www.ssoar.info West Indian intellectuals in Britain Schwarz, Bill (Ed.) Veröffentlichungsversion / Published Version Sammelwerk / collection Zur Verfügung gestellt in Kooperation mit / provided in cooperation with: OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks) Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: Schwarz, B. (Ed.). (2003). West Indian intellectuals in Britain (Studies in Imperialsim). Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press. https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-270993 Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Dieser Text wird unter einer CC BY-NC-ND Lizenz This document is made available under a CC BY-NC-ND Licence (Namensnennung-Nicht-kommerziell-Keine Bearbeitung) zur (Attribution-Non Comercial-NoDerivatives). For more Information Verfügung gestellt. Nähere Auskünfte zu den CC-Lizenzen finden see: Sie hier: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.de Studies in imperialism ‘This is a fine collection and its significance lies in several areas. West Indian intellectuals were important actors in the drama that was to change the face of Britain, both because they adopted and reformulated British ideas about culture, and because they brought with them important cultural texts, including novels, poems and essays.’ Simon Gikandi, University of Michigan BILL SCHWARZ Caribbean migration to Britain brought many new things – new musics, new foods, new styles. It brought new ways of thinking too. This lively, innovative book explores the intellectual ideas which the West Indians brought with them to Britain. It shows that for more than a century West Indians living in Britain developed a dazzling intellectual critique of the codes of Imperial Britain. This is the first comprehensive discussion of the major Caribbean thinkers who came to live in twentieth-century Britain. Chapters discuss the influence of, amongst others, C. L. R. James, Una Marson, George Lamming, Jean Rhys, Claude McKay and V. S. Naipaul. The contributors to this fascinating volume draw from many different disciplines to bring alive the thought and personalities of the figures they discuss, providing a dramatic picture of intellectual developments in Britain from which we can still learn much. A lucid introduction argues that the recovery of this Caribbean past, on the home-territory of Britain itself, reveals much about the prospects of multiracial Britain. Written in an accessible manner, undergraduates and general readers interested in relations between the Caribbean and Britain, imperial history, literature, cultural and black studies will all find much of interest SCHWARZ in this collection. Bill Schwarz teaches at Goldsmiths College, University of London Cover illustration: River Design, Edinburgh Jacket design by general editor John M. MacKenzie Established in the belief that imperialism as a cultural phenomenon had as significant an effect on the dominant as on the subordinate societies, Studies in Imperialism seeks to develop the new socio-cultural approach which has emerged through cross-disciplinary work on popular culture, media studies, art history, the study of education and religion, sports history and children’s literature. The cultural emphasis embraces studies of migration and race, while the older political and constitutional, economic and military concerns are never far away. It incorporates comparative work on European and American empire-building, with the chronological focus primarily, though not exclusively, on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when these cultural exchanges were most powerfully at work. West Indian intellectuals in Britain AVAILABLE IN THE SERIES Cultural identities and the aesthetics of Britishness ed. Dana Arnold Britain in China Community, culture and colonialism, 1900–1949 Robert Bickers New frontiers Imperialism’s new communities in East Asia 1842–1952 eds Robert Bickers and Christian Henriot Western medicine as contested knowledge eds Andrew Cunningham and Bridie Andrews The Arctic in the British imagination 1818–1914 Robert G. David Imperial cities Landscape, display and identity eds Felix Driver and David Gilbert Science and society in Southern Africa ed. Saul Dubow Equal subjects, unequal rights Indigenous peoples in British settler colonies, 1830s–1910 Julie Evans, Patricia Grimshaw, David Phillips and Shurlee Swain Emigration from Scotland between the wars Marjory Harper Empire and sexuality The British experience Ronald Hyam Reporting the Raj The Britsh press in India, c. 1880–1922 Chandrika Kaul Law, history, colonialism The reach of empire eds Diane Kirkby and Catherine Coleborne The South African War reappraised ed. Donal Lowry The empire of nature Hunting, conservation and British imperialism John M. MacKenzie Imperialism and popular