Negro with a Hat: Marcus Garvey
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Negro with a Hat: Marcus Garvey for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
`accessible and enjoyable...Grant does an excellent job. This book is a must-read'
--Socialism Today
--Socialism Today
Review
"The story of Marcus Garvey, the charismatic and tireless black leader who had a meteoric rise and fall in the late 1910s and early '20s, makes for enthralling reading, and Garvey has found an engaging and objective biographer in Colin Grant.... Grant's book is not all politics, ideology, money and lawsuits. It is also an engrossing social history.... 'Negro With a Hat' is an achievement on a scale Garvey might have appreciated."--New York Times Book Review
"Dazzling, definitive biography of the controversial activist who led the 1920s "Back to Africa" movement.... Grant's learned passion for his subject shimmers on every page A riveting and well-wrought volume that places Garvey solidly in the pantheon of important 20th-century black leaders."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Dense with detail, but consistently readable, this splendid book is certain to become the definitive biography. Garvey was a dreamer and a doer; Grant captures the fascination of both."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Grant's strength lies in his ability to re-create political moods and offer compelling sketches of colorful individuals and their organizations.... Negro With a Hat is an engaging and readable introduction to a complicated and contentious historical actor who, in his time, possessed a unique capacity to inspire devotion and hatred, adulation and fear."--Chicago Tribune
"Grant's biography ably captures the Garvey moment, although, perhaps wisely, he leaves the many contradictions in Garvey's character unresolved."--The New Yorker
"Informative and fascinating, Grant's profile of Garvey is a vital contribution."--Booklist
"Grant...provides a monumental, nuanced andbroadly sympathetic portrait.... Grant's book - his first - is a welcome and scholarly corrective."--Financial Times
"If a few blacks congregating on a street corner is still considered a threat to National Security, you can imagine the problems that Marcus Garvey encountered when he organized a whole bunch of them. Hounded by the Federal Government, the right, the left, the usual arm chair intellectuals and academics, Garvey found himself constantly under attack, yet, like the Napoleon, with whom some compared "The Man With A Hat," Garvey survived to fight on. He was also a prophet, predicting the day when KKK thinking would become mainstream. Colin Grant has not only written the best biography of one of the most fascinating persons of the 20th Century, but, for a historical work, an exciting read, part romance, part big screen political thriller."--Ishmael Reed
"Grant's book is a fine and valuable monument to his memory."--New Statesman
"Dazzling, definitive biography of the controversial activist who led the 1920s "Back to Africa" movement.... Grant's learned passion for his subject shimmers on every page A riveting and well-wrought volume that places Garvey solidly in the pantheon of important 20th-century black leaders."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Dense with detail, but consistently readable, this splendid book is certain to become the definitive biography. Garvey was a dreamer and a doer; Grant captures the fascination of both."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Grant's strength lies in his ability to re-create political moods and offer compelling sketches of colorful individuals and their organizations.... Negro With a Hat is an engaging and readable introduction to a complicated and contentious historical actor who, in his time, possessed a unique capacity to inspire devotion and hatred, adulation and fear."--Chicago Tribune
"Grant's biography ably captures the Garvey moment, although, perhaps wisely, he leaves the many contradictions in Garvey's character unresolved."--The New Yorker
"Informative and fascinating, Grant's profile of Garvey is a vital contribution."--Booklist
"Grant...provides a monumental, nuanced andbroadly sympathetic portrait.... Grant's book - his first - is a welcome and scholarly corrective."--Financial Times
"If a few blacks congregating on a street corner is still considered a threat to National Security, you can imagine the problems that Marcus Garvey encountered when he organized a whole bunch of them. Hounded by the Federal Government, the right, the left, the usual arm chair intellectuals and academics, Garvey found himself constantly under attack, yet, like the Napoleon, with whom some compared "The Man With A Hat," Garvey survived to fight on. He was also a prophet, predicting the day when KKK thinking would become mainstream. Colin Grant has not only written the best biography of one of the most fascinating persons of the 20th Century, but, for a historical work, an exciting read, part romance, part big screen political thriller."--Ishmael Reed
"Grant's book is a fine and valuable monument to his memory."--New Statesman
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
By chance, I had just finished reading Ralph Ellison's classic novel "Invisible Man" when I started reading Colin Grant's excellent biography. I mention this because the two books are interesting companion pieces and because, if anything, the rise and fall of Marcus Garvey is even more extraordinary than that of Ellison's fictional hero. Although thoroughly researched and grounded in the history of the period, Grant's biography reads like a picaresque adventure story. It is a genuinely exciting page turner of a book.
