This ambitious work by C. J. Robinson constitutes a monumental effort to understand the history of resistance of black people from a perspective that breaks away from the categories of thought of the Western tradition, including Marxism. Marxist analyzes have tended to presuppose European historical and thought models, which minimizes the relevance of black communities as agents of change and resistance. Black Marxism lays the foundations for the recovery of a black radical tradition that, although in continuous dialogue with other currents, develops autonomously with respect to Western radicalism.

In order to illustrate this argument, Robinson traces the history of Europe from its very origins in the Middle Ages. He shows how certain racial categories are embedded in their cultural and political forms, and how these expand and develop from the formation of historical capitalism and European expansion in the New World. Capitalism thus appears, from the beginning, as a profoundly racist social formation, all of which permeates the European intellectual tradition. Despite its remarkable efforts for universal emancipation, Marxism was unable to escape from these modes of thought. In this sense, the reconstruction of black resistance struggles, from the palenques and maroon communities to the Haitian Revolution and American emancipation, points to the recovery of a radical tradition that is specifically black. It is this tradition that was eventually rediscovered and formalized by great black intellectual figures, such as W. E. B. du Bois, C. L. R. James, and Richard Wright, to whom Robinson also devotes a detailed study.