culture ed. John M. MacKenzie Propaganda and empire The manipulation of British public opinion, 1880–1960 John M. MacKenzie Gender and imperialism ed. Clare Midgley Guardians of empire The armed forces of the colonial powers, c. 1700–1964 eds David Omissi and David Killingray Female imperialism and national identity Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire Katie Pickles Married to the empire Gender, politics and imperialism in India, 1883–1947 Mary A. Procida Imperial persuaders Images of Africa and Asia in British advertising Anandi Ramamurthy Imperialism and music Britain 1876–1953 Jeffrey Richards Colonial frontiers Indigenous–European encounters in settler societies ed. Lynette Russell Jute and empire The Calcutta jute wallahs and the landscapes of empire Gordon T. Stewart The imperial game Cricket, culture and society eds Brian Stoddart and Keith A. P. Sandiford British culture and the end of empire ed. Stuart Ward West Indian intellectuals in Britain edited by Bill Schwarz MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS Manchester and New York distributed exclusively in the USA by PALGRAVE Copyright © Manchester University Press 2003 While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors, and no chapter may be reproduced wholly or in part without the express permission in writing of both author and publisher. Published by MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS OXFORD ROAD, MANCHESTER M13 9NR, UK and ROOM 400, 175 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, NY 10010, USA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk Distributed exclusively in the USA by PALGRAVE, 175 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, NY 10010, USA Distributed exclusively in Canada by UBC PRESS, UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA, 2029 WEST MALL, VANCOUVER, BC, CANADA V6T 1Z2 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for ISBN 0 7190 6474 0 hardback ISBN 0 7190 6475 9 paperback First published 2003 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 10 987654321 Typeset in Trump Medieval by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Manchester Printed in Great Britain by CPI, Bath CONTENTS General editor’s introduction – page vi List of contributors – page viii Acknowledgements – page x Introduction: Crossing the seas Bill Schwarz page 1 1 What is a West Indian? Catherine Hall 31 2 ‘To do something for the race’: Harold Moody and the League of Coloured Peoples David Killingray 51 3 A race outcast from an outcast class: Claude McKay’s experience and analysis of Britain Winston James 71 4 Jean Rhys: West Indian intellectual Helen Carr 93 5 Una Marson: feminism, anti-colonialism and a forgotten fight for freedom Alison Donnell 114 6 George Padmore Bill Schwarz 132 7 C. L. R. James: visions of history, visions of Britain Stephen Howe 153 8 George Lamming Mary Chamberlain 175 9 ‘This is London calling the West Indies’: the BBC’s Caribbean Voices Glyne Griffith 196 10 The Caribbean Artists Movement Louis James 209 11 V. S. Naipaul Sue Thomas 228 Afterword: The predicament of history Bill Schwarz 248 Index – 258 [ v ] GENERAL EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION In 1907, Sir Algernon Aspinall published his Pocket Guide to the West Indies. It is a classic case of ‘imperial eyes’ in print, of the rhetoric of colonial tourism. The section on ‘population’ occupies no more than three pages and is devoted almost entirely to slavery and labour. Thus the Pocket Guide concentrates on place rather than people, on alleged economic progress instead of cultural potential, on the imperial more than the local community. But this travel guide seems to have been as popular with its white audience as were so many others of the same genre. By the 1950s it had passed through ten editions and was still appearing in the 1960s, revised after Aspinall’s death by Professor J. Sydney Dash. Astonishingly, the original text on ‘population’ was still being printed, almost unchanged, in the later version. There was also very little alteration to the suggestions for further reading. Trollope and Froude continued to feature prominently together with (for Jamaica), the hoary old texts Long, Bridges, and the more recent Cundall, who had published a handbook for settlers as recently as 1905. Not a single black Caribbean author figured at all. The notion that the West Indies might produce an individual culture, with a lively literary, linguistic, musical and dance tradition, interrogating and interacting with Africa, the Americas and Europe, clearly never occurred to Aspinall, and probably not to Dash either. Nor would either have considered the possibility of a vibrant popular culture flowing out into an intellectual one. In some respects, the collection of essays in this book