For more than a century, Caribbean intellectuals have created a substantial body of work expressing their ideas about culture, identity and society in the region, ideas that have contributed to the development of a distinctive Caribbean civilisation Features on 45 persons from Anglophone, Francophone and Hispanic Caribbean Useful text for courses on the Caribbean with a general introduction Biographical and contextual introductions to each section an important reference book.

Table of Contents

Introduction - I THE HISPANOPHONE INTELLECTUALS - Our America by J. Marti - 'The song of Borinquen' & 'Cuba & Puerto Rico' by L. Rodriguez de Tio - Excerpts from Sugar & Society in the Caribbean by R. Guerra y Sanchez - Excerpts from Cuban Counterpoint by F. Ortiz - Give us our Independence by L. Munoz Rivera - Day of the Race by P. Albizu Campos - A good civilisation by L. Munoz Marin - The day Puerto Rico became a nation by J. Antonio Corretjer - Words to the intellectuals by F. Castro - Caliban by R. Fernandez Retamar - Excerpts from Puerto Rico: The Four-Storeyed Country by J. Luis Gonzalez - Island of Lost Causes by E. Santiago - Three words toward creolization by A. Benitez-Rojo II THE FRANCOPHONE INTELLECTUALS Excerpts from So Spoke the Uncle by J. -Mars - Excerpts from Discourse on Colonialism by A. Cesaire - Excerpts from Black Skin, White Masks by F. Fanon - Problems of identity for the black man in Caribbean literatures by R. Depestre - In praise of Creoleness by J. Bernabe, P. Chamoiseau & R. Confiant - Closed place, open word by E. Glissant - Excerpts from Conversations with Maryse Conde - We are ugly, but we are here by E. Danticat III THE ANGLOPHONE INTELLECTUALS Excerpts from Froudacity by J.J. Thomas - The British West Indies in the mirror of civilization; The race question in Jamaica; & An appeal to the conscience of the black race to see itself by M.Garvey - Speech by E. Francois - Race relations in Caribbean society; & The future of the Caribbean by E. Williams - West Indian culture by M.G. Smith - Excerpts from The Middle Passage by V.S. Naipaul - From Toussaint L'Ouverture to Fidel Castro by C.L.R. James - Excerpts from Slave Society in the British Leeward Islands at the End of the Eighteeenth Century by E. V. Goveia - Excerpts from The West on Trial by C. Jaggan - National identity & attitudes to race in Jamaica by R. Nettleford - Black Power by W. Rodney - Timehri by E. Kamau Brathwaite - On being different by W. Arthur Lewis - In the shadow of the whip by M. Hodge - Marryshow day, speech by M. Bishop - If I could write this in fire, I would write this in fire by M. Cliff - Another development by C. Y. Thomas - Myths of Caribbean identity by S. Hall - The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory by D. Walcott - A Commonwealth of the Caribbean for the 21st century, speech by S. Ramphal - Caribbean labor, culture, & identity, speech by G. Lamming - Ecumenical America by O. Patterson

Author Biography

Professor of Sociology at Colgate University