| Summary: | "From the moment Columbus gazed out from the Santa Maria's deck in 1492 at what he mistook for an island off Asia, the Caribbean has been subjected to fantasies projected from without by the West, and viewed as a place to be consumed. It stood at the center of the transatlantic slave trade for more than 300 years. Its societies were shaped by mass migrations and forced labor from the 16th century onwards, imposed by European or latterly-American imperial masters. Scattered across a vast arc of islands and in some instances separated by the languages and cultures of their colonizers, the more than 40,000,000 Caribbean people today are countering their imperial history by shaping cultural conversation the world over: through literature, music, art, and religion in an era when cultures everywhere are contending with "rootlessness.""--
In this masterwork of travel literature and of history, writer Joshua Jelly-Schapiro voyages from Cuba to Jamaica, Puerto Rico to Trinidad, Haiti to Barbados, and to islands in between, giving us a rich portrait of each society--its culture and politics--while connecting the Caribbean's common heritage to its fierce grip on the world's imagination. From the moment Columbus gazed out from the Santa María's deck in 1492 at what he mistook for an island off Asia, the Caribbean has been subjected to the misunderstandings and fantasies of outsiders, who have plundered these islands and exoticized their inhabitants. The Caribbean stood at the center of the transatlantic slave trade for more than 300 years, with societies shaped by mass migrations and forced labor. But its people, scattered across a vast archipelago and separated by the languages of their colonizers, have nonetheless together helped make the modern world--its politics, religion, economics, music, and culture. Jelly-Schapiro gives a sweeping account of how these islands' inhabitants have searched and fought for better lives. With wit and erudition, he chronicles this "place where globalization began" and introduces us to its forty million people who continue decisively to shape our world.--From dust jacket.
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