Balutansky reviews C. L. R. James, the Artist as Revolutionary by Paul Buhle, C. L. R. James's Caribbean edited by Paget Henry and Paul Buhle, The C. L. R. James Reader edited by Anna Grimshaw, Special Delivery: The Letters of C. L. R. James to Constance Webb, 1939-1948 edited by Anna Grimshaw and C. L. R. James: His Intellectual Legacies edited by Selwyn R. Cudjoe and William E. Cain.;
Reviews books on the history of Caribbean countries. Includes The Tainos: Rise and Decline of the People Who Greeted Columbus, By Irving Rouse, The Boni Maroon Wars in Suriname, by Wim Hoogbergen, translated by Marilyn Suy and Alabi's World, by Richard Price.;
Reviews several books which focused on the social and political history of Haiti. Haiti in the New World Order: The Limits of the Democratic Revolution, by Alex Dupuy; Building Peace in Haiti, by Chetan Kumar; Haiti Renewed: Political and Economic Prospects, edited by Robert Rotberg; The Haitian Dilemma: A Case Study in Demographics, Development, and U.S. Foreign Policy, by Ernest Preeg.;
Reviews several books on Cuban history before 1959. American Sugar Kingdom: The Plantation Economy of the Spanish Caribbean 1898-1934, by César Ayala; Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868-1898, by Ada Ferrer; Pleasure Island: Tourism and Temptation in Cuba, by Rosalie Schwartz.;
Reviews books on Latin American slavery. Includes Slavery and Abolition in Early Republican Peru, by Peter Blanchard; Slave Women in Caribbean Society, ,1650-1838, by Barbara Bush; Slavery and the Rise of the Atlantic System, edited by Barbara L. Solow.;
Article is concerned with the relations of Afro-Latin Americans to modes of production (slavery, capitalism, socialism), economic institutions (the plantation, transnational corporations), economic development models, transnational relations, political systems, institutions, behavior, group and class relations (including class struggle), social mobility, and political mobilization.
Argues that although evangelical Christianity involves a variety of beliefs that are incompatible with a strong ethnic identity, this religion also includes a range of ideas and practices that nourish rather than corrode black identity.