George Padmore and Decolonization from Below

Leslie James is Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Department of African Studies andAnthropology, University of Birmingham. Prior to this, she was Lecturer in World History at theUniversity of Cambridge. Other publications include the forthcoming volume, Decolonizationand the Cold War: Negotiating Independence, co-edited with Elisabeth Leake.

"Does a superb job of situating the political thought and activism of George Padmore within the wider patterns of Cold War politics and the politics of empire. ... Leslie James is to be praised for a ground-breaking work of intellectual history that critically analyses the political thought of a figure whose previous neglect seems, thankfully, to be coming to an end. ... her book will, however, be the standard against which all future studies of George Padmore must be measured." (Daniel Whittall, Twentieth Century British History, Vol. 27 (2), June, 2016) "Leslie James has done the most thorough analysis of Padmore's political thought and strategies as expressed in his writings and in the letters which survive. ... this is a lucid, well-organised and well researched study of an important figure in anti-colonial politics from the beginning of the 1930s to 1959; the sophisticated analysis of a large body of writing and its changing contexts make this an important contribution to our understanding of the times as well as the man." (Peter D. Fraser, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, Vol. 53 (4), 2015)

• Introduction: The Artful Anti-Colonialist 1. Origins: 'The Most Completely Political Negro' 2. Putting Empire in Black and White: Padmore's Ideas about Race and Empire 3. 'The Long, Long Night is Over': A War of Opportunity? 4. Writing Anti-Imperial Solidarity from London: George Padmore's Colonial Journalism, 1940-1951 5. The Psychological Moment: The Colonial Office, Pan-Africanism, and the Problem of the Soviet Union, 1946-1950 6. A Buttress for the 'Beacon Light' 7. The Era of Padmore the 'Outsider': Nation, Diaspora, and Modernity, 1950-1956 8. Ghana, Death, and the Afterlife Conclusion: 'The Soliloquy of Africa'