Frantz Fanon : a critical study / Irene L. Gendzier.

Includes index.

Includes bibliography pages 271-289.

Preface -- Introduction -- Part I. In the beginning: the search for roots, 1925-1952 : 1. Biographical notes to 1952 -- 2. Conscience and consciousness: the relevance of Hegel and Sartre -- 3. Presénce Africaine and Negritude -- 4. Black skin, white masks: a synthesis -- Part II. Toward a psychology of colonial relationships, 1953-1959 : 1. A view of psychiatry and the nature of therapy -- 2. Blida-Joinville and the experiment that failed -- 3. Politics and the medicine: from Algeria to Tunisia -- 4. From psychological observation to political action -- Part III. The Militant, 1956-1961 : 1. The travail of independence -- 2. A committed press: el Moudjahid -- 3. The French left and Algeria -- 4. The minority question -- 5. The Maghreb and Africa -- Part IV. the summing up: the wretched of the Earth : 1. The question of violence -- 2. Peasants, parties, and spontaneity -- 3. The bourgeoisie, the party, and the nation -- 4. National culture -- 5. Fanon's death and his influence on the Algerian Revolution -- 6. For further study.

"Irene L. Gendzier has written a brilliant and original study of Frantz Fanon which should stand as definitive for many years to come. Her book is a critical examination of the life and ideas of the Martinique psychiatrist who chose to become Algerian and wo was a committed partisan of the Algerian Revolution (1954-1962). Professor Gendzier deals first with Fanon's biographical and intellectual roots in Martinique and in France, She then goes on to consider his psychiatric work and political legacy. Fanon's psychiatric work is little known, though often disparagingly regarded because of his overt political stand and his belief that psychoanalysis cannot be divorced from politics. Articles published before and during his North African period are included in this book in order to offer readers an opportunity to study this aspect of his work. It is Fanon's political legacy, however, that has been given the closest attention, although it is the thesis of this author that Fanon's politics and his commitment to it must be understood in the context of the man's entire life -- his inner tensions, his unresolved conflicts, and his conscious political positions. The autobiographical element aside, Fanon concerned himself with the most important and difficult aspects of developing nations that seek to include the masses in the independence they have achieved. Hence, his attention to the role of the masses and the party, to the question of organization of political life, and to the critical role of the bourgeoisie in the new state -- all problems which exist in the Third World." -- From the dust jacket.