Empire's Crossroads by Carrie Gibson
Ever since Christopher Columbus stepped off the Santa Maria and announced that he had arrived in the Orient, the Caribbean has been a stage for projected fantasies and competition between world powers. In Empire's Crossroads, historian Carrie Gibson offers a vivid, panoramic view of this complex region and its rich, important history. That fateful landing in 1492 soon launched a savage competition for West Indian territory that would last centuries. Gibson compellingly traces the ups and downs of European imperial expansion--including the first cash crops, failed settlements, and pirating on the open seas--but she also brilliantly describes daily life on the islands. Creole societies complicated traditional ideas about class and race, and by the end of the eighteenth century, plantation slaves in Saint-Domingue had launched the Haitian Revolution, the world's only successful slave revolt. As European control of the Caribbean loosened over the next 150 years, America was on the rise, ushering in a new era of foreign influence and the birth of the tourism industry that still thrives today. Incredibly multi-faceted and approachably written, Empire's Crossroads encompasses the narratives of more than twenty islands and reinterprets five centuries of history have been underappreciated for far too long.
Carrie Gibson is the author of the acclaimed Empire's Crossroads: A History of the Caribbean From Columbus to the Present Day. She received a PhD from Cambridge University, focusing on the Spanish Caribbean in the era of the Haitian Revolution, and has worked as a journalist for the Guardian and contributed to other publications, as well as the BBC. She has done research across Mexico, the West Indies, and the United States. She lives in London.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780802124319 |
| ISBN 10 | 0802124313 |
| Title | Empire's Crossroads |
| Author | Carrie Gibson |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Grove Press |
| Year published | 2015-11-10 |
| Number of pages | 480 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |