on the Upper Guinea Coast 1580-1650', in 1966, 'A Reconsideration of the Mane Invasions of Sierra Leone', in 1967, and 'African Slavery and Other Forms of Social Oppression On The Upper Guinea Coast In The Context of the Atlantic Slave Trade', in 1966.

Political Life and Pan-African Activism and Scholarship

Tanzania and Jamaica (1966-1969)

Rodney began teaching as a professor in Tanzania in 1966. He left in 1967 for Jamaica and returned to Tanzania for five years in 1969.

Work

His work A View from the Third World describes many liberal criticisms of the Soviet Union as idealist or un-materialist.

Bibliography

On African History

• A History of the Upper Guinea Coast 1545-1800
• How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
• West Africa and the Atlantic Slave Trade (East African Publishing House, Nairobi, 1967). 'European Activity and African Reaction in Angola' in Aspects of Central African History, edited by 0. Ranger (Heinemann, London, 1968)
• 'The Guinea Coast' in The Cambridge History of Africa 1600-1790 Vol.4, edited by Richard Gray
• 'African Slavery in the Context of the Atlantic Slave Trade' in The Black Americans, Interpretive Readings, edited by Seth Scherner and Tilden Edlestein (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1971)
• 'Gold and Slaves on the Gold Coast', Transactions of the Ghana Historical Society, Vol.X, 1969
• 'Upper Guinea and the Significance of the Origins of Africans Enslaved in the New World', Journal of Negro History, No.4, 1969
• 'Recruitment of Askari in Colonial Tanganyika', East African University Social Science Conference Papers, 1973
• 'African Slavery and Other Forms of Social Oppression on the Upper Guinea Coast in the Context of the Atlantic Slave Trade' in Perspectives of the African Past, also in Journal of African History, VII, 3, 1966.
• 'Portuguese Attempts At Monopoly On the Upper Guinea Coast, 1580-1850, Journal of African History, VI, 3, 1965.
• 'A Reconsideration of the Mane Invasion of Sierra Leone', Journal of African History, VIII, 2, 1967.
• 'West Africa and the Atlantic Slave Trade', Historical Association of Tanzania, Paper No.2, 1967.
• 'Jihad and Social revolution in Futa Djalon in the Eighteenth Century', The Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, Vol.4, No.2, June 1968.
• 'The Year 1985 in Southern Mozambique African Resistance to th Imposition of European Colonial Rule', The Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, Vol.V, No.4, June 1971.
• 'Africa Under Foreign Domination, 1880-1935 - the Colonial Economy, in a General History of Africa, edited by A. Bohaan.

On Imperialism

• 'The Imperialist Partition of Africa', Monthly Review, Special Edition 'Lenin Today', Vol.21, 1970.

On the Neo-Colonial Period- The State- Tanzania

• 'Education in Africa and Contemporary Tanzania' in Education and Black Struggle, Notes from the Colonized World, Harvard Educational Review, No.2, 1974.
• 'Tanzania Ujamaa and Scientific Socialism', African Review, Vol.2, No.1, April, 1972.
• 'African History and Development Planning', Movement, 1974. 'State Formation and Class Formation in Tanzania', Maji Maji, (Dar es Salaam), 1973. World War 2 and the Tanzanian Economy, Cornell University, Africana Studies and Research Centre, Ithaca, 1976.
• 'Politics of the African Ruling Class', transcription of a lecture given in USA, 1974.
• 'Notes on Disengagement from Imperialism', East African University Social Science Conference, 1970.
• 'Class Contradictions in Tanzania' in The State in Tanzania, edited by Haroub Othman,.
• 'Education and Tanzanian Socialism' in Revolution by Resolution, edited by I. Resnick

On Socialist Transformations

• 'Declaration: Implementation Problems', Mbioni, Journal of Kivukoni College, Dar es Salaam, August 1967
• . 'Guyana's Socialism: An Interview with Walter Rodney', Colin Prescod, Race and Class, XVIII, No.2, 1976.
• 'Transition', Transition, Vol.1, No.1, (Guyana), 1978.
• The Struggle Goes On, A WPA Publication, Georgetown, Guyana, August 1979, reprinted by WPA Support Group (UK), London, June 1980.
• People's Power, No Dictator, A WPA Publication, (Georgetown, Guyana, 1979).
• 'Will The World Listen Now?' an interview with Walter Rodney in Guyana Forum, Vol.1, No.3, June 1980.

On Politics in the Carribean and Caribbean and Guyanese History

• Some Thoughts on the Colonial Economy of the Caribbean, delivered at the Carribean Unity Conference, Howard University, Washington DC, April 21, 1972,
• A New Beginning Pamphlet. Guyanese Sugar Plantations in the Late 19th Century - A Contemporary Description from the Argosy, edited and introduced by Walter Rodney, (Release Publishers, 258 Forshaw Street, Georgetown, Guyana 1979).
• A History of the Guyanese Working Class, (John Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1980). 'Contemporary Trends in the English-Speaking Caribbean', Black Scholar, Vol.7, No. 1, 1975.
• 'The Colonial Economy: Observations on British Guiana and Tanganyika', Institute of Commonwealth Studies Seminar Papers, 1977.
• 'Immigrants and Racial Attitudes in Guyanese History', Institute of Commonwealth Studies Seminar Papers, 1977.
• 'Internal and External Constraints on the Development of Guyanese Working Class', Georgetown Review, Vol.1, No.1, August 1978.

On Pan-Africanism

• 'Towards the Sixth Pan-African Congress, Aspects of the International Class Struggle in Africa, the Caribbean and America, 1975

On Rastefarianism

• The Groundings With My Brothers