African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
240 p., When the South American colony now known as Guyana was due to gain independence from Britain in the 1960s, U.S. officials in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations feared it would become a communist nation under the leadership of Cheddi Jagan, a Marxist who was very popular among the South Asian (mostly Indian) majority. Although to this day the CIA refuses to confirm or deny involvement, Rabe presents evidence that CIA funding, through a program run by the AFL-CIO, helped foment the labor unrest, race riots, and general chaos that led to Jagan's replacement in 1964.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
311 p, Product Description This book examines the role of the Vichy regime in bringing about profound changes in the French colonial empire after World War II. In the war’s aftermath, the French colonial system began to break down. Indochina erupted into war in 1945 and Madagascar in 1947, while Guadeloupe chose an opposite course, becoming territorially part of France in 1946. The book traces the introduction of an integralist ideology of “National Revolution” to the French colonial realm, shedding new light on the nature of the Vichy regime, on the diversity of French colonialism, and on the beginnings of decolonization. Encompassing three very different regions and cultures, the study reveals both a unity in Vichy’s self-reproduction overseas and a diversity of forms which this ideological cloning assumed. World War II is often presented as an agent of change in the French colonial empire only insofar as it engendered a loss of prestige for France as colonizer. The author argues that Marshal Philippe Pétain’s Vichy regime contributed to decolonization in a much more substantial way, by ushering in an ideology based on a new, harsher brand of colonialism that both directly and indirectly fueled indigenous nationalism. The author also rejects the popular notion that Nazi pressure lurked behind the Vichy government’s colonial actions, and that the regime lacked any real agency in colonial affairs. He shows that, far from allowing the Germans to run French colonies from behind the scenes, Vichy leaders vigorously promoted their own undiluted form of ultra-conservative ideology throughout the French empire. They delivered to the colonies an authoritarianism that not only elicited fierce opposition but sowed the seeds of nationalist resurgence among indigenous cultures. Ironically, the regime awoke long-dormant nationalist sentiments by introducing to the empire Pétain’s cherished themes of authenticity, tradition, folklore, and völkism. (Amazon) ;
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
245 p, Contents: The politics of postcolonial nationalist literature / The nation as problem and possibility / Caribbean space: Lamming, Naipaul, and federation / The novel after the nation: Nigeria after Biafra / The persistence of the nation: literature and criticism in Canada / National culture and globalization
Examines the play The Case of Miss Iris Armstrong and documentary film Sweet Sugar Rage. Looks at the way the sexual division of labor on Jamaica's sugar plantations was based on the following gendered myths: women's labor capacity is lower than their male counterparts; and men are the breadwinners for their families.
