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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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A Road to Excellence encapsulates the establishment of a school nursing at the University Hospital of the West Indies and the progression of the basic nursing education programme from an apprenticeship system based on the British model to a partial student status system. The quality of the leadership throughout the period has been highlighted. The authors chronicle the influence of the Jamaica General Trained Nurses Association/Nurses Association of Jamaica, the regulating role of the Nursing Council, and show how support from regional and international agencies contributed to changes in the administration and integrity of the curriculum. The flexibility of the teaching staff in adapting to current educational technologies and the response of the students as evidenced by their performance in the registration examinations are presented. Aspects of operations and functioning integral to the maintenance of standards in a school are also covered.

The authors all graduated from the University Hospital of the West Indies School of Nursing and had a history of service with many local and international nursing associations, and they have brought to this work their insiders understanding of the schools journey from its inception.