Examines the history, and possible futures, of radical politics in the postcolonial Caribbean\nAcross the Anglophone Caribbean, the great expectations of independence were never met. From Black Power and Jamaican Democratic Socialism to the Grenada Revolution, the radical currents that once animated the region recede into memory. More than half a century later, the likelihood of radical change appears vanishingly small on the horizon. But what were the twists and turns in the postcolonial journey that brought us here? And is there hope yet for the Caribbean to advance towards more just, democratic, and empowering futures?\nAfter the Postcolonial Caribbean is structured into two parts. In 'Remembering', Brian Meeks employs an autobiographical form, drawing on his own memories and experiences of the radical politics and culture of the Caribbean in the decades following the end of colonialism. In 'Imagining' he takes inspiration from the likes of Edna Manley, George Lamming, and Stuart Hall in reaching toward a new theoretical framework that might help forge new currents of intellectual and political resistance.\nMeeks concludes by making the case for reestablishing optimism as a necessary cornerstone for any reemergent progressive movement.

After the Postcolonial Caribbean: Memory, Imagination, Hope (Black Critique)

History

Meeks, Brian

Americas

Pluto Press

These essays by Brian Meeks, a noted public intellectual in the Caribbean, reflect on Caribbean politics, particularly radical politics and ideologies in the postcolonial era. But his essays also explain the peculiarities of the contemporary neo-liberal period while searching for pathways beyond the current plight. In the first chapters, titled “Theoretical Forays,” Meeks makes a conscious attempt to engage with contemporary Caribbean political thought at a moment of flux and search for a relevant theoretical language and style to both explicate the Caribbean’s recent past and confront the difficult conditions of the early twenty-first century. The next part, “Caribbean Questions,” both retrospective and biographical, retraces the author’s own engagement with the University of the West Indies (UWI), the short-lived but influential Caribbean Black Power movement, the work of seminal Trinidadian thinker and activist Lloyd Best, Cuba’s relationship with Jamaica, and the crisis and collapse of the Grenadian Revolution. As evident in its title, “Jamaican Journeys,” the concluding section excerpts and extracts from a longer, more sustained engagement with Jamaican politics and society. Much of Meeks’ argument builds around the notion that Jamaica faces a crucial moment, as the author seeks to chart and explain its convoluted political path and dismal economic performance over the past three decades. Meeks remains surprisingly optimistic as he suggests that despite the emptying of sovereignty in the increasingly globalized world, windows to enhanced human development might open through policies of greater democracy and popular inclusion.

Critical Interventions in Caribbean Politics and Theory (Caribbean Studies Series)

UNIVERSITY PRESS OF MISSISSIPPI

These essays by Brian Meeks, a noted public intellectual in the Caribbean, reflect on Caribbean politics, particularly radical politics and ideologies in the postcolonial era. But his essays also explain the peculiarities of the contemporary neo-liberal period while searching for pathways beyond the current plight. In the first chapters, titled “Theoretical Forays,” Meeks makes a conscious attempt to engage with contemporary Caribbean political thought at a moment of flux and search for a relevant theoretical language and style to both explicate the Caribbean’s recent past and confront the difficult conditions of the early twenty-first century. The next part, “Caribbean Questions,” both retrospective and biographical, retraces the author’s own engagement with the University of the West Indies (UWI), the short-lived but influential Caribbean Black Power movement, the work of seminal Trinidadian thinker and activist Lloyd Best, Cuba’s relationship with Jamaica, and the crisis and collapse of the Grenadian Revolution. As evident in its title, “Jamaican Journeys,” the concluding section excerpts and extracts from a longer, more sustained engagement with Jamaican politics and society. Much of Meeks’ argument builds around the notion that Jamaica faces a crucial moment, as the author seeks to chart and explain its convoluted political path and dismal economic performance over the past three decades. Meeks remains surprisingly optimistic as he suggests that despite the emptying of sovereignty in the increasingly globalized world, windows to enhanced human development might open through policies of greater democracy and popular inclusion.

Brian Meeks’s novel begins with the release from jail of a young Rastafarian who was involved in the political violence that erupted when forces hostile to the radical socialist currents within the 1972 Manley administration sought to destabilize Jamaican society. As Mikey takes a minibus through Kingston, his story is told as a series of carefully crafted flashbacks. A series of encounters and the memories they provoke reveal that few have escaped unscathed from those years: there are the dead, the imprisoned, the maddened, the turncoats, and those like Mikey who carry the burden of those times. One of the encounters is, we learn in a postscript to the novel, with Rohan who, at the time of Mikey’s imprisonment, is a youth in a family with which Mikey is involved, particularly Rohan’s sister, who is killed in the shootout. Rohan has suffered this loss deeply, but has survived to move forward, while Mikey, with the stigma of his imprisonment, is trapped in the past. It is Rohan, we discover, who is telling Mikey’s story, a revelation that casts a reflexive light not only on the relationship between the actual author and the events he fictionalizes, but the relationship between the novelist who, whatever his origins, writes from a position of relative security in comparison to the lives that form his subject.

Paint the Town Red

Literature & Fiction

United States

Peepal Tree Press Ltd.

Stuart Hall, in whose honour this volume is compiled, has made significant contributions to contemporary social and political discourse. Constantly praised for his scholarly prescience, he was at the helm of the forging and definition of the discipline of Cultural Studies and nurtured an entire cadre of young intellectuals who continuee to make remarkable contributions in the fields of Cultural Studies and Social Criticism. The essays that constitue this collection, all, in different ways, contend with Hall's methodology, his philosophy, as well as many other dimensions of his rich and textured intellectual career. More importantly however, they serve to reconnect his work to the social context of his island of birth, Jamaica, and the wider Caribbean.

Culture, Politics, Race and Diaspora: The Thought of Stuart Hall (Caribbean Reasonings)

Biographies & Memoirs

Leaders & Notable People

Lawrence & Wishart Ltd

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Mastering Amazon Descriptions: An Author's Guide: Copywriting for Authors

Arts & Photography

Graphic Design

Brian Meeks

An analysis of contemporary social, political and intellectual resistance to hegemony in Caribbean societies. Beginning with the Henry Rebellion in 1960, Brian Meeks shows how popular resistance to domination was manifested in Jamaica and Trinidad until the end of the 20th century.

Narratives of Resistance: Jamaica, Trinidad, the Caribbean

University Press of the West Indies

A sophisticated comparative study of the Cuban, Nicaraguan and Grenadian revolutions, using techniques derived from J. S. Mill and perfected by Theda S. Skopol. Despite the unfulfilled promise of all three revolutions, they do suggest that people have the potential to make history and affect positive changes. Originally published by Macmillan Caribbean 1993, this classic contains a new preface by Anthony Maingot, Florida International University.

Caribbean Revolutions and Revolutionary Theory: An Assessment of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Grenada

Politics & Social Sciences

Politics & Government

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Meeks, Brian. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Meeks, Brian

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Meeks, Brian. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

After the Postcolonial Caribbean: Memory, Imagination, Hope (Black Critique)

Critical Interventions in Caribbean Politics and Theory (Caribbean Studies Series)

Critical Interventions in Caribbean Politics and Theory (Caribbean Studies Series)

Paint the Town Red

Culture, Politics, Race and Diaspora: The Thought of Stuart Hall (Caribbean Reasonings)

Mastering Amazon Descriptions: An Author's Guide: Copywriting for Authors

Narratives of Resistance: Jamaica, Trinidad, the Caribbean

Caribbean Revolutions and Revolutionary Theory: An Assessment of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Grenada