This volume presents papers by George Beckford which cover topics ranging from agricultural economics to political economy, to the social economy of man space, to the cultural roots of Caribbean creativity and a vision of one independent, sovereign and self-reliant Caribbean nation.

This is a revised edition of a seminal work on the nature of underdevelopment. It includes a new foreword and appendixes on the significance of plantations to Third World economies and the contribution that George Beckford made to Caribbean economic thought.

This important book provides a fascinating insight into the conceptual under-pinnings of the theory of plantation economy initiated by Lloyd Best and Kari Levitt in the 1960s as a basis for analysing the nature of the Caribbean economy. While acknowledging an intellectual debt to Latin American structuralists and also to the work of Dudley Seers and William Demas, the authors develop an original and innovative analytical framework as a counter to more "universalist" models which failed to take account of the Caribbean reality. Their work identifies the main features of the plantation economy as a hinterland characterized by subordination and dependency on the dominant metropole. Distinguishing between hinterlands of conquest, settlement and exploitation, Best and Levitt analyse the rules that determine this complex relationship with the metropole. Their economic theories are presented against a background of the historical factors that gave rise to the "structural continuity" of Caribbean economies and which now impede meaningful structural transformation. Book jacket.

Chapters emphasize exploration of substantive questions about political life in a range of global contexts, with attention to whether and how those questions may be shared, contested, or reformulated across differences of time, space, and experienceAn interdisciplinary volume that bridges the gaps between various traditions, regions, and concerns regarding political theoryProvides tags and keywords to aid navigation of the handbook and help readers trace disruptions, thematic connections, and conceptual contrasts across entries.

The Challenge of Blackness examines the history and legacy of the Institute of the Black World (IBW), one of the most important Black Freedom Struggle organizations to emerge in the aftermath of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A think tank based in Atlanta, the IBW sought to answer King's question "Where do we go from here?" Its solution was to organize a broad array of leading Black activists, scholars, and intellectuals to find ways to combine the emerging academic discipline of Black Studies with the Black political agenda. Throughout the 1970s, debates over race and class in the Unites States grew increasingly hostile, and the IBW's approach was ultimately unable to challenge the growing conservatism. By using the IBW as the lens through which to view these turbulent years, Derrick White provides an exciting new interpretation of the immediate post-civil rights years in America.