Having more in common than their deaths on the same day in 1997, the late Cheddi Jagan of Guyana and Michael Manley of Jamaica both represented a radical perspective in modern Caribbean politics. Jagan and Manley each had a bold and creative ability to connect labor and politics and made it their priority to minimize poverty and inequality and to enhance the welfare of the Caribbean's disadvantaged and dispossessed. Caribbean Labor and Politics looks closely at the legacies of Jagan and Manley and their ramifications for the political and economic struggles of the Caribbean region and the world. This edited volume brings together a variety of studies on the lives, works, and intellectual and practical contributions of these two stalwart political leaders. The chapters focus primarily on Jagan's and Manley's years as heads of state of their respective countries and also encapsulate their pre-political years-mainly their growing-up experiences and their organizational work in the labor movement. The core contributions of these men are characterized in terms of their pivotal struggles towards the realization of what we term the "working class project."

The Caribbean is a complex, enigmatic region, characterised by great disparities in size, population, geography, history, language, religion, race and politics. This is a region in which harmony and discord work in tandem, trying to link economic logic with political logic. At the same time, this book is a comprehensive historical record especially highlighting hindrances to development in this region. This study raises two important issues: the ‘political imperative of convergence’ and the need for ‘appropriate correcting mechanisms’ that align the needs of the local with the regional. It is a volume that underlines the need for a change in strategy and makes proposals as to how to go about making those changes.

Departing from traditional analyses of Caribbean political economy, this book explores the topic within a global context and considers the broad issues affecting the region now and into the next century.

This wide ranging thematic and comparative text analyses the origins and nature of the developmental and political crises of the region and the reasons for their recent intensification. It covers all the Central American states and the largest Caribbean island territories - Jamaica, Cuba, The Dominican Republic, Haiti and Puerto Rico - as well as Panama and Grenada, assessing their common experiences as small economies living in the shadow of the United States but also highlighting key differences.

A candid account of the situation of Commonwealth Caribbean countries in the international system. The book details the serious problems confronting the Caribbean, including the loss of preferential markets for its traditional exports, bananas and sugar and the siege of the region's financial services sector by the OECD. Crumbled Small is a timely and powerful description of a region whose reality is too often distorted by the picture postcard images of sunny beach resorts and rum punches.

The beautiful Caribbean basin is fertile ground for a study of capitalism past and present. Transnational corporations move money and labor around the region, as national regulations are reworked to promote conditions benefiting private capital. Globalizing the Caribbean offers a probing account of the region’s experience of economic globalization while considering gendered and racialized social relations and the frequent exploitation of workers. Jeb Sprague focuses on the social and material nature of this new era in the history of world capitalism. He combines an historical overview of capitalism in the region with theoretical analysis backed by case studies. Sprague elaborates upon the role of class formation and the restructuring of local states. He considers both U.S. hegemony, and how various upsurges from below and crises occur. He examines the globalization of the cruise ship and mining businesses, looks at the growth of migrant labor and reverse flow of remittances, and describes the evolving role of export processing and supranational associations. In doing so, Sprague shows how transnationally oriented elites have come to rule the Caribbean, and how capitalist globalization in the region occurs alongside shifting political, institutional, and organizational dynamics.