Walter Rodney
| Dr. Walter Rodney | |
|---|---|
| Native name | Walter Anthony Rodney |
| Born |
23 March 1942 British Guiana |
| Died | 13 June 1980 (aged 38) Guyana |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | School of African and Oriental Studies |
| Academic work | |
| Main interests | African studies |
Walter Anthony Rodney (23 March 1942 – 13 June 1980) was a prominent Guyanese historian, political activist and scholar, who was assassinated in Guyana in 1980.
Born into a working-class family, Walter Rodney was a very bright student, attending Queen's College in the then British Guiana (now Guyana), where he became a champion debater and athlete, and then attending university on a scholarship at the University College of the West Indies (UCWI) in Jamaica, graduating in 1963 with a first-class degree in History, thereby winning the Faculty of Arts prize.
Rodney earned a PhD in African History in 1966 at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, England, at the age of 24. His dissertation, which focused on the slave trade on the Upper Guinea Coast, was published by the Oxford University Press in 1970 under the title A History of the Upper Guinea Coast 1545-1800 and was widely acclaimed for its originality in challenging the conventional wisdom on the topic.
Rodney traveled widely and became very well known internationally as an activist, scholar and formidable orator. He taught at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania during the period 1966-67 and later in Jamaica at his alma mater UWI Mona. He was sharply critical of the middle class for its role in the post-independence Caribbean. He was also a strong critic of capitalism and argued for a socialist development template.
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