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The earthquake that struck Haiti on 12 January 2010 thrust the nation into the public consciousness as never before. There is now an unprecedented empathy for and interest in Haiti, and a related need for information on Haitian reality, beyond the clichés often associated with the nation. In particular, there is a special interest in the earthquake and the questions of Haitis future development. Haiti Rising responds to this public interest and has three fundamental aims: to raise awareness of Haiti, its people, culture and history; to allow some who were in Haiti during the earthquake a chance to testify.

The book brings together more than twenty essays written by some of the most prominent authorities on Haiti, and offers insights on the political, social and historical contexts, as well as the uniquely rich culture of the nation. The first part features survivor testimonies  moving accounts of the earthquake and its aftermath written by authors and academics, Haitian nationals and foreign visitors. The second part presents essays on economics, politics, society and culture (music, religion, visual art), and the ways in which they are interrelated in history and in contemporary life. The third section focuses on the history of Haiti from colonial times to the present and shows the ways in which history has shaped Haitian society. It shows how colonial class and colour structures have persisted, how the revolution has shaped subsequent political, cultural and social structures, and how the legacy of the Duvalier dictatorship has lingered. The final section features contributors who were not in Haiti at the time of the earthquake, but who have strong ties to Haiti. These authors write about their personal connections to Haiti, their reactions to the earthquake, and their hopes and recommendations for reconstruction.

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If any doubt still remains, the story of Trinidad and Tobago will dispel the last illusion that money and technical assistance alone can launch a new nation in the world community. The Mechanics of Independence probes the interplay of political and social factors on national development with both commitment and detachment. The author, who is President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is also a political scientist whose perceptions have been sharpened by the demands of his office. As a background for economic reforms and a new constitution, the author traces the political development of the colony under Spanish and British imperial rule, discussing the origin and evolution of the idea that led to the rise of nationalism. Valuable and practical information, supported by charts and statistics, explains how Trinidad and Tobago devised measures to cope with a legacy of economic problems, the tax structure, monetary policy, and international trade following its independence from Great Britain in 1962. The text is a compelling portrait of developmental efforts and a case study of the economic, cultural, and political problems that developing nations faced during the twentieth century and provides historical background for those nations who are facing the mounting challenges inherent in globalization. Originally published in 1971 by the Massasuchetss Institute of Technology Press, this seminal work is as timely today as when it was first published.

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Gendered Realities is an interdisciplinary reader that situates the present understanding of Caribbean feminist scholarship after fifteen years of indepth and increasingly sophisticated research. The book provides a space for scholars to put forward new and challenging ideas and attempts to encourage new contributors to intellectual thought in the Caribbean. The essays deal with diverse and rich topics including the role of women in Caribbean art and the visual grammars of gender in early Caribbean painting as well as the development of women's history and gendered history in relation to the historiography of the English-speaking Caribbean. Other essays probe the representation of masculinity in Caribbean feminist thought, gender and adult sexuality, and symbols of masculinity in visual art. Of interest to scholars in gender studies, women's studies, minority studies, and Caribbean history and culture.

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This volume is an account of the development and destruction of slavery in St Thomas, St John and St Croix, the Caribbean islands which today comprise the US Virgin Islands. The book sees slavery as fundamental to the entire fabric of colonial society, and pays particular attention to the social and political life of the whites and freedmen in interaction with the slaves. The Danish West Indian colonies contained a small but significant part of the slave population of the Caribbean. Each of the islands had a distinct history during the period of slavery: St Croix was the scene of a full-blown sugar plantation economy; St Thomas served as a major entrepot, with a small plantation sector and a large role in the transatlantic slave trade; St John developed as a plantation economy, but for various reasons the slaves came to engage in relatively independent economic activity. Resistance to slavery was persistent, with important rebellions occurring in St John and St Croix. Although Denmark was the first European nation to abolish the slave trade, emancipation did not come until 1848, so that the gap between abolition and emancipation was longer than in most territories. Thus, the study of slave society in the Danish West Indies has much to tell about the nature of Caribbean history generally. Based on extensive research in the Copenhagen archives, this book makes an original contribution to the understanding of slave societies throughout the Americas.

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Claude McKay remains one of the most influential intellectuals of the African Diaspora. Best remembered for his extraordinary poetry, his achievement in verse has been widely analyzed and praised. Yet in the welter of discussion about McKay, little has been said about his early writing in Jamaican. Two collections from the period, Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads, are more known about than known, and his poems for the Jamaican press, most of which have never been anthologized, are rarely studied.
In A Fierce Hatred of Injustice, Winston James elegantly redresses this omission. Through a subtle and detailed consideration of McKay's formative years on the island, James reviews the themes and politics of poetry which McKay began writing at the age of ten. Above all he focuses on the poet's pioneering use of Jamaican creole revealing the way in which this laid a foundation for subsequent work by writers such as Louise Bennett, Linton Kwesi Johnson and Michael Smith. The volume concludes with a comprehensive anthology of the early poems together with a comic sketch about Jamaican peasant life by McKay and an autobiographical essay on his experiences in the Kingston police force.

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Police and Crime Control in Jamaica is a valuable addition to the sparse literature on policing in developing states, and is the first study of its kind on a police force in a Caribbean territory. The work examines the extent and sources of police ineffectiveness in controlling crime. It assesses the quality of justice and declining public confidence in the criminal justice system. Police reform efforts, as well as sources of cynicism among members of the force, are analysed. This study of policing and citizen-state relations is especially relevant to the tourism-dependent countries of the Caribbean amid growing recognition of the negative impact of high rates of violent crime on these economies. This book will be much valued by students of criminology and criminal justice, especially those with an interest in the Caribbean, as well as the general reader who is concerned with issues of crime and policing.

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Higher Education in the Caribbean assesses the role the University of the West Indies has played since its inception in providing tertiary education to the peoples of the Caribbean and evaluates the future of the institution as it enters the twenty-first century. The work is a significant contribution to the literature in this important area of Caribbean scholarship. The collection was written to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the University of the West Indies in 1998. Contributors address such complex issues as tertiary education in the light of the rapid advances in technology that characterized the last decades of the twentieth century, demands from the political directorate for more relevant course offerings, and the challenges of managing processes of institutional change.