Description:
Until recently, historians have defined the Commonwealth Caribbean territories by their relationship with Britian and have attributed little importance to American relations with these territories. Fraser provides a reinterpretation of U.S. policy toward the West Indies since 1940. He establishes links between Afro-West Indian groups and African Americans who successfully influenced both American and British policy in the West Indies. Thus, he explores a little-understood and little-studied aspect of American policy toward Britain's disengagement from empire after 1945 and the way decolonization in the Caribbean helped to shape the pattern and strategy of the Anglo-American relationship from Roosevelt to Kennedy. The book will force a rethinking of American policy toward the West Indies since 1940, the impact of race on American foreign policy, and the historiography of inter-American relations.
Brief description:
CARY FRASER is Visiting Fellow at the Princeton Center for International Studies and has written articles on American policy toward decolonization.
Review Quotes: "Fraser presents a convincing case for the vital role of US policy in shaing historical events surrounding the British West Indies--he uses an approach that fully accounts for the interplay of interntional factors that ultimately mold national events. Graduate; faculty."-Choice