Frantz Fanon was dying when he wrote it.
That’s the first thing you have to understand. He had leukemia. He was only 36. He was dictated the final pages of The Wretched of the Earth while lying in a bed, racing against a clock that was about to run out. It wasn't some dry academic exercise written in a comfy library. It was a scream.
Honestly, most people who talk about this book haven't actually read it front to back. They see the name Frantz Fanon and immediately think "violence." They think of Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous (and some say, slightly misleading) preface that turned the book into a manifesto for picking up a gun. But Fanon was a psychiatrist. He wasn't just interested in the physical act of rebellion; he was obsessed with what happens to a person’s soul when they are told, day after day, that they are less than human.
The book is heavy. It’s dense. It’s also incredibly relevant if you want to understand why the world looks the way it does today.
The Violence Question: What Everyone Gets Wrong
People get hung up on the first chapter. "Concerning Violence."
Fanon argues that colonialism is not a thinking machine. It’s not a neighborly disagreement. It is, by its very nature, violence in its natural state. It only yields when confronted with greater violence. He calls it a "cleansing force" that frees the native from their inferiority complex.
That sounds terrifying. It is.
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But you’ve got to look at the context of 1961. The Algerian War was a bloodbath. The French were using torture as a standard administrative tool. Fanon wasn't celebrating blood for the sake of blood. He was diagnosing a tragedy. As a doctor at the Blida-Joinville Psychiatric Hospital, he treated both the tortured and the torturers. He saw that the colonial system made everyone insane.
He basically argues that if you trap a human being in a cage and poke them with a stick for a hundred years, you can’t act surprised when they bite your hand off the moment the cage opens. It's not a moral choice for Fanon; it's a predictable, almost biological reaction to being dehumanized.
The nuance most people miss is that Fanon didn't think violence was the end goal. He was actually worried about it. He knew that a nation born in blood would have a hard time learning how to peaceably govern itself.
The Pitfalls of National Consciousness
This is the part of The Wretched of the Earth that hits the hardest in 2026.
Fanon warns about what happens after the revolution. He predicted, with scary accuracy, that many newly independent countries would fall into the hands of a "national bourgeoisie." These are the local elites who just step into the shoes of the old colonial masters. They wear the same suits. They live in the same houses. They keep the same bank accounts in Switzerland.
They don't change the system; they just change the color of the people running it.
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He calls this "the pitfalls of national consciousness." It’s a transition from a struggle for liberation to a scramble for spoils. Fanon saw it coming in Africa and the Caribbean. He saw the way the new leaders would use "nationalism" to distract the poor while they looted the treasury.
It’s a cynical take, but look at the history of the last sixty years. How many times have we seen a liberation hero turn into a dictator? Fanon wasn't a psychic, but he understood human psychology and power dynamics better than almost anyone else in the 20th century.
The Mental Disorders of Colonialism
Fanon’s medical background shines in the final chapters. This is where the book stops being a political manifesto and starts being a clinical case study.
He documents the "nervous conditions" of the colonized. He talks about the insomnia, the recurring nightmares, and the psychosomatic pains that no physical medicine could cure. He describes how being forced to speak a language that isn't yours and worship a god that doesn't look like you creates a "split personality."
- Colonialism isn't just about land or gold.
- It's about the internal map of the mind.
- It creates a world divided into "zones."
- The settler’s zone is bright, paved, and fed.
- The native’s zone is cramped, dark, and hungry.
Living in that duality creates a permanent state of tension. Fanon noted that the colonized person is always "on edge." This constant muscular tension is what eventually explodes into revolution. It’s a release.
Why We Still Talk About Him
We live in a world that is supposedly "post-colonial," yet the structures Fanon described are everywhere. Look at the way global debt works. Look at the way the "Global North" relates to the "Global South."
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Scholars like Edward Said or Homi Bhabha took Fanon’s ideas and built entire fields of study (Post-colonialism) out of them. But even outside of universities, Fanon’s influence is massive. You can see his fingerprints on the Black Panthers in the US, on the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, and even in modern discussions about "decolonizing" everything from museums to curriculums.
The "Wretched" he talked about weren't just the people in 1960s Algeria. They are anyone living on the margins of a system that refuses to see them.
Actionable Steps for Engaging with Fanon
If you're actually going to dive into this, don't just skim it. It’s easy to get lost in his poetic, angry prose.
- Read the Psychiatrist, not just the Rebel. When you get to the case studies at the end of the book, pay attention. They explain why he wrote the earlier chapters on violence. It changes the whole vibe of the book.
- Compare the Preface and the Text. Read Sartre’s preface, but then read Fanon’s actual words. You’ll notice Sartre is much more "pro-violence" than Fanon actually is. Sartre was an observer; Fanon was the one seeing the bodies in the hospital.
- Look for the "National Bourgeoisie" in the news. Watch how leaders in developing nations—or even in marginalized communities within wealthy nations—interact with power. Are they seeking systemic change, or are they just looking for their turn at the table?
- Listen for the "Third World" context. Remember that Fanon was trying to find a "Third Way." He didn't want to follow the US or the Soviet Union. He wanted something entirely new. Ask yourself if that "new thing" ever actually happened.
Fanon didn't live to see the book published. He died in Bethesda, Maryland, of all places, brought there by the CIA for medical treatment. He never saw the final victory of the Algerian Revolution. But The Wretched of the Earth ensured that his voice didn't die with him. It remains one of the most uncomfortable, challenging, and necessary books ever written. It doesn't ask for your permission to be angry. It just tells you why the anger exists.
To truly understand the modern world, start by reading the first ten pages of the chapter "The Pitfalls of National Consciousness." It explains more about current global instability than a decade of cable news. Focus on the distinction Fanon makes between "nationalism" and "social consciousness"—it is the difference between a country that is simply free of foreign troops and a country where the people are actually free.