Brother's keeper : the United States, race, and empire in the British Caribbean, 1937-1962 /

Parker (Texas A&M Univ.) has written a phenomenally valuable transnational and multiarchival study that should be a model for those who work in this field of diplomatic history. He explores the US role in the demise of the British Empire in the Caribbean. Great Britain was the US's most reliable ally between 1937 and the 1960s, but the US increasingly supported decolonization to promote national security interests in the "American lake" as the Cold War became the focal point of US foreign policy. This exploration of the nexus of British, US, and Caribbean nationalists has the added significance of presenting a central, if too often ignored, theme in US foreign policy--the importance of race. This was a concern to African Americans at a time when they sought equality in the US, but they often had a different vision of what independence should look like than did their Caribbean counterparts. Readers learn that, at times, US officials were more supportive of black freedoms in the British Caribbean than in the US South, but that race "never [was] the paramount" consideration, since US policy makers would not allow anything to "jeopardize American access to national-security assets." Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. T. Zoumaras Truman State University