Frank Birbalsingh

This is a collection of interviews with members (and opponents) of the party, and with commentators who observed the party closely for a long time.

Interviewees include founding party members such as Dr Cheddi Jagan and his wife, Janet, Ashton Chase, Eusi Kwayana, Martin Carter, Eric Huntley, and commentators from the wider Caribbean such as Richard Hart, Lloyd Best, George Lamming and George Belle, as well as independent Guyanese observers such as Father Andrew Morrison, a Roman Catholic priest, Randolph George, former Anglican Bishop of Guyana, and David de Caires, a national newspaper editor.

From such people, one gets a many-sided view of the origins, crises and personalities of the party, and of issues of class, colour and ethnicity which, along with external Cold War factors, played a crucial role in the party’s exclusion from power for most of the second half of the twentieth century.

The fate of the PPP also vividly illustrates the shift in hegemonic power from Britain to the United States, after the Second World War, especially where the Caribbean and Latin America are concerned.

The informal oral medium of the interview makes for a lively text that is more willing to trade punches than staid academic writing. The People’s Progressive Party of Guyana conveys the insights of academic writing in a fresh, readable and entertaining format.

• 228 x 152 mm
• 208 pages
• Paperback