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This book examines the economic history of the Caribbean in the two hundred years since the Napoleonic Wars and is the first analysis to span the whole region. It is divided into three parts, each centered around a particular case study: the first focuses on the nineteenth century ('The Age of Free Trade'); the second considers the period up to 1960 ('The Age of Preferences'); and the final section concerns the half century from the Cuban Revolution to the present ('The Age of Globalization'). The study makes use of a specially constructed database to observe trends across the whole region and chart the progress of nearly thirty individual countries. Its findings challenge many long-standing assumptions about the region, and its in-depth case studies shed new light on the history of three countries in particular, namely Belize, Cuba and Haiti.
‘Finally, a comprehensive and brilliantly lucid economic history of the Caribbean from 1820 on that navigates masterfully through fogs of mythology and misunderstanding to deliver the most penetrating analysis of the region’s political economy ever written. Backed by mountains of new data (tucked neatly into appendices and a freely accessible website), Bulmer-Thomas shows how success or failure of the Caribbean economies often depended on how they coped with an external economic and policy environment they had little or no capacity to influence. Separate chapters on Haiti after independence and Cuba since 1959 are so insightful that they alone are worth the price of the book.’
John Coatsworth - Columbia University
'Bulmer-Thomas’s work is a major achievement. It stands out from other economic histories of the Caribbean both in terms of its comprehensive study of the region as a whole and in its systematic analysis of carefully compiled long-term quantitative data. Bulmer-Thomas uses these time series to provide graphic illustrations of vital features of the region’s diverse economies, bringing attention to patterns of growth not previously recognized or understood. By consistently placing his analysis in the context of global economic history, Bulmer-Thomas offers many correctives to popular pessimistic misconceptions about the economic experience of the Caribbean over the past two centuries.’
B. W. Higman - Emeritus Professor, Australian National University and University of the West Indies
‘This volume, remedying the absence of a comprehensive economic history of the Caribbean in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, is written by one of the few scholars equipped to take on the daunting task. Bulmer-Thomas highlights the range and diversity of the region’s economies, while also drawing attention to their structural commonalities. The long and dynamic history of interconnections between the region, each of its component members, and the wider global economy provides the underlying theme of this impressive book. Richly sourced with comprehensive research and supported by digitized and meticulously documented historical data, this book will remain a standard for a very long time.’
Gail D. Triner - Rutgers University
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