Waves of Decolonization

“Waves of Decolonization represents an important contribution to the scholarly literature on the twentieth-century Americas. Luis-Brown’s argument about the formulation of a hemispheric citizenship is original and important, and will surely be debated and expanded in future work by other scholars writing about transnational politics in the Americas.” — Lorrin Thomas, H-Net Reviews

“[Luis-Brown] pulls together close readings of the work of Zora Neale Hurston and Manuel Gamio, two students of Franz Boas, one African American and the other Mexican, and both interested in the relationship of cultural production and migration. This juxtaposition (like many others in the book) is compelling, as are the careful exposition and the final call for new transnational histories of the Harlem Renaissance. The study’s potency, though, relies on the smallish series of tantalizing connections the author finds. Luis-Brown establishes the hemisphere as a political thing, as a collaborative, impactful political unit.” — Matthew Pratt Guterl, American Quarterly

“[W]ill appeal to readers interested in sociopolitical understandings of race, citizenship, and nation in postcolonial and global contexts.” — Manuella Meyer, Ethnohistory

“Luis-Brown’s study contributes to our understanding of how black and brown intellectuals, writers, and activists responded to European and American colonialism. . . . All scholars of the black diaspora and American Studies ought to read his literary, historical and theoretical study.” — Philip A. Howard, American Historical Review

“One of the strengths of Luis-Brown’s argument resides in the narrative of decolonization he reads onto the various sites of epistemic resistance that characterize much—though certainly not all—of the inter-American national archives he puts in conversation with each other. At its best, his work forces a reimagining of how cultural production must be read in relation to the emergence of imperial domination without hegemony.” — Lázaro Lima, American Literary History

“There is great value in following Luis-Brown as he retraces the tangled origins of hemispheric citizenship. . . . [T]he book brilliantly magnifies the tissues connecting decolonialist minds while it dissects their texts. Perhaps most satisfyingly, Waves of Decolonization offers a sweeping and novel way of thinking about intersecting currents among Mexican, Cuban, and African American author-activists. It is a shining example of thoughtful and comparative scholarship that points the way to a more global, Du Boisian vision of American studies.”
— John Nieto-Phillips, Journal of American Ethnic History

“Waves of Decolonization is convincing in its argument for a transnational, decolonizing approach to American studies. It is accessible, grounded, and thorough. It will equally captivate researchers and students of this hemisphere and anyone interested in an alternative understanding of this hemisphere’s intertwined history and destiny. Luis-Brown’s approach is a refreshing and very necessary shift away from the national, ethnolinguistic, and racial boundaries that have most often defined American, African American, Latino, Mexican, Mexican American, Cuban, and Caribbean studies.” — Kenya C. Dworkin y Méndez, Hispanic American Historical Review

“[An] insightful and thought-provoking series of essays. . . . David Luis-Brown’s primary goal is to expand conventional readings of the selected writers, interrogating their contributions to the complex processes of nationalism, decolonization, anticolonialism, neocolonialism, and notions of hemispheric citizenship. He accomplishes this by deftly weaving together literature, history, and biography. . . . Waves of Decolonization can be rewardingly read across a wide range of academic disciplines.” — Franklin W. Knight, Journal of American History

“Careful not to conflate the demands of specific social movements, Luis-Brown lucidly delineates their connections, as, for example, in his discussion of how key figures of the Harlem Renaissance engaged Mexican Revolutionary cultural politics. . . . The last two chapters on primitivism and ethnography, respectively, chart the early-twentieth-century cultural turn that rejected essentialist theories of race while retaining a charged concept of the ‘primitive.’ Luis-Brown underscores the protean ideological valence of each of these discourses; his discussion of the complex positions on race and foreign policy in the ethnographic work of Zora Neale Hurston and Manuel Gamio is a tour de force.” — Claire F. Fox, American Literature

“David Luis-Brown’s meticulously researched Waves of Decolonization contributes much to the nascent but growing field of transnational and hemispheric studies. . . . The author posits crucial, substantive questions, employing a comparative interdisciplinary methodology with far-reaching implications. In doing so, his study advances and contributes to the continuing transformation of American Studies.” — Maria del Carmen Martinez, EIAL

“Luis-Brown must be commended for his ambitious, multidisciplinary approach. The sheer breadth of understanding he displays about so-called ‘native’, ‘primitive’, or auto-ethnographic works of literature, visual art, and political prose issuing from the Americas in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is staggering. . . . David Luis-Brown has written an innovative book which will usefully engage academics and students concerned with Afro-American, American, or comparative literature as well as Caribbean, Mexican, ‘post’ colonial, and transnational studies.”
— James Cullingham, Bulletin of Latin American Research

“This insightful study uses a much-needed hemispheric approach to track the listed groups’ reaction to the imperial whirlwind. Meticulously researched and documented, the book presents a literary-historical analysis covering the period from the 1880s to the 1930s. . . . In Waves of Decolonization, Luis-Brown has woven a rich tapestry of the anticolonial and anti-imperial discourse that accompanied the consolidation of U.S. hegemony. The book is a valuable contribution to scholars, students, and laypersons working in such varied fields as American, African, ethnic, Caribbean, and Latin American studies.” — Jorge Chinea, History: Reviews of New Books