Empire and nation-building in the Caribbean

Barbados, 1937–66

Mary Chamberlain

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780719078767
• eBook ISBN: 9781847797339
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

This original and exciting book examines the processes of nation building in the British West Indies. It argues that nation building was a more complex and messy affair, involving women and men in a range of social and cultural activities, in a variety of migratory settings, within a unique geo-political context. Taking as a case study Barbados which, in the 1930s, was the most economically impoverished, racially divided, socially disadvantaged and politically conservative of the British West Indian colonies, Empire and nation-building tells the messy, multiple stories of how a colony progressed to a nation.It is the first book to tell all sides of the independence story and will be of interest to specialists and non-specialists interested in the history of Empire, the Caribbean, of de-colonisation and nation building.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Tables
• General editor’s introduction
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The ‘romance’ of foreign: distance, perspective and an inclusive nationhood
• 3 The exigencies of ‘home’: Barbadian Poverty and British nation-building
• 4 Gender and the moral economy
• 5 Race, nation and the politics of memory
• 6 ‘A common language of the spirit’: cultural awakenings and national belongings
• 7 From diffidence to desperation: the British, the Americans, the war and the move to Federation
• 8 Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index