Adam Mayer’s book is an ambitious study of African Marxism covering the period from the start of formal decolonization to the present. This work reflects the author’s erudite knowledge and long-term engagement with the subject. On page 20 the author lists 34 African revolutionary theorists covered in this study and then states that he will omit a 35th: Franz Fanon. Mayer tells the reader that he has excluded Fanon on the grounds that “Fanon himself has become the Gramsci of Africanist academic thought: he has been used and abused in the last decades, so much so that I decided to omit him entirely” (original italics). This quote illustrates multiple problems that recur throughout the text and undermine its overall potential. Mayer dismisses Fanon’s work, ignoring both its historical significance and its potential value, because he objects to the way it has been institutionalized within the academy. One might think that critical analysis of that process would be of the utmost interest to the author, and indeed, he does discuss the problematic nature of “democratic socialist” (12) Africanist perspectives that are developed in European and North American universities. He sees these theorists as cut off from communication with the actual material problems of life on the continent. However, while Mayer rightly draws attention to this contradiction, he fails to explain why Fanon or Gramsci should be excluded on these grounds and not Marx. This choice, as well as a recurring tendency to diverge into asides and tangents, clouds and detracts from Mayer’s arguments, as does overuse of italics and exclamations for emphasis.

The second reason Mayer gives for excluding Fanon is even more problematic: “Focusing on Fanon has the potential to remove violence from its class object, thereby obfuscating Marxist thought.” This is notable because Mayer also puts forth the “claim throughout this analysis that armies also represent working-class agency” (273). (original italics) In this intriguing statement, Mayer argues that Military Marxism represents both a specifically African contribution to Marxism and a revolutionary theory especially apropos to the African context. The category that needs to be better explored here is agency representation, which has been identified in radical political thought, at least since Rousseau, with problematic forms of displacement of agency in which a smaller, elite group substitutes for the larger body of people, nation, or class. That Fanon’s thought might separate violence from “its class object” is arguably true; that the concept of Military Marxism separates the means of violence from the class subject is, by contrast, explicit. Nevertheless, any form of revolutionary or reformist theory necessarily encounters this problem; it is arguably inherent in any political division of labor. For this reason, Mayer’s work would be greatly enhanced by a close examination of both the strengths and the limits of military organization as an instrument of revolutionary social change. There are texts within the Marxist tradition, and specifically within African Marxism, which Mayer thoroughly knows and describes in depth in this book, that could be better engaged in terms of their relationship to class as both object and subject of political action.

Despite its contradictions, Military Marxism makes several interesting observations about African Marxism. Mayer’s assertion that African Marxism displays less antipathy towards religious traditions, a recurring theme throughout the work, should have been explored and developed further. For example, the implications of Thomas Sankara’s religiously eclectic Military Marxism are not carefully analyzed. The rejuvenation of African Marxism is also a recurrent point (example, on p. 265, “both armed Marxism and “democratic socialism” of the parliamentary variety are on the rise”). Furthermore, the lack of a clear method for delineating and analyzing salient texts is accompanied by an overemphasis on gatekeeping. This creates a focus on who is Marxist in their ideas rather than on which ideas retain material force. Mayer quotes Cabral’s dictum to “judge me from what I do in practice,” without carrying out Cabral’s imperative. In other instances, such as the discussion of Mamdani, the focus appears to be on separating the early (pre-1996) revolutionary Mamdani from the later version. Ali Mazrui is described as “part paleo-conservative part radical in a unique sort of way,” although again the specifics of that uniqueness are not well clarified. The description seems apt, but just how Mayer sees Mazrui’s work on “The Warrior Tradition” as it relates to Military Marxism needs clarification.

This book contains a discussion of a rich array of African political theory that needs to be given broader and deeper consideration; however, it does not deliver on its promise of “a Marxist synthesis of Marxist analysis” (271). Early on, Mayer suggests a way in which that could be done via analytical evaluation of the achievements (or lack thereof) of socialist regimes to achieve human social goals through Comparative Economic Theory, which Mayer claims is “a subdiscipline now entirely forgotten” (11). The footnote for that claim is to a recently reissued work by Andrew Zimbalist and Howard J. Sherman, who are still around, not forgotten. A method for evaluating Military Marxist thought and practice in Africa, based on their work, would indeed be appropriate to Mayer’s stated goals.