Description

The contributors to Caribbean Realities and Endogenous Sustainability discuss alternative theoretical perspectives, sustainable growth-inducing economic policies, and special challenges in this era of neoliberal globalization. These perspectives, policies and challenges have to be seriously considered if appropriate interventions towards changing the Caribbean status quo and eliminating social and political ills are to be pursued. The authors evaluate past efforts and policies, criticize failed perspectives, and offer alternative strategies, policies and realistic options to the region's current socio-economic impasse and misery from a distinctly Caribbean viewpoint. The chapters are informed by such important factors as historical legacy, the role of institutions (including market and government), geopolitics and international relations, security, local culture and social psychology, which clearly stand in contrast to the starry-eyed analysis of the current orthodoxy. Overall, the essays not only expand the body of knowledge but, more importantly, provide a rich menu for alternative strategies and policies related to Caribbean international relations and social and governance ills in the twenty-first century.

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Debbie A. Mohammed is Senior Lecturer in International Trade, Institute of International Relations and the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business, the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago. Her publications include (co-edited with Nikolaos Karagiannis) The Modern Caribbean Economy (2 volumes).

Nikolaos Karagiannis is Professor of Economics, Winston-Salem State University, North Carolina. He is co-editor of the journal American Review of Political Economy and his publications include The US Economy and Neoliberalism: Alternative Strategies and Policies; Europe in Crisis: Problems, Challenges, and Alternative Perspectives; and (co-edited with Debbie A. Mohamed) The Modern Caribbean Economy (2 volumes).

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Regional integration has emerged as perhaps the most controversial issue within the Caribbean. While some progress in implementing economic reforms, both at the national and regional level are observable, the efforts made by Caribbean policymakers to strengthen regional cooperation and integration have not yielded the envisioned level of economic transformation.

Caribbean Trade and Integration distinguishes itself by combining history with sound economic and policy analysis. Moreover, this book reviews a survey of several key historical studies that have identified the urgent need for a change in policy action among Caribbean Community member states over time and that have outlined many pointed policy suggestions to effect the same. The book culminates by addressing the need to unpause the Caribbean Single = Market and Economy and proposes a number of initiatives to generate this outcome.

While this book is written to appeal to an academic audience, it also provides essential reading for policy practitioners, stakeholder groups, the CARICOM Secretariat and those interested in the dynamics of Caribbean regional integration.

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Description

This remarkable description of Jamaica in the late 1680s was written by a contemporary English observer, John Taylor, who spent some months on the island. The original manuscript is held by the National Library of Jamaica, and has rarely been used by scholars. It contains information about Jamaica under the Spaniards, about the English invasion of 1655 and about the formation of the subsequent society, including the treatment of slaves. There are sections on the island's settlement and architecture, including a particularly full description of Port Royal. John Taylor sets out fifty current laws, many of them unknown to other such collections. He also carefully explains the nature of Jamaica's birds, beasts and plants. Taylor offers an image of the island before the general spread of sugar cultivation, citing some creatures now extinct in Jamaica; he also makes many suggestions about the medical use of natural products. His world is still one in which certain places are enchanted, though he also describes an island whose main features will be entirely familiar to modern Jamaicans. Buisseret's meticulous work on this manuscript has taken over twenty years and he provides an annotated version of the manuscript, which was originally more than 850 pages and was in three volumes. This edition covers the second half of volume 1 and the whole of volume 2, providing a rich tapestry of Taylor's observations and notes on Jamaica. Most of the remaining manuscript contains autobiographical material and nautical logs. Buisseret's edition provides an annotation and a glossary. The text will be useful to generations of scholars and students alike or to anyone with an interest in Jamaica and its colourful history. Co-published with the National Library of Jamaica and the Mill Press.

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David Buisseret is Garrett Professor of History, University of Texas, Arlington. He has taught at a variety of institutions, including the University of the West Indies, Jamaica, from 1964 to 1980, and served as editor of the Jamaican Historical Review and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

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Plantation Jamaica analyses the important but neglected role of the attorneys who managed estates, chiefly for absentee proprietors, and assesses their efficiency and impact on Jamaica during slavery and freedom. Meticulous research based on a variety of sources, including the attorneys' letters, plantation papers and slave registration records, provides rich quantitative and literary data describing the attorneys' role, status, range of activities and demographic characteristics. Higman charts both the extent of absentee ownership and the complex structure of the managerial hierarchy that stretched across the Atlantic. Detailed case studies compare the attorney Simon Taylor's management of Golden Grove Estate in the decade before the American Revolution and Isaac Jackson's control of Montpelier in the years immediately following the abolition of slavery. These examples provide a wealth of information about plantation life and labour, technology, trade, investments and profits. Higman also makes a unique contribution by investigating and describing several topics previously neglected, including the postal service, the history of accounting and the role of attorneys in the British Isles. The writing style is clear, persuasive and elegant, which makes the work accessible to Atlantic and Caribbean historians and to general readers as well. This book is critical in the ongoing historiographical debate about the impact of absenteeism in Jamaica, Great Britain's largest sugar-exporting colony. The sophisticated economic and social analysis reveals how managers, overseers and owners constructed an efficient value system, which permitted ethical behaviour among themselves yet perpetuated the brutal exploitation of plantation workers, enslaved and free.

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Don't Burn our Bridges: The Case for Caribbean Carriers"" argues that a tourism-dependent region comprised largely of a group of islands must, in its own best interest, retain ownership of key aspects of its air access in spite of the costs and challenges involved in so doing. Air transportation is the glue that cements the tourism market to the destination, but it is also the aerial bridge connecting the territories and peoples of a single market and economy. Often regional airlines are forced to offer a mixture of commercial and social routes, which makes profitability difficult. The social service they provide is critical, however, and public sector shareholders should not measure their return on investment simply in terms of the bottom line. Holder rejects a widely held view that Caribbean governments, should not support their own carriers financially. Instead, he argues that because of their overall contribution to development generally, the air transportation industry should be counted among those companies in the region which are too big (and important) to be allowed to fail. ""Don't Burn Our Bridges"" documents the history of Caribbean airlines and attempts to demystify the complexities of such concepts as deregulation, yield management, hedging of oil prices, fare setting, fuel surcharges and a la carte pricing, while making the point that running successful airlines has defeated some of the world's most brilliant business minds. Holder also explores the impact of the global economic meltdown of 2008-2009 on air transportation and Caribbean tourism, and proposes a way forward for air transportation in the Caribbean community.