Caribbean Studies: History & Society

A guide to learning about the Caribbean. Learn about their cultures as well as life on the various islands. Also find reliable resources on the Caribbean-American disapora.

Books on Caribbean History

Frontiers of the Caribbean by Philip Nanton; Gurminder K. Bhambra This book argues that the Caribbean frontier, usually assumed to have been eclipsed after colonial conquest, remains a powerful but unrecognized element of Caribbean island culture. Combining analytical and creative genres of writing, it explores historical and contemporary patterns of frontier change through a case study of the little-known Eastern Caribbean multi-island state of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Modern frontier traits are located in the wandering woodcutter, the squatter on government land and the mountainside ganja grower. But the frontier is also identified as part of global production that has shaped island tourism, the financial sector and patterns of migration.
Call Number: E-book
ISBN: 9781526113733
Publication Date: 2017
We Dream Together : Dominican Independence, Haiti, and the Fight for Caribbean Freedom / by Anne Eller In We Dream Together Anne Eller breaks with dominant narratives of conflict between the Dominican Republic and Haiti by tracing the complicated history of Dominican emancipation and independence between 1822 and 1865. Eller moves beyond the small body of writing by Dominican elites that often narrates Dominican nationhood to craft inclusive, popular histories of identity, community, and freedom, summoning sources that range from trial records and consul reports to poetry and song. Rethinking Dominican relationships with their communities, the national project, and the greater Caribbean, Eller shows how popular anticolonial resistance was anchored in a rich and complex political culture. Haitians and Dominicans fostered a common commitment to Caribbean freedom, the abolition of slavery, and popular democracy, often well beyond the reach of the state. By showing how the island's political roots are deeply entwined, and by contextualizing this history within the wider Atlantic world, Eller demonstrates the centrality of Dominican anticolonial struggles for understanding independence and emancipation throughout the Caribbean and the Americas.   
Call Number: E-book
ISBN: 9780822373766
Publication Date: 2016
An Intellectual History of the Caribbean by Silvio Torres-Saillant
Call Number: F 2169 .T67 2006
ISBN: 1403966761
African Caribbeans : a reference guide by Alan West-Duran
Call Number: F 1629 .B55 B53 2003
ISBN: 0313312400
A Brief History of the Caribbean : from the Arawak and the Carib to the present / by Jan Rogozinski "Rev. and updated through the year 2000"
Call Number: F 1621 .R72 2000
ISBN: 0452281938
Historical Dictionary of Trinidad and Tobago by Michael Anthony
Call Number: F 2119 .A575 1997
ISBN: 0810831732
Metegee : the history and culture of Guyana by Ovid S. Abrams
Call Number: F 2369.8 .A27 1997
ISBN: 0966070747
Bahamas from Slavery to Servitude, 1783-1933 by Howard Johnson
Call Number: HT 1119 .B34 J64 1996
ISBN: 0813014948
A History of Barbados : from Amerindian settlement to nation-state by Hilary M. Beckles
Call Number: F 2041 .B435 1990
ISBN: 0521353742

Books on Socio-Economic Issues

Energy Without Conscience : Oil, Climate Change, and Complicity / by David McDermott Hughes In Energy without Conscience David McDermott Hughes investigates why climate change has yet to be seen as a moral issue. He examines the forces that render the use of fossil fuels ordinary and therefore exempt from ethical evaluation. Hughes centers his analysis on Trinidad and Tobago, which is the world's oldest petro-state, having drilled the first continuously producing oil well in 1866. Marrying historical research with interviews with Trinidadian petroleum scientists, policymakers, technicians, and managers, he draws parallels between Trinidad's eighteenth- and nineteenth-century slave labor energy economy and its contemporary oil industry.
Call Number: E-book
ISBN: 9781478091059
Publication Date: 2017
Undoing Empire : race and nation in the mulatto Caribbean by Jose F. Buscaglia-Salgado
Call Number: F 2190 .B87 2003
ISBN: 0816635730
The Company They Kept by Lara Putnam
Call Number: HD 1531 .C8 P88 2002
ISBN: 0807854069
King Sugar : Jamaica, the Caribbean, and the world sugar industry by Michele Harrison
Call Number: HD 9114 .J252 H37 2001
ISBN: 0814736343
Contending with Destiny by Denis Benn and Kenneth Hall (Eds.)
Call Number: HC 151 .C668 2000
ISBN: 9766370095
Family in the Caribbean : themes and perspectives by Christine Barrow
Call Number: HQ 576 .B375 1999
ISBN: 1558762086
The Political Ecology of Bananas by Lawrence S. Grossman
Call Number: HD 9259.B3 S174 1998
ISBN: 0807847186
The Haunting Past : politics, economics and race in Caribbean life by Alvin O. Thompson
Call Number: F 1621 .T5 1997
ISBN: 0765600137
The Caribbean : new dynamics in trade and political economy by Anthony T. Bryan (Ed.)
Call Number: HC 151 .C33 1995
ISBN: 1560007516

