- Paperback: 338 pages
- Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 2 edition (16 Nov 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0521678498
- ISBN-13: 978-0521678490
- Product Dimensions: 22.7 x 17 x 1.9 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 880,376 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Product Description
Highly acclaimed when it first appeared in 1990, this general history of Barbados traces the events and ideas that have shaped the collaborative experience of all the islands inhabitants. In this second edition, Hilary Beckles updates the text to reflect the considerable number of writings recently published on Barbados. He presents new insights and analyses key events in a lucid and provocative style which will appeal to all those who have an interest in the island's past and present. Using a vigorous approach, Hilary Beckles examines how the influences of the Amerindians, European colonisation, the sugar industry, the African slave trade, emancipation, the civil rights movement, independence in 1966 and nationalism have shaped contemporary Barbados.
Book Description
In this second edition, Hilary Beckles updates the text to reflect the considerable number of writings recently published on Barbados.
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First Sentence
Barbados, unlike some of the other islands in the Caribbean, was not inhabited during the Archaic Age. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Barbados, unlike some of the other islands in the Caribbean, was not inhabited during the Archaic Age. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I am not a history buff, but as my wife an I were travelling to Barbados on vacation, I felt it would serve us well to understand the basics of Barbadian history, so we might put our human experiences there into some perspective.
The book is fluid at times, but the flow is often interrupted by excessive detail about the historical financial data on the sugar cane industry. When I say excessive, I mean literally that I tired of reading about the price of a "hogshead" of sugar cane during the year 1792 and how that compared with the same in 1801, and 1805, and 1820, and 1823, and 1825, and well you get the point. The sheer volume of forgettable numbers is heavy enough on the eyes to lull the reader into REM sleep.
The writer ought to have summarized financial data swiftly to permit a more entertaining read.
Defining exactly what a hogshead, and other colloquialial and period expressions are, might have been nice as well, since I had no dictionary on vacation, and couldn't look it up until I got back to the states.
In fairness, the specific financial dynamics of sugar cane sales were critical to political developments on the island, and the transaction details provided in the book convey that point with impunity.
Another mild complaint I had is that the writer sometimes foreshadows or backtracks to different time periods to explain the political background of some protagonist or event in the reader's current chapter. Thus, the book sometimes lacks some chronological linearity which might better satisfy a sense of forward progress in time.
It would be easy to dramatize or embellish the struggle of Barbadians to overcome slavery, indentured servitude, and discriminatory labor practices. The writer mostly avoided this, which helps the book maintain historic and factual integrity. The book, unlike some others, has not been reduced to a commentary of Barbadian superheroes.
This book is SCREAMING for a second edition.
The book is fluid at times, but the flow is often interrupted by excessive detail about the historical financial data on the sugar cane industry. When I say excessive, I mean literally that I tired of reading about the price of a "hogshead" of sugar cane during the year 1792 and how that compared with the same in 1801, and 1805, and 1820, and 1823, and 1825, and well you get the point. The sheer volume of forgettable numbers is heavy enough on the eyes to lull the reader into REM sleep.
The writer ought to have summarized financial data swiftly to permit a more entertaining read.
Defining exactly what a hogshead, and other colloquialial and period expressions are, might have been nice as well, since I had no dictionary on vacation, and couldn't look it up until I got back to the states.
In fairness, the specific financial dynamics of sugar cane sales were critical to political developments on the island, and the transaction details provided in the book convey that point with impunity.
Another mild complaint I had is that the writer sometimes foreshadows or backtracks to different time periods to explain the political background of some protagonist or event in the reader's current chapter. Thus, the book sometimes lacks some chronological linearity which might better satisfy a sense of forward progress in time.
It would be easy to dramatize or embellish the struggle of Barbadians to overcome slavery, indentured servitude, and discriminatory labor practices. The writer mostly avoided this, which helps the book maintain historic and factual integrity. The book, unlike some others, has not been reduced to a commentary of Barbadian superheroes.
This book is SCREAMING for a second edition.
Format:Paperback
Have travelled to Barbados often so was interested in reading this book. Good to see something published that is not a big money spinner. Enjoyed this book.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Careful, interesting and informative, although flawed
16 July 2010
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a careful, thorough history of Barbados. It is a scholarly work in the best sense. It is interesting, thorough, clear and well written. If you are interested in the history of Barbados, as I am, you will be glad you read the book. It covers the entire history of Barbados, with perhaps only recent history being a little short on detail.
Beckles writes with a point of view: the history of Barbados is a struggle between the slaves and later freed people against a monolithic "plantocracy." The book is not particularly good at sorting out currents and cross-currents in developments, instead forcing everything to fit into this this point of view, whether or not the people or the developments really fit.
Beckles has no capability of seeing the history of Barbados from the viewpoint of people who were not slaves, whether they are rich English people or poor Irish people. People from both of these groups were in Barbados for hundreds of years, in fact they were in Barbados before African slavery. He mentions in passing that many of these people left Barbados in the last half of the twentieth century, without discussing either the number who left or the underlying reasons or implications.
The observations in the book related to economics are simply dreadful. I am a professional economist, so this probably is a bigger deal to me than you unless you are an economist, but Beckles has no grasp of basic economics. Beckles presents simplistic answers when the results of thoughtful analysis would be informative.
The discussion of population and emigration is particularly poor. He sees emigration as all bad. It is hard for those leaving. Still, Beckles does not seem to realize that emigration raised the wages of those remaining in Barbados. He does seem to realize that small peasant holdings did not come into existence in Barbados precisely because the land was productive in producing cash crops on large farms or plantations. Still, rather than examine whether smallholdings were quite unlikely no matter who owned the land when slavery was abolished and what might have happened instead, Beckles blames the evil plantocracy for getting in the way of the former slaves' aspirations and leaves it at that.
This is easily the most careful and thorough history of Barbados available. It is the best place to get the actual developments, even though you will not get a good understanding of why they happened.
I highly recommend it.
Beckles writes with a point of view: the history of Barbados is a struggle between the slaves and later freed people against a monolithic "plantocracy." The book is not particularly good at sorting out currents and cross-currents in developments, instead forcing everything to fit into this this point of view, whether or not the people or the developments really fit.
Beckles has no capability of seeing the history of Barbados from the viewpoint of people who were not slaves, whether they are rich English people or poor Irish people. People from both of these groups were in Barbados for hundreds of years, in fact they were in Barbados before African slavery. He mentions in passing that many of these people left Barbados in the last half of the twentieth century, without discussing either the number who left or the underlying reasons or implications.
The observations in the book related to economics are simply dreadful. I am a professional economist, so this probably is a bigger deal to me than you unless you are an economist, but Beckles has no grasp of basic economics. Beckles presents simplistic answers when the results of thoughtful analysis would be informative.
The discussion of population and emigration is particularly poor. He sees emigration as all bad. It is hard for those leaving. Still, Beckles does not seem to realize that emigration raised the wages of those remaining in Barbados. He does seem to realize that small peasant holdings did not come into existence in Barbados precisely because the land was productive in producing cash crops on large farms or plantations. Still, rather than examine whether smallholdings were quite unlikely no matter who owned the land when slavery was abolished and what might have happened instead, Beckles blames the evil plantocracy for getting in the way of the former slaves' aspirations and leaves it at that.
This is easily the most careful and thorough history of Barbados available. It is the best place to get the actual developments, even though you will not get a good understanding of why they happened.
I highly recommend it.
Mandatory reading for any author of Caribbean literature
2 April 2012
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is the one book I turned to when I decided to put pen to paper for my historic novel. No work of history or even of fiction that is focused on Barbados (or even on the greater Caribbean) can claim authenticity without referring to this book by Sir Hilary Beckles.
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