The son of a provincial school administrator in British-governed Trinidad, James disappointed his family by embracing the culture and passions of the colonial underclass. He joined the literary avant-garde of the island before leaving for Britain. In the UK, James swiftly became a beloved cricket journalist, playwright for his close friend Paul Robeson, and a pathbreaking scholar of black history with The Black Jacobins, the first history of the Haitian revolt. The artistic skills of Milton Knight, at once acute and provocative, bring out James's unique personality, how it arose, and how he became a world figure.