Review
Island Paradox presents the first comprehensive, census-based portrait of social and economic life in Puerto Rico. Island Paradox describes the many improvements in Puerto Rico's standard of living, including rising per-capita income, longer life expectancies, greater educational attainment, and improved job prospects for women, plus the devastating surge in unemployment and the process by which rapid urbanization and a vanishing agricultural sector have led to severe income inequality. Puerto Rico's close links with the U. S. were both the major source of the island's economic growth before 1970 and the root of recent hardships such as NAFTA's contributions toward a destabilization of ties between the island and the mainland. Island Paradox also reveals the demographic changes that have occurred among Puerto Ricans. Island Paradox. gives us unique insights into a nation closely linked with ours by trade and migration and a sense of what to expect over the next half-century. -- Midwest Book Review
