A world without most of us: Achille Mbembe’s Critique of Black Reason and the politics of postcolonial critique

In this essay I review Achille Mbembe Critique of Black Reason by offering a critical analysis through both postcolonial and earlier Enlightenment thought on notions of reason and critique. The review concludes by arguing that Mbembe’s narrow focus on specific Black populations to speak for the whole of the world, and the lack of discussion on gender and sexuality render an otherwise promising project with few applicable or actionable concepts.