Brother's Keeper

In 1962, amidst the Cuban Revolution, Third World decolonization, and the African American freedom movement, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago became the first British West Indian colonies to gain independence. These were not only the first new nations in the western hemisphere in more than fifty years; they also won their independence without the bloodshed that marked so much of the decolonization struggle elsewhere. Jason Parker's international history of the peaceful transition in these islands analyzes the roles of the United States, Britain, the West Indies, and the transnational African diaspora in the process, from its 1930s stirrings to its Cold War culmination. Grounded in exhaustive research conducted in seven countries, Brother's Keeper offers an original rethinking of the relationship between the Cold War and Third World decolonization.

Jason C. Parker is Assistant Professor of History at Texas A & M University.