Books on Caribbean Religion(s)

Faith Based Organizations in Development Discourses and Practice by Jens Koehrsen (Editor); Andreas Heuser (Editor) Exploring Faith-Based Organizations (FBOs) in current developmental discourses and practice, this book presents a selection of empirical in-depth case-studies of Christian FBOs and assesses the vital role credited to FBOs in current discourses on development. Examining the engagement of FBOs with contemporary politics of development, the contributions stress the agency of FBOs in diverse contexts of development policy, both local and global. It is emphasised that FBOs constitute boundary agents and developmental entrepreneurs: they move between different discursive fields such as national and international development discourses, theological discourses, and their specific religious constituencies. By combining influxes from these different contexts, FBOs generate unique perspectives on development: they express alternative views on development, and stress particular approaches anchored in their theological social ethics. This book should be of interest to those researching FBOs and their interaction with international organizations, and to scholars working in the broader areas of Religion and Politics, and Politics and Development.
Call Number: E-book
ISBN: 9780367367565
Publication Date: 2019
Crossing the Water and Keeping the Faith : Haitian Religion in Miami / by Terry Rey; Alex Stepick Beginning in the late 1970s and early 1980s, significant numbers of Haitian immigrants began to arrive and settle in Miami. Overcoming some of the most foreboding obstacles ever to face immigrants in America, they, their children, and now their grandchildren, as well as more recently arriving immigrants from Haiti, have diversified socioeconomically. Together, they have made South Florida home to the largest population of native-born Haitians and diasporic Haitians outside of the Caribbean and one of the most significant Caribbean immigrant communities in the world. Religion has played a central role in making all of this happen. Crossing the Water and Keeping the Faith is a historical and ethnographic study of Haitian religion in immigrant communities, based on fieldwork in both Miami and Haiti, as well as extensive archival research. Where many studies of Haitian religion limit themselves to one faith, Rey and Stepick explore Catholicism, Protestantism, and Vodou in conversation with one another, suggesting that despite the differences between these practices, the three faiths ultimately create a sense of unity, fulfillment, and self-worth in Haitian communities. This meticulously researched and vibrantly written book contributes to the growing body of literature on religion among new immigrants, as well as providing a rich exploration of Haitian faith communities.
Call Number: E-book
ISBN: 9780814777084
Publication Date: 2013
Crossing the Water and Keeping the Faith / by Terry Rey; Alex Stepick; Archbishop Thomas Wenski (Foreword by) Beginning in the late 1970s and early 1980s, significant numbers of Haitian immigrants began to arrive and settle in Miami. Overcoming some of the most foreboding obstacles ever to face immigrants in America, they, their children, and now their grandchildren, as well as more recently arriving immigrants from Haiti, have diversified socioeconomically. Together, they have made South Florida home to the largest population of native-born Haitians and diasporic Haitians outside of the Caribbean and one of the most significant Caribbean immigrant communities in the world. Religion has played a central role in making all of this happen. Crossing the Water and Keeping the Faith is a historical and ethnographic study of Haitian religion in immigrant communities, based on fieldwork in both Miami and Haiti, as well as extensive archival research. Where many studies of Haitian religion limit themselves to one faith, Rey and Stepick explore Catholicism, Protestantism, and Vodou in conversation with one another, suggesting that despite the differences between these practices, the three faiths ultimately create a sense of unity, fulfillment, and self-worth in Haitian communities. This meticulously researched and vibrantly written book contributes to the growing body of literature on religion among new immigrants, as well as providing a rich exploration of Haitian faith communities.
Call Number: E-book (Click Title)
ISBN: 9780814777084
Publication Date: 2013
Rastafari: a Very Short Introduction by Ennis B. Edmonds
Call Number: BL 2532.R37 E35 2012
ISBN: 0199584524
Tell My Horse : voodoo and life in Haiti and Jamaica by Zora Neale Hurston
Call Number: BL 2490 .H88 2009
ISBN: 0061695130
Santeria in New York City by Steven Gregory In revising his 1985 doctoral dissertation for the New School for Social Research, Gregory has not attempted to incorporate scholarship since then on the Afro-Cuban religion, but has added important recent works to his bibliography. He sets out to understand why practitioners of Santer
Call Number: BL 2532 .S3 G74 1999
ISBN: 9780815334989
Rara! : vodou, power, and performance in Haiti and its diaspora by Elizabeth A. McAlister
Call Number: ML 3565 .M384 2002
ISBN: 0520228227
Rastafari Women : subordination in the midst of liberation theology by Obiagele Lake
Call Number: BL 2566.J25 L34 1998
ISBN: 0890898367
Sacred possessions : Vodou, Santeria, Obeah, and the Caribbean by Margarite Fernândez Olmos and Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert (Eds.)
Call Number: BL 2565 .S23 1997
ISBN: 0813523605

THIS RESEARCH OR "LIBGUIDE" WAS PRODUCED BY THE LIBRARIANS OF MONROE UNIVERSITY

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