West Indies History

Successful sea rovers were careful practitioners of a complex profession that sought wealth by stratagem and force of arms. Drawn from the European tradition, yet of various races and nationalities, they raided both ship and town throughout much of the world from roughly 1630 until 1730. Using a variety of innovative tactics and often armed with little more than musket and grenade, many of these self-described "soldiers and privateers" successfully assaulted fortifications, attacked shipping from small craft, and even circumnavigated the globe.

In 1609, two years after its English founding, colonists struggled to stay alive in a tiny fort at Jamestown. John Smith fought to keep order. When he left, desperate colonists ate lizards, rats, and human flesh. Meanwhile, the Virginia-bound Sea Venture was shipwrecked on Bermuda, the dreaded, uninhabited “Isle of Devils”. Bermuda became England’s second New World colony in 1612. A Tale of Two Colonies examines the existing sources on the colonies, sets them in a transatlantic context, and weighs them against circumstantial evidence.

Following in the tradition of Richard Wright's Black Boy, Joseph Zobel's semi-autobiographical 1950 novel Black Shack Alley chronicles the coming-of-age of José, a young boy grappling with issues of power and identity in colonial Martinique. As José transitions from childhood to young adulthood and from rural plantations to urban Fort-de-France on a quest for upward mobility, he bears witness to and struggles against the various manifestations of white supremacy, both subtle and overt, that will alter the course of his life.

Este libro conjuga en breve síntesis el análisis de problemas fundamentales de la historia de Cuba con la información indispensable para comprender su peculiar evolución. Desde una perspectiva de "larga duración", el pasado cubano es examinado en sus aspectos más sobresalientes, plasmándolo en una narración de secuencia cronológica que atiende a la formación y transformación de las estructuras económicas y sociales de la isla, sin perder la vista a los protagonistas y a los diferentes escenarios de su actuación.

Spanning politics and art, music and baseball, Cuba on the Verge is a timely look at a society’s profound transformation - from inside and out. Standing on both sides of the divide between the US and Cuba, 12 of our most celebrated writers investigate this period of momentous transition.

Enthralling History offers a vivid dive into the revolutionary turmoil that changed the world. Discover the fiery spirit of a nation forged in rebellion and the heroes who led the charge toward freedom.

La isla oculta no es otro libro más sobre Cuba, un país que forma parte de nuestro imaginario colectivo desde su Revolución, sino una colección de crónicas que nos lleva a sus lugares menos conocidos con una mirada conmovedora, triste y a la vez pícara. Un puzle del último lustro de Cuba que muestra otra isla, acaso subterránea.

Gérard Salomon was born Haitian by his father and Dominican by his mother on March 21, 1954, in Cap-Haitian. His father was a non-commissioned officer in the Armed Forces of Haiti, who had a high sense of military duty. His childhood was strongly marked by the military values that his father was able to instill in him. Military service and sociology were a passion.

Cuba: una breve historia abarca el período prehispánico, pasando por la lucha de Cuba por mantener la revolución en los años posteriores al colapso de la Unión Soviética; el período posterior a la decisión de Fidel Castro de abandonar el cargo; la apertura a Cuba en 2014 por parte de la Administración Obama; la jubilación de Raúl Castro y el reemplazo como presidente en 2018 de Miguel Díaz Canal; y finalmente la revocación del compromiso de Washington con Cuba bajo el presidente Trump.

In Colonizing Paradise, historian Jefferson Dillman charts the broad spectrum of sentiments that British citizens and travelers held regarding their colonial possessions in the West Indies. Because British sentiments in the Caribbean located danger and evil not just in indigenous populations but in Spanish Catholics as well, Dillman’s work begins with the arrival of Spanish explorers and conquistadors. Colonizing Paradise spans the arrival of English ships and continues through the early nineteenth century and the colonial era.

Una biografía completa del conquistador Pizarro, con una análisis completo de los pasajes más sorprendentes de tu vida.

The 30-year regime of Papa and Baby Doc Duvalier, who ruled between 1957 and 1986, was arguably the most repressive in the Western hemisphere. Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier looks at how the father and son duo rose to power, and the results of their tight grip over Haiti.

Esta es una historia mínima de un fenómeno complejo y cambiante, en un periodo de dos décadas, llamado Revolución cubana. Mínima historia, en el sentido que dio a estos términos el historiador mexicano Daniel Cosío Villegas, allá por los años setenta. El autor de esta obra repasa las líneas maestras del cambio económico, social, político y cultural que vivió la isla entre los años cincuenta y setenta del pasado siglo.

Pirates plundered other ships on the high seas while on the brig Crawford a cunning act of piracy was perpetrated by a veteran pirate leader. He slit his own throat to escape justice while three Spaniards he recruited stood trial with the esteemed Chief Justice John Marshall presiding over the federal court in Richmond, Virginia, in 1827, a rare trial. Follow the action in a blow-by blow description of the murder and mayhem right into the courtroom.

Rum is undergoing a global renaissance. In bars and distilleries across the world, rum is being defined as a dynamic, complex, and versatile drink. New to the scene of connoisseurship, rum is a spirit of possibilities, inviting imaginative bartenders and mixologists to leave their marks on this burgeoning movement. In The New Rum, award-winning drinks author Bryce T. Bauer charts the historical and cultural journey of the spirit of the Americas from its origins in the Caribbean, to its long-held status as a cheap vacation drink, to today’s inspiring craft revival.

Coinciding with the 230 year anniversary of the establishing of the first Baptist church in Jamaica by the Ethiopian Baptist society and their brutal demise almost 150 years ago, Slavery's Heroes documents its pioneers; the men and women who, led by George Liele, advocated for a nation from enslavement to emancipation and beyond. This work offers insight into a people, a faith and a movement which demonstrated boldness, bravery and self-sacrifice.

Vivas en su jardín is the memoir of the only survivor of the Mirabal sisters, killed by Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, an event made famous by Julia Álvarez in her book In the Time of the Butterflies. Four sisters (known as the Butterflies) founded a movement defying Trujillo’s dictatorship, and three died for their beliefs. Dedé Mirabal gives readers unparalleled insight into the lives of three modern heroines. (Please note: This audiobook is in Spanish.)

In its formative years, America, birthplace of a revolution, wrestled with a volatile dilemma. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and many other founding fathers clashed. What was to be the new republic's strategy toward a revolution roiling just off its shores? From 1790 to 1810, the disagreement reverberated far beyond Caribbean waters and American coastal ports. War between France and Britain, the great powers of the time, raged on the seas and in Europe.

This story chronicles the dark side of the Carribean conquest in Hispaniola. An entire race was extinguised there by Spanish conquistadors who thirsted for gold and land.

In 1845 London, an engineer, philosopher, philanthropist, and bold-faced charlatan John Adolphus Etzler has invented machines that he thinks will transform the division of labor and free all men. He forms a collective called the Tropical Emigration Society (TES) and recruits a variety of London citizens to take his machines and his misguided ideas to form a protosocialist, utopian community in the British colony of Trinidad. Among his recruits is a teenage boy (and the audiobook's narrator) named Willy Tucker, who falls head-over-heels for the enthralling and wise Marguerite Whitechurch. Coming from the gentry, Marguerite is a world away from Willy's laboring class. As the voyage continues, and their love for one another strengthens, Willy and Marguerite prove themselves to be the true socialists aboard ship, their actions and adventures standing in stark contrast to Etzler's disconnected theories.” Robert Antoni's tragic historical novel, accented with West Indian cadences and captivating humor, provides an unforgettable glimpse into nineteenth-century Trinidad & Tobago.