The Caribbean in the Wider World, 1492}}}1992 A Regional Geography [Paperback]

This major textbook survey, first published in 1992, explains how the Caribbean's present geography is intimately tied to the past.A region victimized by natural hazards, soil erosion, overpopulation and gunboat diplomacy is portrayed in this examination of successive waves of colonization of the Caribbean and the effects on its peoples over the past 500 years.A region victimized by natural hazards, soil erosion, overpopulation and gunboat diplomacy is portrayed in this examination of successive waves of colonization of the Caribbean and the effects on its peoples over the past 500 years.The Caribbean was Europe's first colony, its landscapes transformed to produce tropical staples and its decimated aboriginal populace replaced with African slaves. As European power has waned in the Caribbean, it has been replaced by the geopolitical domination of the United States. Professor Richardson examines this colonization and recolonization of the Caribbean during the past half millennium, portraying a region victimized by natural hazards, soil erosion, overpopulation and gunboat diplomacy. Most importantly, he explains the ways in which Caribbean peoples have reacted and adapted to their external influences. No other single survey of the region provides equivalent breadth--ranging from aboriginal ecologies to today's narcotic traffic--or harnesses so effectively elements of the past to illuminate the present.List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; 1. The creation of the Caribbean; 2. A colonised environment; 3. Plantations and their peoples to 1900; 4. The American century; 5. Economic dependency; 6. Human migrations; 7. Resistance and political independence; 8. Towards a geography of Caribbean nationhood; Bibliography. ...a well documented and eminently readable treatise. Further to its credit, Richardson's new Caribbean regional geography stresses two interwoven points: that the environmental bases of these islands have been fundamentally altered and devastated; al£5