Rating: 
Summary: A good reference
Review: A great backdrop for a perspective on colonialism. This book in some cases can be applied to many cultural issues today.
Rating:
Summary: A good reference
Review: A great backdrop for a perspective on colonialism. This book in some cases can be applied to many cultural issues today.
Rating: 
Summary: Fanon, champion of the Third World
Review: Almost all prominent black revolutionaries of the 1960s, from Malcolm X, Huey Newton, Nelson Mandela carried heavy influences from Fanon's writings in their struggles from social change and racial equality. However, Fanon's "wretched of the Earth" could arguably be the ultimate manifesto, or bible of Third World liberation. Fanon was no Gandhi, though. ; he makes his strongest point to suggest that all solutions to decolonization lay on violent revolution by using the Frech-colonized Algeria as a model and his Manichean (Good Vs. Evil), or bipolar portrayal of the endless antagonism that naturally arises between the colonized and the settler.
Fanon describes the conditions that emerge to allow for a war of liberation to take a foothold, the wave of repression unleashed
by the occupying army to put down the rebellions, and most interestingly - because it is what has taken place ever since - the prospects of continued exploitation by the established relationship between the new "revolutionary" bourgeoisie and the former colonizer country after the nationalist struggle and pressure at home had forced its withdrawal.
Fanon gives psychologycal analyses to testimonies given by his Algerians and French patients during the war period, and who had been affected directly or otherwise by the war. Cases involving French soldiers and police's torture, selective asassinations, surviving a mass killing, and gang rapes of rebels' wives by the French are some of which Fanon describes with chilling detail in the appendix.
"The Wretched of the Earth" remains an invaluable document that testify to the often overlooked argument made by numerous armed movements of the 1960s as revolutions broke out throughout the ex-colonized World.
Rating:
Summary: Fanon's analysis of colonialism is penetrating.
Review: Although bound by the limitations of some of his Marxist assumptions, Fanon has exposed the racialized and hence invisible facets of the colonizing power.
Rating:
Summary: Crucial reading...
Review: Changed my views on many things...I'm so glad I spent the time carefully reading this.
Rating:
Summary: Colonialism from the other side
Review: Fannon's Wretched of the Earth is an interesting look at the relationship between a colonized country and it's colonizer. He also discusses the inevitablity of the overthrowing of the colonizing government by the people it rules. He states that this uprising must inevitabley be violent, For while the colonist is profiting from it's oppression of the colony, it will not willingly give the ruled country up. Fannon approaches his subject matter from a neo-marxist perspective. That is to say, the colonizer (in this case France) holds all of the means of production, and seeks to maintain it's power over the Colonized (in this case the Algierians). However, according to Fannon, the Algierians will eventually become aware (or, since this was written some time ago, did become aware) of their oppression, and will rise up against their oppressors.
Fannon also discusses the difficulties, and inherent problems in replacing the deposed government. He discusses the struggle for power that follows (different groups scrambling to gain the means of production). He also, describes the proper course that the country should take in order to rule itself properly. In doing this, Fannon seems to have a fairly realistic view of government struggle. He points out that the transition is going to be difficult. But he has high hopes for Algieria taking it's place on the world stage.
It's also interesting that Fannon is writing for Algierians. This isn't some manifesto aimed at France, or Europe in general (although he does criticize Europe). So, perhaps this book might be looked at as a handbook for many of the countries that threw off the shackles of colonialism around this time (perhaps even today). So,in some sense, it might be looked at as an attempt at Praxis.The latter portion of the book consists of a series of case studies concerning the effects that the end of Colonialism had on the people within the country (both French and Algierian people). Basically, this section is an example of the human reaction to the atrocities commited both by the colonial regime, and by the revolutionaries.
In all, I would recomend this to anyone interested in seeing Marx's ideas in a more contemporary context. I'd also recomend this to anyone with an interest in revolution and political violence.
