History and geography have combined to create extremely complex societies in the Caribbean region. No other region of the world experienced the artificial demographic and ecological transformations that the Caribbean went through after the accidental arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492. During the succeeding centuries immigrants from around the globe generated unique and baffling hybrid cultural forms across the region. At the same time, imported fauna and flora completely revolutionised cultivation, ecology and culture. As a result, studies that treat the Caribbean as a unified region, although relatively few in number, have been of extraordinary importance in understanding the basic characteristics of the region's singularly unusual history and inordinately complex culture. Stephan Palmié and Francisco Scarano's large edited volume, divided into seven sections and with 39 chapters written by 40 authors, comprises a welcome contribution to the literature. The authors, primarily drawn from the fields of history, anthropology, sociology, political science, archaeology, geography and geology, are uniformly outstanding and are highly respected scholars in their fields.
Arranged thematically as well as chronologically, the narrative is presented in subsections that attempt to cover the regional history from the time of the indigenous societies until the present. As with any work of this nature, there is inescapable repetition not only within individual chapters but also across the sectional divisions. There is no obvious distinction, for example, between part III, ‘Colonial Designs in Flux’, and part IV, ‘Capitalism, Slavery and Revolution’. Both address the unforeseen complications resulting from the progressive transformation of settler societies into exploitative socio-economic systems based on slave labour and plantation production. Nevertheless, the entire volume is written in a clear and eminently accessible style and overall is commendably representative of the latest research. The illustrations are a notable feature that strikingly enhances the text, and most chapters are amply supplied with citations and bibliographies, although four chapters dispense with these altogether.
In general the volume demonstrates the integral connection between Caribbean, Atlantic and European politics and economies especially after the seventeenth century, when the north-west European states successfully managed to breach the Spanish and Portuguese monopoly of the Americas. As the authors demonstrate persuasively, Caribbean societies were not marginal to the development of the modern world but rather were an essential contributing factor to modernity. A superb introduction provides an excellent context for Caribbean exceptionalism across time and geography. Despite their specificity, a number of the essays achieve an appealing combination of the local and the regional, while capturing the nuances of particular times, locales and specific circumstances.
Several chapters stand out. Reinaldo Funes Monzote describes brilliantly the multi-layered reconstitution of society, politics, bio-history, ideology and economics that accompanied the early phase of the Spanish integration of the Caribbean into the expanded Iberian sphere. Francisco Scarano's analysis of what he refers to as the ‘long seventeenth century’ focuses on the Hispanic Caribbean but never loses sight of the reciprocal relations beyond the Spanish realm. Hilary MacDonald Beckles insightfully recalls the complicated way in which the problem of labour was temporarily resolved in the initial period of constructing the Caribbean slave society. Similarly for the later period, Aisha Khan, O. Nigel Bolland, Anthony Maingot and Christine Du Bois examine with consummate skill the prevailing importance of interrelated themes such as migration, labour mobilisation and politicisation, nationalism, ethnicity and Caribbean diasporas not only for specific units but also for the region as a whole.
The strength of this volume rests on its rich thematic scope, its excellently chosen illustrations and its sound bibliographical references. Given the superb selection of contributors, this is to be expected. Throughout the volume, however, there remain some surprisingly questionable assertions. A few examples are illustrative. Ovando came to the Caribbean not to suppress slave rebellions (pp. 156–7) but to establish a settler colony, thereby deviating from the Portuguese Atlantic trading pattern with which Columbus was familiar. It is curious to describe the Spanish strategic retreat from the Lesser Antilles as an ‘expulsion’ during the seventeenth century (pp. 191–2) since those islands had not been effectively settled for decades. Similarly, warfare did not destroy the economy of Saint-Domingue (p. 257): while the plantation/slave-driven economy was drastically altered by the war and accompanying revolution, a diversified freeholder economy remained vital and viable until after the middle of the nineteenth century. Haitians did not become poor until the time of the Civil War in the United States. On p. 403 the etymological origins of the Spanish word criollo deserve a more sophisticated description; and Edward Seaga did not become ‘president’ of Jamaica (p. 507), as Jamaica is a constitutionally monarchical state. Yet these are minor blemishes in a large volume that should be genuinely attractive to a wide audience interested in the Caribbean.
From a practical point of view, the volume has two minor drawbacks. The first is that sheer size and weight inhibit recommending the paper copy as a textbook for undergraduate instruction, although this may be offset by a weightless electronic version. The second reservation pertains to the nature of the text. Despite the fine collection of authors, this is an awfully conventional narrative that follows too closely the linear chronology of Caribbean historical development which still views a region in binary terms of masters and slaves, oppressors and oppressed, exploiters and exploited, or immigrants and emigrants. The introduction tantalisingly refers to Caribbean culture, but after 600 pages the reader gets very little sustained discussion of the nature and cultural accomplishments of these societies. Winston James looks at the intellectual dimension of culture, but one chapter and fleeting references in the introduction are woefully inadequate for a complex region distinguished for its relatively long history of exceptional creative and performing arts as well as architecture.
