To tell the history of the Caribbean is to tell the history of the
world," write Laurent Dubois and Richard Lee Turits. In this
powerful and expansive story of the vast archipelago, Dubois and
Turits chronicle how the Caribbean has been at the heart of modern
contests between slavery and freedom, racism and equality, and empire
and independence. From the emergence of racial slavery and European
colonialism in the early sixteenth century to U.S. annexations and
military occupations in the twentieth, systems of exploitation and
imperial control have haunted the region. Yet the Caribbean is also
where empires have been overthrown, slavery was first defeated, and
the most dramatic revolutions triumphed. Caribbean peoples have never
stopped imagining and pursuing new forms of liberty.
Dubois and Turits
reveal how the region’s most vital transformations have been
ignited in the conflicts over competing visions of land. While the
powerful sought a Caribbean awash in plantations for the benefit of
the few, countless others anchored their quest for freedom in
small-farming and counter-plantation economies, at times succeeding
against all odds. Caribbean realities to this day are rooted in this
long and illuminating history of struggle.
