Longlisted for the National Book Award and hailed as "a bellwether of things to come" (Aaron Robertson), Afropessimism exploded conventional theories of race relations in America, presenting the tenets of an intellectual movement that sees Blackness through the lens of perpetual slavery. Drawing on the works of Gramsci and Fanon, as well as on literature, film, and critical theory, Frank B. Wilderson III, one of our "boldest and most unflinching theorists of the indispensability ... of anti-Black violence and racism" (Khalil Gibran Muhammad), powerfully demonstrates that the social construct of slavery is not, in fact, a relic of the past, but the very engine that powers our civilization. Without this master-slave dynamic, Wilderson argues, the calculus bolstering world civilization would collapse. Interwoven with autobiographical stories that juxtapose Wilderson's seemingly idyllic upbringing in mid-century Minneapolis with the abject racism he later encountered in Berkeley, California, and South Africa, Afropessimism not only delivers a formidable philosophical account of Blackness, but "depicts a remarkable life, lived with daring and sincerity" (Paul C. Taylor, Washington Post). Ultimately, Wilderson provides no restorative solution. Instead, he encourages us to recognize these historical and social conditions-and thus, the reality of our inherently racialized existence. Book jacket.