The Legacies of Caribbean Radical Politics

Book excerpt: The year 2009 marked the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution and the thirtieth anniversary of the Grenadian and Nicaraguan Revolutions, and as such offered an occasion to assess the complex legacies of revolutionary politics in the Caribbean. This volume considers what we might learn from such revolutionary projects and their afterlives, from their successes and their errors. It explores what struggles, currently underway in the Caribbean, share with these earlier and longer revolutionary traditions, and how they depart from them. It analyzes radical movements in Jamaica, Grenada, Cuba, Venezuela, Guadeloupe, Suriname, and Guyana, not only in their national dimensions, but in terms of their regional linkages and mutual influences. The chapters are drawn from various disciplines and a range of democratic leftist projects. They consider not only state and party politics, but also civil society, cultural politics and artistic production, strikes, and grassroots activism. This book was published as a special issue of Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies.