Description: Kenneth Morgan's history of Jamaica is a social, economic, political, and cultural assessment of the island's most important periods and themes over the past millennium. This includes the island's development before 1500, with detailed material on the Taino society; the two centuries of slavery and its aftermath between 1660 and 1860; the continuance of colonialism between 1860 and 1945; the background to Jamaican independence between 1945 and 1960; and the evolution of Jamaica as an independent nation since the early 1960s. Throughout, Morgan discusses important themes such as race, slavery, empire, poverty, and colonialism, and the unbalanced social structure that existed for much of Jamaica's history - the small, overwhelmingly white elite overseeing and controlling the lives of black and brown people beneath them on the social scale. Ending with an assessment of the contemporary period, this work offers an authoritative, up-to-date history of Jamaica.
Brief description: Kenneth Morgan is Professor of History at Brunel University London. An economic and social historian of the Atlantic world between 1650 and 1850, he is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
Review Quotes: 'Jamaica punches above its weight in world history. It is a land of both tragedy - its brutal if hugely successful slave system - and triumph - enslaved resistance and emancipation and the making of a dynamic modern post-colonial society. Kenneth Morgan, a master of short-form history and a leading historian of Jamaica, surveys these tragedies and triumphs in a superb concise history. It is easily the best introduction to the history of this fascinating if complicated island. It is a magnificent addition to a wonderful book series.' Trevor Burnard, Wilberforce Professor of Slavery and Emancipation at the University of Hull and author of Writing Early America: From Empire to Revolution