Product Description

In this second edition, Hilary Beckles updates the text to reflect the considerable number of writings recently published on Barbados. He presents new insights and analyses key events in a lucid and provocative style which will appeal to all those who have an interest in the island's past and present. Hilary Beckles examines how the influences of the Amerindians, European colonisation, the sugar industry, the African slave trade, emancipation, the civil rights movement, independence in 1966 and nationalism have shaped contemporary Barbados. A History of Barbados speaks to the slavery past as passionately as it does to the considerable success of this small nation finding its way in a turbulent, globalised world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #568605 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 334 pages

Customer Reviews

Mixed feelings, but encouragement?
I am not a history buff, but as my wife an I were travelling to Barbados on vacation, I felt it would serve us well to understand the basics of Barbadian history, so we might put our human experiences there into some perspective.

The book is fluid at times, but the flow is often interrupted by excessive detail about the historical financial data on the sugar cane industry. When I say excessive, I mean literally that I tired of reading about the price of a "hogshead" of sugar cane during the year 1792 and how that compared with the same in 1801, and 1805, and 1820, and 1823, and 1825, and well you get the point. The sheer volume of forgettable numbers is heavy enough on the eyes to lull the reader into REM sleep.

The writer ought to have summarized financial data swiftly to permit a more entertaining read.

Defining exactly what a hogshead, and other colloquialial and period expressions are, might have been nice as well, since I had no dictionary on vacation, and couldn't look it up until I got back to the states.

In fairness, the specific financial dynamics of sugar cane sales were critical to political developments on the island, and the transaction details provided in the book convey that point with impunity.

Another mild complaint I had is that the writer sometimes foreshadows or backtracks to different time periods to explain the political background of some protagonist or event in the reader's current chapter. Thus, the book sometimes lacks some chronological linearity which might better satisfy a sense of forward progress in time.

It would be easy to dramatize or embellish the struggle of Barbadians to overcome slavery, indentured servitude, and discriminatory labor practices. The writer mostly avoided this, which helps the book maintain historic and factual integrity. The book, unlike some others, has not been reduced to a commentary of Barbadian superheroes.


This book is SCREAMING for a second edition.