This is the first time Sartre's classic work on colonialism has been made available in English. First published in French in 1964, Colonialism and Neo-Colonialism is a classic critique of France's policies in Algeria in the 1950s and 1960s and inspired much subsequent writing on colonialism, post-colonialism, politics, and literature. It had an important impact on the conduct of the Algerian war itself, and the break up of the French colonial empire cannot be understood without reference to this key text. In this respect, it is also famous for its controversial call for the use of violence in achieving political ends.

Colonialism and Neo Colonialism has Sartre's preface to Wretched of the Earth and has inspired many other influential French thinkers and critics of colonialism such as Jean-Francois Lyotard, Frantz Fanon, Pierre Bourdieu and Jacques Derrida.