Cedric Robinson’s Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition did not receive widespread attention after its original publication in 1983. Since 2000, when it was republished with a new preface and an introduction by historian Robin D. G. Kelley, however, the book has enjoyed widespread appeal and influence in the anglophone humanities and social sciences as well as among activists. Robinson’s proposed theory of “racial capitalism” and his framework of a “black radical tradition” have shaped debates about racial inequalities in capitalist societies and Marxism’s potential for anti-racist politics in recent decades.

August Nimtz has engaged with the book’s arguments and trajectory, directly or indirectly, since its original publication. The recently published collection, Black Marxism: A Marxist Critique, makes accessible, for the first time, a critique that spans four decades and addresses Robinson’s claims and those made by his followers by putting forth an authentic Marxism as the most reliable method for human liberation in the real world and explaining why it remains the guiding principle for the transracial class struggle today.