The Tricontinental Revolution: Third World Radicalism and the Cold War

Description

The Tricontinental Revolution provides a major reassessment of the global rise and impact of Tricontinentalism, the militant strand of Third World solidarity that defined the 1960s and 1970s as decades of rebellion. Cold War interventions highlighted the limits of decolonization, prompting a generation of global South radicals to adopt expansive visions of self-determination. Long associated with Cuba, this anti-imperial worldview stretched far beyond the Caribbean to unite international revolutions around programs of socialism, armed revolt, economic sovereignty, and confrontational diplomacy. Linking independent nations with non-state movements from North Vietnam through South Africa to New York City, Tricontinentalism encouraged marginalized groups to mount radical challenges to the United States and the inequitable Euro-centric international system. Through eleven expert essays, this volume recenters global political debates on the priorities and ideologies of the Global South, providing a new framework, chronology, and tentative vocabulary for understanding the evolution of anti-imperial and decolonial politics. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

R. Joseph Parrott is Assistant Professor of History at The Ohio State University. He is a historian of diplomacy, transnational activism, and US-Africa relations, with an emphasis on the intersection of decolonization, race, and domestic politics. Mark Atwood Lawrence is Associate Professor of History at The University of Texas at Austin. He has written extensively on twentieth-century America and especially American foreign relations. His most recent book is The End of Ambition: The United States and the Third World in the Vietnam Era (2021).

'This is an exciting and pathbreaking new volume on Tricontinentalism. Probing the long-term origins and reach of the Tricontinental Conference of 1966, it underscores the global significance of twentieth century anti-imperialist projects. Between them, the 13 authors complicate romanticised views of the Tricontinental era, seeking to historicize and better understand its characteristics, opportunity, scale and diversity. The result is an important and nuanced contribution to new histories of the global South, the Cold War, and the struggles to define our contemporary world.' Tanya Harmer, author of Beatriz Allende: A Revolutionary Life in Cold War Latin America 'The Tricontinental Revolution is a major contribution to one of the most exciting recent trends in twentieth century international history: the turn toward the Global South. Centering the pivotal decades of the 1960s and 1970s, it deftly grapples with what made Tricontinentalism unique, how it fit within the broad history of anti-imperialism, and what difference it made in its time and since. It is a volume that all future work in the field must contend with.' Erez Manela, Harvard University 'An excellent introduction to the Third World alternative to the Cold War, from The League against Imperialism via the Tricontinental Conference to the Palestinian solidarity movement. There is so much to learn from this book for those interested in the history of anti-imperialist politics.' O. A. Westad, author of The Cold War: A World History