Caribbean History in Global Context

This course is an overview of Caribbean history from the time of the European-Indigenous encounter through the present day. Students will explore how conquest and colonialism, slavery and emancipation, independence struggles and neo-imperialism, neoliberalism, and environmental disaster have shaped this diverse region today. 

Rather than consider the Caribbean a socio-political backwater, this course will examine the manifold ways the Caribbean has long been, as one scholar puts it, the “center of the earth.” The battleground of empires, the Caribbean has played a major role in the Industrial Revolution, the rise of Western Europe and of the United States, and multiple transnational struggles against exploitation, imperialism, and racism. Throughout this course, students will study the roles that race, class, nationality, and gender have had on historical processes in the region, and particular attention will be paid to marginalized and oppressed women and men, who have shaped Caribbean history for over five hundred years. This course draws upon a variety of interdisciplinary materials, including primary and secondary historical texts, as well as fiction, film, music, painting, and photography.