Description: Duke convincingly posits that federation was more than a regional endeavor; it was a diasporic, black nation-building undertaking--with broad support in diaspora centers such as Harlem and London--deeply immersed in ideas of racial unity, racial uplift, and black self-determination.
Brief description: Eric D. Duke is associate professor in the Department of African American Studies, Africana Women's Studies, and History at Clark Atlanta University. He is coeditor of Extending the Diaspora: New Histories of Black People.
Review Quotes: "Opens new perspectives on the building of a Caribbean federation in the twentieth century. . . . Connects the struggles for self-determination and self-government in the West Indies with black diaspora politics from the late nineteenth century to the onset of the independences of the Anglophone Caribbean in the 1960s."--American Historical Review "Duke articulates the perspectives manifested in popular culture and provides an in-depth analysis of diasporan roles and reactions . . . in this profound, well-researched, and lucid scholarly work."--Choice "An original, insightful, and well-researched book."--Journal of Caribbean History "Complicat[es] our understanding of the relationships between West Indian nation building and the black diaspora's broader global context, particularly regarding various nationalisms, regionalism, and race. . . . An important contribution to black diaspora studies as well as histories of the British Empire, Caribbean, and the black freedom struggle in the United States."--Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology "Adds new complexities to the analysis of the West Indian Federation by approaching it as a critical practice in the 'racialized global struggle' for black uplift."--New West Indian Guide