A Concise History of the Caribbean (Cambridge Concise Histories)

The book is a great overview of Caribbean history through 1770, but beyond that (chapters five through eight), there’s no apparent rhyme or reason as to which topics the author covered and how much attention each received. There is never a way to please every reader, but for an introductory text, there are some key topics one would expect. For example, Haitian independence. Toussaint’s victory in Haiti was presented as a fair accompli rather than providing us any detail or context as to how it happened. The entire mention of revolutionary Haiti occupies less than six pages, one of which is devoted to a plate of art vice text. More print is devoted in the subsequent ten pages to a discussion of dozens upon dozens demographic statistics, none of which is particularly useful in a “concise” history of a large region. Similarly, other defining topics in Caribbean history get almost no mention; the Spanish-American War merits a mere para despite its lasting ramifications.If I were considering this as a college text, I would certainly recommend it’s first few chapters, but would look elsewhere for an overview of revolutionary and independent caribbean nations.

I love history and reading about it, I also love facts (as unpleasant as they may be at times) but what I love most is being able to make up my own mind after reading said book(s) without someone else's opinion being pushed on me. If you want to read about the fascinating history of the Caribbean in this book you will have to push aside the obviously liberal bias the author is pushing on you. I once read a book on slavery that was brutally uncomfortable but it gave you facts, not opinion. This book is worth the time but you have to be able to push the author's opinion aside. It's a shame, history can become diluted when author's try to push feelings instead of facts.

When I purchased this book, I was under the assumption that it was a text book - as that is what it was used for in the Caribbean History class that I was taking. This book, however, is NOT a text book. There are no end of chapter reviews, no study questions, no vocabulary words, nothing. The index is less than thorough and there is no glossary. The overall organization is chronological, more or less. As a non-fiction history of the Caribbean it is OK - there is a lot of coverage of the larger islands but the small island are almost totally ignored. This is rather a history of Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica with a few references to some of the smaller islands thrown in for comparison.

This is a fascinating and well written history of the colonisation of the Caribbean. Stories of the Spanish and the British invasions, the slavery and the revolution on Haiti as well as details of the pre-contact societies make it hard to put down. It is a tragic story of death and destruction for the indigenous people and the slaves, a story of greed and exploitation on the part of the Europeans. It shows that the wealth of the "First World" has been built on the misery of the New World and third world colonies. Sugar cane wealth and endless shipments of slaves!

A bit dull at times but well-organized and has tons of information packed into a small space. You learn a lot in a short period of time, whether you have any background knowledge in the subject or not.

the book is a bit dry but its helpful so that's what counts i guess. just rent it and read it.

Okay, but pretty redundant chapter after chapter and not well organized in telling the story of the Caribbean. It also left out the important roles of pirates and their stories

Good short book filled witg info.

Great, readable book which covers a great many aspects of Caribbean history and is very good at covering the Caribbean as a whole, not just the main countries and large islands.