By Etien Jasonson - HSPS Student @ Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge
Of all the chapters in The Wretched of the Earth, the first – ‘Concerning Violence’ – often receives the most attention. However, there is so much more to Fanon’s seminal text than a call for violence, and to understand the book in this way misses Fanon’s valuable contribution to post-colonial studies. Instead, Wretched of the Earth should be understood as a sort-of manifesto for post-colonial nation-building amid an impassioned description and critique of the forces of empire, racism and capitalist elitism.