Brian Meeks

This volume re-examines the meaning of revolution as a useful concept in politics. It traces the history of the concept from its ancient beginnings, but especially in connection with the idea of progress since the French Revolution. More recent statements are examined as a prelude to arriving at a less deterministic, entrenched definition than has often been the case, but which retains the idea of revolution as a potential window and facilitator of change.

An Assessment of Cuba, Nicaragua and Grenada

Caribbean Revolutions and Revolutionary Theory

Brian Meeks's novel is a requiem for the years of an extraordinary ferment in Jamaican society, when reggae and Rastafarian dreams reached from the ghettoes to the University campus, and idealistic young men and women threw themselves into the struggle to free independent Jamaica from its colonial past. In portraying the temptations towards tribal revenge that corrupted the vision of change, Meeks's novel speaks to the present, when even now, Jamaica's political divisions erupt in killings on the streets. As Mikey Johnson takes a minibus through Kingston on his release from eleven years in jail, what he sees and the persons he meets provoke memories of those years of virtual civil war when over eight hundred Jamaicans lost their lives. His encounters reveal that few have escaped unscathed from those years: there are the dead (in body and in spirit), the wounded, the turncoats, and those like himself who are condemned to carry the burden of those times. Mikey's particular quest is to discover why he survived when his friend, Carl, and his lover, Rosie, were killed in a shootout with the police. It draws him to look for Caroline, the other woman he was involved with before his imprisonment. From her he discovers a bitter truth about Jamaica's unwritten code of class and its role in his survival. One of the encounters, we learn in a postscript to the novel, is with Rohan, Rosie's brother. Rohan has suffered his sister's loss deeply, but has survived to move forward, while Mikey, with the stigma of his imprisonment, appears trapped in the past. It is Rohan who tells Mikey's story, determined that those who died should not be forgotten.

Paint the Town Red

Stuart Hall, in whose honour this volume is compiled, has made significant contributions to contemporary social and political discourse. Constantly praised for his scholarly prescience, he was at the helm of the forging and definition of the discipline of Cultural Studies and nurtured an entire cadre of young intellectuals who continuee to make remarkable contributions in the fields of Cultural Studies and Social Criticism. The essays that constitue this collection, all, in different ways, contend with Hall's methodology, his philosophy, as well as many other dimensions of his rich and textured intellectual career. More importantly however, they serve to reconnect his work to the social context of his island of birth, Jamaica, and the wider Caribbean.

The Thought of Stuart Hall

Culture, Politics, Race and Diaspora

Folke Lindahl

The dawn of the twenty-first century is an opportune time for the people of the Caribbean to take stock of the entire experience of the past forty years since the ending of direct colonialism. The authors believe it is now time to chart our future by carefully learning the lessons of the recent past. This interdisciplinary collection is the first to cross traditionally restrictive disciplinary barriers to address the tough questions that face the Caribbean today. What went wrong with the nationalist project? What, if any, are the realistic options for a more prosperous Caribbean? What are to be the roles of race, gender and class in a more global, less national world? Meeks and Lindahl include thought-provoking articles from twenty-one respected thinkers in diverse fields of study. The groundbreaking articles include critiques of existing bodies of thought, reformulations of general theoretical approaches, policy-oriented alternatives for future development, and more. This book is a must for statesmen, academics and students of political theory, social theory, Caribbean studies, comparative gender studies, post-colonial studies, Marxism and Caribbean history and anyone interested

A Reader

New Caribbean Thought

Henry is back for another case. He has recovered from his stand off with Tommy "The Knife" and has no idea what is in store.

Time and Again

Henry Wood

Kate Quinn

Beyond Westminster in the Caribbean analyses Westminster governance in the post-independence Caribbean and reflects on the weaknesses of the model, the absence of a will to change despite the deficiencies and proposals for the way forward.

Brian Meeks

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