That said, I wouldn't wish to denigrate Garvey's achievements and his legacy. For all his faults, he emerges as a good, perhaps even a great, man. He was superbly right about a lot of the big issues. And this biography is timely given that we are remembering the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination and looking forward to the very real prospect that the United States will elect its first African American President. Garvey took a lot of wrong turns and over reached himself in many ways, but he is one of the people who laid the ground for the civil rights movement and, if it comes to it, an Obama presidency.
Colin Grant does a great job in showing how a jobless, friendless Jamaican immigrant arrived in Harlem and through sheer chutzpah, bulldozing energy and oratorical brilliance, rose in only a few years to be the true voice and champion of Black America. However, Garvey was certainly not a straightforward hero of his people. Grant shows him to be at once a visionary and a buffoon; his personal and political courage was enormous, but so was his ego; as a politician he was brave, but often naïve; as a businessman, for all his big ideas, he was a disaster. What he was so magnificent at - and Grant renders this very well - was making African Americans (and indeed all the people of the African diaspora) proud of and excited about their colour, their race, their struggle for justice and their destiny. The contrasting characters of and battles between Garvey and De Blois - the leader of the interracial movement - are superbly drawn.
Of course, so many of Garvey's dreams have come to nothing. There has been progress since Garvey's time (he takes credit for some of that). But at the same time, his story - particularly from the perspective of now - is truly heartbreaking. In the midst of these huge, often bleak, themes, Grant is also very good at telling the farcical, sometimes even laugh-out-loud funny aspects of the Garvey story. In the right hands, the story could make a wonderful film
That said, I wouldn't wish to denigrate Garvey's achievements and his legacy. For all his faults, he emerges as a good, perhaps even a great, man. He was superbly right about a lot of the big issues. And this biography is timely given that we are remembering the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination and looking forward to the very real prospect that the United States will elect its first African American President. Garvey took a lot of wrong turns and over reached himself in many ways, but he is one of the people who laid the ground for the civil rights movement and, if it comes to it, an Obama presidency.
Colin Grant does a great job in showing how a jobless, friendless Jamaican immigrant arrived in Harlem and through sheer chutzpah, bulldozing energy and oratorical brilliance, rose in only a few years to be the true voice and champion of Black America. However, Garvey was certainly not a straightforward hero of his people. Grant shows him to be at once a visionary and a buffoon; his personal and political courage was enormous, but so was his ego; as a politician he was brave, but often naïve; as a businessman, for all his big ideas, he was a disaster. What he was so magnificent at - and Grant renders this very well - was making African Americans (and indeed all the people of the African diaspora) proud of and excited about their colour, their race, their struggle for justice and their destiny. The contrasting characters of and battles between Garvey and De Blois - the leader of the interracial movement - are superbly drawn.
Of course, so many of Garvey's dreams have come to nothing. There has been progress since Garvey's time (he takes credit for some of that). But at the same time, his story - particularly from the perspective of now - is truly heartbreaking. In the midst of these huge, often bleak, themes, Grant is also very good at telling the farcical, sometimes even laugh-out-loud funny aspects of the Garvey story. In the right hands, the story could make a wonderful film
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Garvey was a determined and ambitious individual who restored pride in the Black people's heritage (as Africans), shifted the focus from the nebulous promise of a hereafter to justice for Black people here and now, and was a key figure in the development of Black activism and Civil Rights. He was also autocratic, egotistical, demagogic and quite tyrannical in his dealings with people, and was proud of the contention that his at one point very powerful Universal Negro Improvement Association were "the first Fascists". His is not an easy story to write, but Colin Grant does so magnificently. Grounded in extensive research, the author manages to capture Garvey's eventful life and multi-faceted character in this excellent biography.
