Literary critic, poet, historian, and economist, Chinweizu was one of the first Nigerian writers to draw upon a wide range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences in order to explore Africa's contemporary social, political, and cultural condition. His work has significantly extended the analysis of colonialism and neocolonialism carried out by African, African American, and Caribbean writers such as Kwame Nkrumah, Walter Rodney, and Frantz Fanon. Its significance lies not in the development of new theoretical insights, since Chinweizu's often highly polemical writing serves to recharge the stimuli provided by earlier writers, but his insistence on reading culture through an understanding of political and economic history was influential in alerting other writers to the value of an interdisciplinary approach to the study of Africa. The vehemence of much of his writing and his eagerness to engage in fierce, sometimes abusive, personal debate created many enmities. It...