Empire and nation-building in the Caribbean: Barbados, 1937-66

by Mary Chamberlain, Andrew Thompson (Editor), John M. MacKenzie (Editor)

Overview

This original and exciting book examines the processes of nation building in the British West Indies.

It argues that nation building was a more complex and messy affair, involving women and men in a range of social and cultural activities, in a variety of migratory settings, within a unique geo-political context. Taking as a case study Barbados which, in the 1930s, was the most economically impoverished, racially divided, socially disadvantaged and politically conservative of the British West Indian colonies, Empire and nation-building tells the messy, multiple stories of how a colony progressed to a nation.

It is the first book to tell all sides of the independence story and will be of interest to specialists and non-specialists interested in the history of Empire, the Caribbean, of de-colonisation and nation building.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780719078767
Publisher:	Manchester University Press
Publication date:	06/01/2010
Series:	Studies in Imperialism , #82
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Mary Chamberlain is Emeritus Professor of Caribbean History at Oxford Brookes University

Table of Contents

List of Tables viii

General editor's introduction ix

Acknowledgements xi

1 Introduction 1

2 The 'romance' of foreign: distance, perspective and an inclusive nationhood 26

3 The exigencies of 'home': Barbadian Poverty and British nation-building 51

4 Gender and the moral economy 76

5 Race, nation and the politics of memory 99

6 'A common language of the spirit': cultural awakenings and national belongings 124

7 From diffidence to desperation: the British, the Americans, the war and the move to Federation 149

8 Conclusion 174

Bibliography 196

Index 213