From the Tricontinental to the Global South

In From the Tricontinental to the Global South Anne Garland Mahler traces the history and intellectual legacy of the understudied global justice movement called the Tricontinental—an alliance of liberation struggles from eighty-two countries, founded in Havana in 1966. Focusing on racial violence and inequality, the Tricontinental's critique of global capitalist exploitation has influenced historical radical thought, contemporary social movements such as the World Social Forum and Black Lives Matter, and a Global South political imaginary. The movement's discourse, which circulated in four languages, also found its way into radical artistic practices, like Cuban revolutionary film and Nuyorican literature. While recent social movements have revived Tricontinentalism's ideologies and aesthetics, they have largely abandoned its roots in black internationalism and its contribution to a global struggle for racial justice. In response to this fractured appropriation of Tricontinentalism, Mahler ultimately argues that a renewed engagement with black internationalist thought could be vital to the future of transnational political resistance.

"From the Tricontinental to the Global South is particularly effective in its close reading of cultural texts and thus makes a significant contribution to cultural studies and cultural criticism. In centering Latin American and Black Radical intellectual and artistic traditions in its discussion of left transnational politics, anti-capitalism, and anti-imperialism, it effectively shifts the focus from Western Marxist traditions to racialized, oppressed, and dispossessed scholar-activists. Africana Studies, Latin American Studies, Ethnic Studies, Black Power studies, and subfields of history, sociology, and political science that focus on power relations, political organizing, and social movements will benefit from this framing.", "Mahler convincingly argues that movements many readers may be familiar with, such as the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords, and Black Lives Matter, were inheritors of or collaborators in this Tricontinental aesthetic. Reproductions of striking film stills and bold graphic design make the book as visually captivating as it is wonderfully written—modeling the Tricontinental’s commitment to a well-designed revolution.", "[A] rich, interdisciplinary history of the Tricontinental. . . . Historians of the United States will find interesting the many links between conceptions of the Global South and of the American South.", "From the Tricontinental to the Global South is a compelling read and should appeal to a broad range of scholars who are interested in racial transnational social movements, racial capitalism, and the politics of culture in the Americas.", "A conceptually rich examination of the political and aesthetic vocabularies produced by and around the Tricontinental, combining rigorous historical investigation with close formal analysis of works of literature, film, and visual culture. . . . Not only does From the Tricontinental to the Global South offer a long history of resistant politics in which Latin American, Afro-descendant, and African American intellectuals have played a central role, it provides a long view of contemporary understandings of the Global South, which both grounds the concept and gives it renewed critical heft. It is crucial reading for anyone interested in and working on the Global South today."

Anne Garland Mahler is Assistant Professor of Spanish at the University of Virginia.