McKay's account of his long odyssey from Jamaica to Harlem and then on to France, Britain, North Africa, Russia, and finally back to America. As well as depicting his own experiences, the author describes his encounters with such notable personalities as Charlie Chaplin, George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Leon Trotsky, W. E. B. Du Bois, Isadora Duncan, Paul Robeson, and Sinclair Lewis.