In the years during and after World War I the Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey led what has been called the largest international mass movement of black people in the twentieth century. He and his organisation, the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), built a steamship line, sponsored expeditions to Liberia, staged annual international conventions, inspired many black business enterprises, endorsed black political candidates, and fostered the study of black history and culture.

In The World of Marcus Garvey, Judith Stein examines Garvey's ideology and appeal by placing Garvey and the UNIA carefully in the context of the international black politics and class structure of the period. She analyses the ways Garvey boldly employed conventional racial ideas and goals to organise a militant black population during the social and political upheavals of World War I and its aftermath. In addition, Stein sheds new light on her subject, drawing on personal interviews with surviving Garveyites and reports from the federal government's intelligence organisations.