an impassioned plea, historically past its best-before date - Rated 
While this book had been on my shelf for years, I never got beyond the Sartre preface to read the whole thing until this month, after watching The Battle of Algiers on a movie channel. That film is a detailed dramatized account of the Algerian war as carried out by the French Army and the insurgents in Algiers. It is graphic and often shocking, and gives an immediate image of what Fanon was observing in 1961 (the film was also routinely screened in U.S. military colleges in recent years as a template for Iraq).
But Fanon's book and its radical thesis -- that only violence can really liberate colonial peoples, and that "compromise" liberals were sell-outs and failures -- did not convince most back in 1961, and today it looks wrong in many of its assumptions.
The FLN still rules Algeria, but the recent widely boycotted elections and one-party dominance there belies the idyllic vision of liberated post-colonial man that Fanon offered. While the State sits on billions in energy revenues, the young need jobs (people today yell Visas! Visas! when the French president visits the country).
Fanon's Left Bank view of the world in 1961 looks anachronistic: he could not imagine a world in which the Soviet Union was dead and gone, Marxist parties had declined to the margins in Western Europe, a black man was elected President by American voters, and the ANC ruled a multi-racial South Africa.
Fanon's account of French heavy-handedness and bad faith in Algeria is still very cogent, but he refused to see beyond that. All his analytical concepts are imbued with a spirit of endless rebellion. Could he have conceivably been the Gandhi of Algeria? Who knows? But he made it clear he had nothing but scorn for that philosophical stance and its compromises.
Seeringly topical in its time, yes; but today, worthless as a roadmap for the developing world and its socio-economic struggles. This conclusion is also emphasized in the introduction by Gerard Chaliand to the new French edition (Folio).
fanons classic colonial assessment - Rated 
the book is a bit strong in some places but overall fanon thinks seriously and deeply about the african and the colonial
'Must read' in 2009 - Rated
(review also published on Amazon.com). This extraordinary book, first published in 1961, must be read now in 2009. Fanon's African "settlers" could refer to Israeli occupiers, or to US military occupiers in Iraq and Afghanistan; the 'natives' would now be the Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan people.
The phrases 'colonial' could refer to today's corporate fascists. "In spite of the huge sums swallowed up by military budgets,international capitalism is in desperate straits." Economically, "the mass of people strugggle against the same poverty, flounder about making the same gestures and with their shrunken bellies outline what has been called the geography of hunger.... What counts today, the question which is looming on the horizon, is the need for a redistribution of wealth. Humanity must reply to this question, or be shaken to pieces by it." Read it?!
excellent analysis of the true nature of imperialism and the de-colonization process - Rated
Fanon was born in Martinique in 1925 and trained as a doctor (specializing in psychiatry) in France. He was assigned to a hospital in Algeria during the uprising against the French. He chose to throw in his lot with the "rebels" and became one of their most articulate spokesmen. He did not live to see the French leave Algeria as he died of leukaemia at the age of thirty-six.
In this book, Fanon provides an insight into the true nature of imperialism. He details the mental, economic and physical degradations that characterize the relationship between "the settler" and "the native" and how violence is a central feature of this relationship. Fanon explains how violence is central to the de-colonization process and the forging of a unifying consciousness amongst the colonized populace. He provides further insights into the organization of colonial struggle, the different roles played by town "elites" and rural people and also, very interestingly, the impact of the violence that characterized the colonial order on the mental health of everyone involved.
I found this a fascinating read. The evils of imperialism are often glossed over in many accounts and Fanon majors on destroying this myth. These are the considered opinions of a man not afraid to call it as he sees it. Colonial struggles are a thing of the past now. However, Fanon's analysis of the relationship between the "First" and the "Third" World is still quite relevant.
The Clanging of the Chains - Rated
It was said that fanon was the voice of rebellion, which echoed upon Europe. This book gives you an insight into the power of hate that erupts because of racial prejudice. Throughout this book you will feel the clanging of the chains of slavery, you will feel the subdued screams of centuries of absolute misery. You will feel in awe of the calamity brought upon humanity by Europe's colonialist mindset. But most of all you will hear within it the sounds of a dawning freedom. For those of you, who are bearing the demons of the new kind of slavery called Capitalism, this book will give you an insight into the mindset that is behind global Capitalism. It will give you the hints of the rot and demise within the newly freed society and the covert form of repression that follows such emancipations. This book is a journey not for the weak hearted. An evocative, book with one of the best preface, by Sartre.
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