The Paradox of Freedom is an exploration of the life and work of
Orlando Patterson, probing the relationship between the circumstances of
his life from their beginnings in rural Jamaica to the present and the
complex development of his intellectual work. A novelist and historical
sociologist with an orientation toward public engagement, Patterson
exemplifies one way of being a Jamaican and Black Atlantic intellectual.
At the generative center of Patterson's work has been a fundamental
inquiry into the internal dynamics of slavery as a mode of social and
existential domination. What is most provocatively significant in his
work on slavery is the way it yields a paradoxical insight into the
problem of freedom - namely, that freedom was born existentially and
historically from the degradation and parasitic inhumanity of slavery
and was as much the creation of the enslaved as of their enslavers.
The Paradox of Freedom elucidates the pathways by which Patterson has
both uncovered the relationship between domination and freedom and
engaged intellectually and publicly with the struggles for equality and
decolonization among descendants of the enslaved. It will be of great
interest to students and scholars throughout the humanities and social
sciences and to anyone interested in the work of one of the most
important public intellectuals of our time.
