Caribbean Reasonings: Rupert Lewis and the Black Intellectual Tradition recounts the work of a renowned scholar and activist who has made an indelible mark on Caribbean life. Through a collection of academic papers and personal reflections, primarily proceeding from a 2013 conference, some of the leading contemporary political minds in the Caribbean have converged in this volume to put forward a collection of essays that detail Rupert Lewis's impact on issues such as black nationalism and identity, social and racial equality, and Caribbean and human liberation. The volume boldly highlights Lewis's earnest study of the political teachings of Marcus Garvey, Walter Rodney and the African-Caribbean experience, to promote understanding the realities of blackness and to chart a course forward for African people throughout the diaspora. It also expertly details his contribution to the discourse on the Grenada Revolution, Caribbean sovereignty, globalisation, capitalism, radicalism in art and the media, and black feminism in political activism.In a career spanning decades, Rupert Lewis has amassed a legacy which details his rise from a student activist at the UWI to a stalwart of Caribbean political thought who has guided the Department of Government at Mona, the Institute of Jamaica and its African-Caribbean Institute of Jamaica as well as institutionalising Liberty Hall and the Museum of Marcus Garvey among other contributions.

"The contributors to this volume have found the language and concepts by which to interpret Leonard Howell and the origins of the Rastafari movement in the 1930s. This volume is richly documented from the archives, and from interviews, and is informed by multidisciplinary methods, so the reader is treated to an authoritative and comprehensive collection of essays. "Leonard Howell was persecuted over five decades by the British colonial state and by Jamaican governments since independence in 1962. It is in this context that Howell defined the main tenets of the movement, a movement that has now spread globally. All the major themes of his thinking, such as African redemption, the divinity of Haile Selassie, repatriation, and the struggle for freedom and self-reliance are discussed. Howell challenged British colonialism and Jamaican elites in a very different way from the approaches used by the middle-class intelligentsia. He focused, rather, on a new way of seeing God, King and self, thus creating an alternative way of being in the world. Developing Marcus Garvey's focus on Africa, Leonard Howell and his followers reclaimed their ancestral identity from the dehumanized condition left by British slavery and colonialism. Howell's communal settlement on `Pinnacle' was an alternative communal space for Rastafari artisans, musicians and peasant farmers."-Rupert Lewis, Professor Emeritus, Department of Government, University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica