ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the disagreements and dialogues between Diagne and Du Bois on blacks' relationships with France and the role of tirailleurs in the empire. It shows how the problems grew and were understood over time through a series of conversations between other black intellectuals. The book discusses Diagne's upbringing, his early contacts with the metropole, and his rise as an elite member of the French National Assembly. It explores the categorization of these intellectuals as either proponents or detractors of a radical black nationalist agenda. The book examines the Trinidadian scholar's disparagements of the effects of colonialism and fascism on tirailleurs and other West Africans. It also explores the Senegalese intellectual's representations of the impact of World War II on tirailleurs who fought on the side of France against Nazi Germans.