Rating: 
Summary: a wretched book
Review: Fanon asserts that violence is necessary for colonized and opressed people to achieve liberation. Have none of the readers of this book ever heard of Gandhi or Martin Luther King? Not only can national liberation be achieved without violence, but India has proven itself to one of the more stable and democratic of the former colonial possessions. Further, violence is often if not always quite counterproductive. LBJ's civil rights program stalled after the Watts riots, and Seale, Newton, and the other Panthers were some of the best allies the right wing of America ever had. George Wallace and his kinder, gentler protege Ronald Reagan owe a lot of their political success to them and like minded groups. In much the same way the rise of the Israeli far right can be linked to Palestinian suicide bombers and other attacks on civilians. Of course these are facts and Fanon is theory and never the twain shall meet.
On a final note if I had I not had to read it myself I would not believe anything this utterly disgusting [] could be taught at a respectible university. This tripe helps me see why the right holds the academy in contempt, but why more progressives don't is beyond me.
Rating:
Summary: The perspective of the oppressed
Review: Fanon describes the situation of those livng all down under of humanity who have nothing to lose but their chains and they can get rid of their chains. What I found extraordinary interesting was to compare Frantz Fanon to Ayn Rand: Those whom Ayn Rand regards as "social parasites" are e x a c t l y the same that Frantz Fanon describes as "The wretched of the earth" . So if you read "Atlas shrugged" and "The wretched of the earth" in a row, you'll get two opponent perspectives of the same world.
Rating:
Summary: The authority on Colonialism
Review: Fanon is among the few thinkers who successfully wrote about emerging post-colonial nation-states. Many prefer to delve into the psychological implications of his work but I would rather view it as a warning againt the new tyranny that has its roots in the national struggle. Indeed, many nationalist movements became the new proxy for the departing colonial power thus ignoring the fact that fighters do not by default make good politicans. The dicourse of national struggle became the harbinger of the national dictatorship despite the evidence pointing to the outskirts and villages as being the impetus behind the drive for independence and not the educated classes as many claimed. I am not claiming that national struggle is bad but it has to be viewd objectively and its role must therefore end with independence to allow for genuine restructuring or else a political neo-imperialism emerges to replace direct military colonization. In both cases the winner is the colonizer who has returned in the form of the new nationl government mainly those who were educated in the West during colonization.
Rating: 
Summary: Lessons from an era gone about our own dangerous future
Review: Fanon lays bare the day to day interactions of the oppressed and the oppressor,
reveiling the tragic symptoms and by-products of colonialism, such as the
belief that violence must be met with violence to liberate a nation. The
mindset of the oppressed and the culture of an oppressed people is written very
plain, universal language (thanks in some part, no doubt, to the translator)
and there are themes and ideas in this book that ring true today because of
this style of writing. Fanon writes about the need for having a "national culture" and the promotion
of national identity in order to provide a cohesion to people exiting
colonialism into the more covertly cruel world of free markets, total
independence and possibly neo-colonialism (such as what goes on in a lot of the
poorer Asian, African and South American countries today with sweatshops,
plantations and diamond mining). This idea that a national unity and recognized
common interest is not an option, it's totally necessary, if a group of people
wants to truly take power for themselves can be applied to all types of groups
today: gay people, the impoverished, the political Left, those in occupied
countries, religious minorities worldwide, etc.
So why would I only give the book 3 stars? I feel that while a lot of the
philosophy in the book is timeless, it takes lot of wading through dated
accounts of 1960s African politics, Fanon's psychiatric conclusions (one-fifth
of the book is devoted to this) and some mediocre round-about philosophizing.
The back of the edition I read claimed that "The Wretched of the Earth" had
surpassed other books of the era about colonialism and become more than just a
historically interesting artifact. By the last page however, I got the same
feeling I did when I finished "The Rights of Man" by Paine a year earlier for a
university assignment; there's simply no need to go through so much irrelevant
text to get to the core of the argument, which could be found in some of the
author's essay complilations
instead.
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