The Dead Yard

Tales of Modern Jamaica

Ian Thomson

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN:
  9780571252343
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Travel

Jamaica used to be the source of much of Britain's wealth, an island where slaves grew sugar and the money flowed in vast quantities. It was a tropical paradise for the planters, a Babylonian exile for the Africans shipped to the Caribbean. It became independent in 1962.

Jamaica is now a country in despair. It has become a cockpit of gang warfare, drug crime and poverty. Haunted by the legacy of imperialism, its social and racial divisions seem entrenched. Its extraordinary musical tradition and physical beauty are shadowed by casual murder, police brutality and political corruption.

Ian Thomson shows a side of Jamaica that tourists rarely see in their gated enclaves. He travelled country roads in buses and met ordinary Jamaicans in their homes and workplaces; and his encounters with the white elite, who still own most of Jamaica's businesses and newspapers, are unforgettable. Thomson brings alive the country's unique racial and ethnic mix; the all-pervading influence of the USA; and the increasing disillusionment felt by its people, who can't rely on the state for their most basic security. At the heart of the book is Jamaica's tense, uneasy relationship with Britain, to whom it remains politically and culturally bound.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Epigraph
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: A History of Paradise
• Chapter One: (Black Man) in Hammersmith Palais
• Chapter Two: Trench Town Mix Up
• Chapter Three: Strictly Come Dancehall
• Chapter Four: Slaving
• Chapter Five: Massa Day Done?
• Chapter Six: I’ve Got to Go Back Home
• Chapter Seven: Forward Unto Zion
• Chapter Eight: Maximum Black
• Chapter Nine: Stranded on Death Row
• Chapter Ten: The Negotiator
• Chapter Eleven: Blood and Fire
• Chapter Twelve: Revival Time
• Chapter Thirteen: Don’t Call Us Immigrants
• Chapter Fourteen: English Upbringing, Background Caribbean
• Chapter Fifteen: Everything Crash
• Chapter Sixteen: Nanny Knew Best
• Chapter Seventeen: The Killing of a Chinese Shopkeeper
• Chapter Eighteen: 007 (Shanty Town)
• Chapter Nineteen: Sitting in Limbo
• Chapter Twenty: Police and Thieves
• Chapter Twenty One: Night Nurse
• Chapter Twenty Two: Scotland Yard
• Chapter Twenty Three: Herbsman Hustle
• Chapter Twenty Four: Investors in People (‘Cargo’)
• Chapter Twenty Five: Lord Creator
• Chapter Twenty Six: Life of Contradiction
• Epilogue Take Down the Union Jack
• Further Reading
• Index
• About the Author
• By the Same Author
• Copyright