Customer Reviews

From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean 1492-1969

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The story of how Europeans "discovered" the Caribbean, and how they governed it, is a fascinating tale of adventure, greed and cruelty. Unfortunately, this book tells it in an style that is pedantic and often uses archaic terms. Here is a typical sentence.

Whatever the cogitations of Parliament on these nuances of international trade in the eighteenth century, it laid it down decisively, according to an American merchant, in the omnicompetence lauded by Blackstone, "as a fundamental that the Islands were the only useful colonies we had and that the continent was rather a nuisance." (page 223)

If has a lot of data, which you will enjoy if you want to know how many hogsheads, barrels and tierces of sugar were exported from a particular island in a particular year. At times the author provides page after page of this information, which is a bit dry for the non-economist. He also assumes that his reader knows European history in some detail.

It is a tough read at times, but the fascinating story usually wins out over the style and the data. If you scan it and focus on the sections that document the human dramas, especially in regard to slavery, you will probably learn a lot and enjoy it. You many want to keep a dictionary and a historical reference book handy, however.

I can not put into words what this journal of the truth has done for me as a African-American Male living in the United States of America. I was introduced to this book by a man of Guyanese decent who knew I needed to read this book. I have to admit it was a difficult read because my primary education only spoke of American History and there was no mentioning of any African-Caribbean contributors from the "Middle Passage" period. Now, at thirty-nine many things are clearer to me. "Roots" and "Beloved" are historic, well-documented treasures and need to be used in educating all children no matter race, creed or color. To make sure what I read had some semblance of truth while in Puerto Rico I visited a sugar mill in Guanica and my heart just melted. If you read the book you will understand my feelings. I became angry because something as simple as not being forthwith with documented history such as this to young minds of American children lead to misunderstandings amongst the masses hailing from Africa, South America, The Caribbean, Asia, United States and Europe. Eric Williams I know I can not thank you in person because you are no longer here physically but your spirit lives on in your books and you will always be alive everytime one more person reads your book and awaken "Thank You"! For everyone else read the book it will cleanse your soul and feed your mind. Once you finish this read "How Europe Underdeveloped Africa" by the same author.

This book is, by far, one of the best comprehensive books on the West Indies and its inception. Mr. Williams tactfully pinpoints the disturbing but interesting truths of popular tourist rally-points such as; Barbados, Jamaica, Costa Rica, and Grand Cayman just to name a few. The slave trade and it's economic value, the prominence of sugar cane, and the injustices and insurrections illicited by the former, are all mentioned without bias in this book. A great read!!!!

This is a fascinating topic, and this book does an excellent job of covering everything. The writing is quite good. Really the only sticking point is the level of detail. When this book was originally written, the technology probably wasn't there to include tables really easily, but tens of pages could be eliminated entirely if the data in this book were put into table or graphical format. I recommend the book, but be ready for a slow read.

A handy and indepth guide to the history and economy of the Caribbean from 1492 to 1960s. He provides ample numerical data to illustrate the period. There is also, an extensive bibliography and a fine index.

A thoroughly researched book and a well-informed man, Williams does
much justice to the West Indian populace. Graduating the top of his class from Oxford University, Williams is indeed worthy of scholastic praise.


- Jeremy Pike, history major, University of Texas, at Brownsville

While the book is impressive in its collection of statistical data, it's short on portraying an engaging history of the area. Yes, sugar--and therefore slavery--are hallmarks of Caribbean history. Yes, colonial powers used their colonies (Caribbean and otherwise) for the benefit of the home country (mercantilism, as Williams describes it). And yes, as the Spanish Empire waned, France and England vied for control of and access to the New World. Aside from that, I don't feel I know much more about this part of the world than I did before the book's 515 pages.

The fact that it was orignally published in 1970 is also a drawback--it doesn't provide much of a springboard for understanding the intervening 40 years. As mentioned in other reviews, the book also assumes the reader's familiarity with 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th-century European history as well as providing an unneeded amount of import/export and demographic data. I would recommend finding a shorter book for the major points of the area's 500-year history, of which sugar, slavery, and mercantilism are the keys, and a more recent and in-depth history of how the Caribbean has evolved since the 1960s.

OK, I feel a little bad writing this review because I haven't finished the book. I've been reading it - off and on - for weeks now and I'm still only up to page 119 (it's about 500 pages long). I may finish it one day but it will take me a LONG time. The reason is that it's just not a good read. I enjoy reading history books to learn about people, events, and places. Oddly, there is very little of that in the 500-odd pages of this book.

Eric Williams didn't know how to tell a story. I don't even think he cared about telling a story. This isn't so much about history as it is about the mechanisms behind history. It is a 500 page argument that the islands of the Caribbean have been victimized. That colonization is a bad thing. Maybe this was a novel concept when the book was written but it is pretty standard today.

Most of the book is occupied by endless statistics that the reader immediately forgets. Individual people, places, or events are rarely mentioned. To make matters worse, the book is written in a pretentious, fustian voice. A sentence at random: "To the formidable contributions that sugar has mad to contemporary Caribbean psychology must be added this one, not by any means the least important, that it engendered and nurtured an intercolonial rivalry, an isolationist outlook, a provincialism that is almost a disease, which are among the most striking characteristics, as they are among the most difficult to eradicate, of the twentieth-century West Indian mentality." George Orwell would have had a field day with that sentence. And so goes the rest of the book.

For better reading, try Jan Rogozinski's A Brief History of the Caribbean. Even James A. Michener's novel Caribbean is more informative and it actually gives you the stories you are interested in. For example, the two most important aspects of Caribbean history are slavery and piracy - but pirates barely get any mention in Williams's book - and then, only as an aside.

I have not read the book yet, but the condition of the book on arrival and the timely delivery already make it a good purchase.

I was assigned this book for my Carribean History Class. It is poorly writtin, and very difficult to follow along. The author jumps around from subject to subject, often times in the same paragraph, without any clear timeline or overall sense of what was happening at the time. The author will also use a number of terms in Spainish, or terms from history that are no longer used, without ever defining them for the reader.

Furthermore, the book's bibliography is 42 pages long, yet it was copyrighted in 1970, 9 years into Eric Williams being Prime Minister of Trinidad. Where did he get the time to read so many sources.

Basically, the book is poorly written by a man not qualified to write it, and I am ashamed of my professor for having assigned it.