Kimani S.K Nehusi

This work is a multi-disciplinary reconstruction, analysis and evaluation of the development, organisation and mobilisation of political consciousness in Guyana between the legal termination of physical enslavement in 1838 and the very eve of flag-and-anthem independence in 1966. Guyanese transformed themselves from disempowered colonial subjects to citizens of variable levels of awareness and empowerment during those one hundred and twenty-six years of struggle. By the end of the study the first stirrings of political consciousness of the 1840s had become a fully blown anti-colonial social movement that reflected itself particularly in ideology, education, the media, the arts, sport and economic, social and political organisation. Numerous organisations, themes, issues and tendencies within the movement receive careful attention in rigorous interrogation through the prisms of class, occupation, race, gender, colour and personality.

A critical dialogue is maintained throughout the text with a multitude of sources of numerous kinds. Trajectories in economic and social development, the evolving sense of Guianese nationality, the prevailing social and political values, attitudes and behaviours and the resulting mood of the country at critical junctures in its history, as well as the Caribbean background, are regularly updated and skilfully interwoven into the text to continuously illuminate the evolving story. The result is a single, continuous, carefully nuanced, well balanced and superbly organised narrative that presents the complex political evolution of the country in an easily intelligible and extremely readable text.

Comprehensive, authoritative and timely, the Guyanese and Caribbean public and members of their numerous communities across the world, students and teachers in high schools, lecturers and students in the humanities and social sciences in colleges and universities, international workers, politicians – indeed everyone with an interest in understanding Guyana in particular and the Caribbean in general, will find this work not merely necessary, but invaluable also.

‘At long last, a comprehensive text on the political history of Guyana ... an invaluable companion text for researchers who want to understand the foundations of the country’s fragile and tragic modern politics.’   NIGEL WESTMAAS, HAMILTON COLLEGE, USA

• 228 x 152 mm
• 716 pages
• Paperback

Kimani Nehusi is Associate Professor, Department of Afrikology and African American Studies, Temple University, USA; Research Associate at the Institute for Economic Research on Innovation, Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa and Walter Rodney Professor of History at the University of Guyana.