Beginning in the 1920s, Barbadians and other British West Indians began organizing politically in an international environment that was marked by a severe capitalist economic and financial crisis that intensified in the 1930s. The response in the British Caribbean during the 1930s was in the form of rebellions that demanded colonial reform. The ensuing struggles resulted in constitutional and political changes that led to decolonization and independence. In Errol Walton Barrow and the Postwar Transformation of Barbados: The Late Colonial Period, Hilbourne Watson examines the contradictory process through the lens of political economy and class analysis, informed by an internationalist historical perspective that centres the concerns and interests of the working class.
 Britain freed the colonies in ways that reflected its own subordination to US hegemony under the rubric of the Cold War, which served as the geopolitical strategy for liberal internationalism. Watson’s analysis concentrates on the roles played by the labour movement, political parties, capitalist interests, and working-class and other popular organizations in Barbados and the British Caribbean, with support from Caribbean-American groups in New York that forged alliances with those black American organizations which saw their freedom struggles in an international context. Practically all the decolonizing (nationalist) elites in Barbados and other British Caribbean territories endorsed a British and American prescription for decolonization and self-government based on territorial primacy and at the expense of a strong West Indian federation that prioritized the working class. This move sidelined the working class and its interests also set back the struggle for self-determination, liberty and sovereignty.
 Watson situates the role Errol Barrow played in the transformation of Barbados in the wider Caribbean and international context. His study draws on archival records from Britain and Barbados, interviews and other sources, and he pays close attention to how the racialization of social life around nature, culture, history, the state, class, gender, politics, poverty and other factors conditioned the colonial experience.

Errol Walton Barrow and the Postwar Transformation of Barbados: The Late Colonial Period (Volume I)

Business & Money

Watson, Hilbourne A.

Economics

University Press of the West Indies

This companion volume to Errol Walton Barrow and the Postwar Transformation of Barbados: The Late Colonial Period, which covered the social and political forces between the 1920s and 1966 that shaped the trajectory of working-class struggles in Barbados and led to its decolonization, addresses mainly the first two decades of Barbados's independence as a sovereign monarchy under Errol Barrow and the Democratic Labour Party. "[An] incisive and rigorous left analysis of the conundrum facing a peripheral capitalist Caribbean society. Watson explains why Barbados, unable to break decisively with its colonial past and hamstrung by the deceit of the promise of sovereignty, is forced to make compromises with imperialism and its domestic representatives of capital." -Linden Lewis, Professor of Sociology, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania "[A] masterful exploration of Barbados's political development. . . . [Watson] offers a skilful critique of Barbados's quest for 'development', ever unable to be pro-working class, in the shadows of colonialism and the spectre of the United States. . . . A must-read for anyone seeking a sophisticated and nuanced understanding of Barbados, the Caribbean and world politics, not only between 1966 and 1976 but in the present. -Kristina Hinds, Senior Lecturer in Political Science (International Relations), the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados "Meticulously researched and brilliantly written. . . . All of the major influences that helped to fashion the young state are carefully catalogued, analysed and associated with their relevant theoretical underpinnings. . . . Watson lays bare the intricacies and contradictions that made the [independence] period and its main actors so important to the shaping of modern Barbados." -Harold Codrington, Deputy Governor (retired), Central Bank of Barbados

Errol Walton Barrow and the Postwar Transformation of Barbados (Vol. 2): The Independence Period, 1966-1976

The University of the West Indies Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Watson, Hilbourne A.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Watson, Hilbourne A.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Watson, Hilbourne A.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Errol Walton Barrow and the Postwar Transformation of Barbados: The Late Colonial Period (Volume I)

Errol Walton Barrow and the Postwar Transformation of Barbados (Vol. 2): The Independence Period, 1966-1976