Introduction

Abstract

THE major objective of Volume V of the UNESCO General History of the Caribbean is to provide an account and interpretation of the historical development of the region from around 1930 to the end of the century. As in the series as a whole, the definition of ‘Caribbean’ used in this volume encompasses all the islands (including the Bahamas) and the continental enclaves whose history was similar to that of the islands: the three Guianas and Belize. Because Volume IV covers the ‘long’ nineteenth century, with chapters going chronologically up to the 1920s, this volume speaks to a ‘short’ twentieth century: from the 1930s to its end. Inevitably there is overlap with chapters in Volume IV, but most of the material in the present volume deals with post-1930 developments. Many chapters — written at varying times during the 1990s — try to take up the analysis to the authorial present.