Grant documents Garvey's early travels - to Central America, England, the US deep south - and their influence on his racial awareness. The creation of his radical Black movement UNIA and its development throughout much of the world is fascinating. Garvey's grandiose schemes, his economic and political naivety, his tendency to be deceived by opportunists and his ability to convince the poorest Black to part with his hard-earned cash are explored in depth. Likewise the development of his political philosophy, his uncritical stance on capitalism, his empathy with white supremacism and "race first" stance. His personal pomposity, his obsession with trappings, his paranoic purging of "disloyal" members and unnecessary creation of enemies oblivious of the consequences are all there. His downfall and that of his organisation, largely self-inflicted, is portrayed with detail and insight, to where, through the saddened eyes of Garvey's estranged first wife, the once-great orator is seen coping poorly with the heckling at Speaker's Corner. The author tells Garvey's story whilst creating a wonderful feel of the times: the growth of Black Harlem, the role of Blacks in the Great War, the post-war race riots, the settlement of Liberia together with wonderful characterisations of Black activists both contemporary and prior to Garvey. The scope of this book is wide-ranging, but the excellent organisation and writing keeps the reader's interest throughout.
Grant documents Garvey's early travels - to Central America, England, the US deep south - and their influence on his racial awareness. The creation of his radical Black movement UNIA and its development throughout much of the world is fascinating. Garvey's grandiose schemes, his economic and political naivety, his tendency to be deceived by opportunists and his ability to convince the poorest Black to part with his hard-earned cash are explored in depth. Likewise the development of his political philosophy, his uncritical stance on capitalism, his empathy with white supremacism and "race first" stance. His personal pomposity, his obsession with trappings, his paranoic purging of "disloyal" members and unnecessary creation of enemies oblivious of the consequences are all there. His downfall and that of his organisation, largely self-inflicted, is portrayed with detail and insight, to where, through the saddened eyes of Garvey's estranged first wife, the once-great orator is seen coping poorly with the heckling at Speaker's Corner. The author tells Garvey's story whilst creating a wonderful feel of the times: the growth of Black Harlem, the role of Blacks in the Great War, the post-war race riots, the settlement of Liberia together with wonderful characterisations of Black activists both contemporary and prior to Garvey. The scope of this book is wide-ranging, but the excellent organisation and writing keeps the reader's interest throughout.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book is a page-turner with a good flowing narrative. Colin Grant focuses on what was going on around Garvey, providing a wealth of information about social and political conditions of the time. The problem is that at no time do I feel that I get inside the mind of Garvey himself. That's a shame, as he was undoubtedly one of the most amazingly, provocatively, and brilliantly outrageous characters of the 20th century.
I found it difficult to bear with the constant stream of petty factual errors and grammatical mistakes that occur throughout the book. As soon as I was told that Garvey crossed Vauxhall Bridge to get to the Houses of Parliament from Borough High Street, I got the feeling that the author was not that familiar with London's geography. Many mistakes could have been avoided with proper proof-reading; a few examples:the references to "ex-patriots" rather than expatriates; the word "psychic" is used as a synonym for "psychological"; battle is "enjoined" rather than joined. "Filmic" replaces the more conventional "cinematographic", and "chivalrous" is replaced by "chivalric". In Liberia, we are told, "Crichlow, Marke, and Gabriel Johnson all thought they were in charge." From the context, it appears that what is meant is that each one of these three gentlemen thought that he himself was in charge.
The Bocas del Toro region of Panama is firstly assigned to Costa Rica, and returns to Costa Rican sovereignty later in the book. The ship that carried Garvey from Key West to Havana is called the "USS" Panhandle, which would indicate a US Navy ship. The Cross of African Redemption instituted by Garvey to recognise success in fund raising is described as being conceived of by Garvey as the equivalent of the English (sic) Victoria Cross or the German Iron Cross (neither of which were awarded for fundraising), without any explanation to support the author's assertion. The State of Kansas in the USA is strangely classified as a "Northern city". The colours of the Ghanaian flag- red, yellow, and green- are reported as being "red, black, and green (the UNIA colours)."
