***I was granted an ARC of this via Netgalley from the publisher.***

The history of the Caribbean is rich, complicated and has been marked by interference by outside forces. The book Freedom Roots: Histories of the Caribbean by Laurent Dubois and Richard Lee Turtis explores this. The authors explore the colonial and post-colonial impact on the island. They discuss the importance of land ownership and how important it became to the development of the Caribbean. European and then the USA sought to control and profit from the land and its valuable crops and the clash between the wants of the people and the wants of outside interests determined the history of islands like Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica. This is a very well written book. It relays its information in an engaging and succinct way. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about Caribbean history.

Rating: 4/5 stars. Would recommend to a friend

This is an in-depth explanation and exploration of the “Island Caribbean”, specifically. It tackles identities that have been forced upon the Caribbean for centuries, responses to outsiders, and is “rooted in the counterplantation movement” while also accounting “for the structures of the expansion of the African slave trade and the European economy.” The book is also “focused on on... the independent Caribbean,” “because it was at the core of both regional and global developments, above all U.S. imperial expansion, revolutionary movements, and conservative and imperial reactions to them.” One of the wild issues that is brought up is that often, the only written accounts describing indigenous Caribbean communities are from Europeans, which is obviously problematic in so many ways. Archaeologists have to depend instead on ceramics and the decoration shifts in them over time (in the Americas).
The book dives deep into many, many, other subjects, bringing plenty of sources. To say I learned a lot is an understatement. Caribbean history isn’t my strongest subject, but I could read this book a few more times and constantly pick up on something new. I really appreciate this story/history-telling.