C. L. R. James - The Black Jacobins : Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution (1938) [epub]

C.L.R. James' The Black Jacobins, first published in 1938, was a forbidden book in South Africa until the recent dismantling of apartheid. It's not hard to see why. James researched his account of Toussaint L'Ouverture and the Haitian slave uprising with meticulous care. It remains a masterpiece of historical scholarship, but the book was designed to be a weapon for revolutionary combat. James wrote it while active in the International African Service Bureau -- the organization founded by his childhood friend George Padmore, the godfather of Pan-Africanism. By narrating "the first successful slave revolt in history," he meant to provide a tool kit of ideas and information for future liberation movements. Apartheid's censors knew what they were doing when they banned the book.

Of interest C.L.R. James: A Biographical Introduction