From New World to Abeng

This chapter uses the intellectual evolution of Jamaican scholar and activist George Beckford to examine broader transformations in Caribbean radical thought sparked by the rise of Black Power. It argues that Beckford, a key figure in the New World Group, which was founded in 1962 and flourished from 1963 to 1968, came to embrace a “culture of dread” rooted in the rejection of Western capitalist society and reflected in efforts of the Abeng collective, of which he became a critical member. In full, Beckford’s engagement with both New World and Abeng formed part of a dialectical whole, driven by Beckford’s quest to attain a fuller, more complete intellectual understanding and his wish to participate in the organic process of the struggle against dispossession.