Book Review: Danny Morrison looks at a dissection of Trotskyist icon CLR James

"James had many critics, from the left and right, but this comprehensive biography proves the staying power and influence of the charismatic Trotskyist activist who died aged 88 in London in 1989."

• CLR James: A Life Beyond The Boundaries
• John L Williams
• Constable, hb £25

The British radical left and their prodigious publications in the 1970s were quite influential on young northerners like myself, introducing a new generation to voices such as Frantz Fanon, Albert Memmi, Patrice Lumumba, Julius Nyerere, and Aimé Césaire, to name a few.