The Confounding Island: Jamaica and the Postcolonial Predicament - Softcover

Orlando Patterson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674292243 ISBN 13: 9780674292246

Publisher: Belknap Press, 2023

Synopsis

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice<br />Winner of a PROSE Award<br /><br />“Fascinating…Eye-opening…Illuminating…Patterson carefully explores the complexity of the structural machinery behind Jamaica’s dazzling successes and dismal failures.”<br />―Carrie Gibson, New York Times Book Review<br /><br />“In the ruins of postcolonial Jamaica, Patterson unearths a vibrant popular culture, centered in particular on dancehall music, that can provide new resources to address the postcolonial predicament.”<br />―Adom Getachew, The Nation<br /><br />“Masterful…A memorable, nuanced, and insightful social analysis of the island and its place in global history. Highly recommended.”<br />―Daron Acemoglu, coauthor of Why Nations Fail<br /><br />There are few places more puzzling than Jamaica. Jamaicans claim their home has more churches per square mile than any other country, yet it is one of the most murderous nations in the world. Its reggae superstars and celebrity sprinters outshine musicians and athletes in countries many times its size. Jamaica’s economy is anemic and many of its people impoverished, yet they are, according to international surveys, some of the happiest on earth. In The Confounding Island, Orlando Patterson returns to the place of his birth to reckon with its contradictions.<br /><br />Patterson investigates the failures of Jamaica’s postcolonial democracy, exploring why the country has been unable to achieve broad economic growth and why its free elections and stable government have been unable to address violence and poverty. If we look closely at the Jamaican example, we see the central dilemmas of globalization, economic development, poverty reduction, and postcolonial politics thrown into stark relief.

About this title

About the Author

Orlando Patterson is John Cowles Professor of Sociology at Harvard University; the author of Freedom in the Making of Western Culture, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, and Slavery and Social Death (Harvard); and the editor of The Cultural Matrix: Understanding Black Youth (Harvard), for which he was awarded the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Lifetime Achievement. His work has been honored by the American Sociological Association and the American Political Science Association, among others, and he is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He served as Special Advisor for Social Policy and Development to Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley and was awarded the Order of Distinction by the Government of Jamaica.

Edition details

• Publisher: Belknap Press
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674292243
• ISBN 13: 9780674292246
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432