The collection of commentaries, essays and articles that comprise the main part of this publication are pen pictures that result from the focus of a distinguished son of the Caribbean Lloyd Best through his unique lens, on the thinking and actions of some Caribbean persons considered influential. The lens chosen is a composite one that was constructed more than three decades ago and perfected over that time. The publication emphasizes the need to distrust and abhor automatic imitation of western scientism and western propaganda if one is to be able to understand and prescribe for the affairs of the Caribbean, in other words it advocates the eschewing of automatic mimicry in things technological or otherwise. The publication offers a selection of essays as our Caribbean forest of memes to savour. In true Caribbean style it is a forest of mixed species and therefore a source of exquisite laminates for the furniture of regional development. This peek offered by this publication into some of the minds of our great Caribbean intellectuals through the window of one such mind, will contribute significantly to the nurturing of thought, the strengthening resolve to understand the Caribbean and to contribute to its continued development.

Foci of publications This publication is intended to be an invaluable tool to the avid researcher on Caribbean regionalism and related subjects. The range of papers presented, probe areas such as the institutional development of one of the most enduring economic integration systems in the international community, the workings of its major institutions and indeed its very survival. The importance of record keeping to the survival of any institution or major grouping is the message that permeates this volume given its role in enabling an understanding of our past and in the holistic development and preservation of the region’s cultural identity.

For the past 30 years, Paget Henry has been one of the most articulate and creative voices in Caribbean scholarship, making seminal contributions to the study of Caribbean political economy, C.L.R. James studies, critical theory, phenomenology, and Africana philosophy. In the case of Afro-Caribbean philosophy, he inaugurated a new philosophical school of inquiry. Journeys in Caribbean Thought: The Paget Henry Reader outlines the trajectory of Henry’s scholarly career, beginning and ending with his most recent work on the distinctive character of Africana and Caribbean philosophy and political and intellectual leadership in his home of Antigua and Barbuda. In between, the book returns to Henry’s early consideration of the relationship of political economy to cultural flourishing or stagnation and how both should be studied, and to the problem with which Henry began his career, of peripheral development through a focus on Caribbean political economy and democratic socialism. Henry’s canonical work in Anglo-Caribbean thought draws upon a heavily creolized canon.

The present era of economic devastation, legacies of colonization and imperialism, climate change and habitat loss, calls for a new understanding of ethics. These essays on otherness, responsibility and hospitality raise urgent questions. Contributors range from the prominent--including Levinas, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Giorgio Agamben--to recent theorists such as Judith Butler, Enrique Dussell and Rosi Braidotti. The essays emphasize the always vulnerable status of a radically different Other, even as they question what responsibility to that Other might mean.