Empire and Nation-building in the Caribbean Barbados, 1937-66

This original and exciting book examines the processes of nation building in the British West Indies. Telling the story from ‘above’ and ‘below’, and using oral histories and archival records from Barbados, Britain, and the United States, it challenges previous, gendered histories of Caribbean decolonization which focus on labour action alone. It argues that nation building was a more complex and messy affair, involving women and men in a range of social and cultural activities, in a variety of migratory settings, within a unique geo-political context. Taking as a case study Barbados which, in the 1930s, was the most economically impoverished, racially divided, socially disadvantaged and politically conservative of the British West Indian colonies, Empire and Nation-Building tells the messy, multiple stories of how a colony progressed to a nation. It locates these stories both at the heart of high diplomacy between Britain and the United States before and during the Second World War, the Cold War and decolonization, where the peace and the loyalty of the Caribbean islands were critical, and in the everyday connections between Barbadians at home and abroad, the dreams of its migrant activists, the strategies and resources developed by Barbadians in their fight against poverty and racism, and the role of culture in establishing dignity and autonomy. It is the first book to tell all sides of the independence story and will be of interest to specialists and non-specialists interested in the history of Empire, the Caribbean, of de-colonisation and nation building

Mary Chamberlain was Professor of Caribbean History at Oxford Brookes University.