One tantalizing aspect of Garvey's life is almost completely ignored: his conversion to- and adherence to- Roman Catholicism. This is particularly important when I still meet people who have the idea that Garvey was a Rastafarian. The single passing reference to his conversion, without any explanation of why? when? or where? is particularly frustrating, as Garvey married his first wife in a Catholic church in New York, and had a Catholic funeral, being buried in St Mary's Cemetery, Kensal Green. The reaction of the Catholic Church to Garveyism is nowhere addressed, but must surely have had an influence on him.
Despite these failings, the author does provide a tremendous amount of information. But having read the book, I'm not at all sure what I make of Marcus Garvey. I think we all need to be aware that the important thing about Garvey is the spoken word. Reading his inspiring speeches, listening to him on You-Tube is still electrifying in our media-saturated world of the 21st century. He is a prophetic voice for us today, just as he was 90 years ago.
I found it difficult to bear with the constant stream of petty factual errors and grammatical mistakes that occur throughout the book. As soon as I was told that Garvey crossed Vauxhall Bridge to get to the Houses of Parliament from Borough High Street, I got the feeling that the author was not that familiar with London's geography. Many mistakes could have been avoided with proper proof-reading; a few examples:the references to "ex-patriots" rather than expatriates; the word "psychic" is used as a synonym for "psychological"; battle is "enjoined" rather than joined. "Filmic" replaces the more conventional "cinematographic", and "chivalrous" is replaced by "chivalric". In Liberia, we are told, "Crichlow, Marke, and Gabriel Johnson all thought they were in charge." From the context, it appears that what is meant is that each one of these three gentlemen thought that he himself was in charge.
The Bocas del Toro region of Panama is firstly assigned to Costa Rica, and returns to Costa Rican sovereignty later in the book. The ship that carried Garvey from Key West to Havana is called the "USS" Panhandle, which would indicate a US Navy ship. The Cross of African Redemption instituted by Garvey to recognise success in fund raising is described as being conceived of by Garvey as the equivalent of the English (sic) Victoria Cross or the German Iron Cross (neither of which were awarded for fundraising), without any explanation to support the author's assertion. The State of Kansas in the USA is strangely classified as a "Northern city". The colours of the Ghanaian flag- red, yellow, and green- are reported as being "red, black, and green (the UNIA colours)."
One tantalizing aspect of Garvey's life is almost completely ignored: his conversion to- and adherence to- Roman Catholicism. This is particularly important when I still meet people who have the idea that Garvey was a Rastafarian. The single passing reference to his conversion, without any explanation of why? when? or where? is particularly frustrating, as Garvey married his first wife in a Catholic church in New York, and had a Catholic funeral, being buried in St Mary's Cemetery, Kensal Green. The reaction of the Catholic Church to Garveyism is nowhere addressed, but must surely have had an influence on him.
Despite these failings, the author does provide a tremendous amount of information. But having read the book, I'm not at all sure what I make of Marcus Garvey. I think we all need to be aware that the important thing about Garvey is the spoken word. Reading his inspiring speeches, listening to him on You-Tube is still electrifying in our media-saturated world of the 21st century. He is a prophetic voice for us today, just as he was 90 years ago.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
An Excellent Job
The 3 star review below makes an excellent point. Marcus Garvey's Catholic embrace is an uncomfortable issue which merits further research, as it stands in such contradiction to... Read more
Published 8 months ago by gwaan
The best biography I've read in a long time
Gripping and inspiring biography on Marcus Garvey, one of the most iconic, radical and enigmatic figures of the 20th-century, which reads like an extraordinary movie script. Read more
Published on 21 Mar 2008 by Snezana Curcic
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Biography > Historical > Social & Urban History
- Books > Biography > Historical > United States > Social & Urban History
- Books > History
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Government & Politics > Civil Liberties & Political Activism > Civil Rights & Citizenship
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Government & Politics > Countries & Regions > United States > Civil Rights
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Social Sciences > Multicultural Studies > Black Studies
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
