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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
The first complete history of the Caribbean islands--updated through the year 2000.

This comprehensive volume takes the reader and student through more than five hundred years of Caribbean history, beginning with Columbus's arrival in the Bahamas in 1492. A Brief History of the Caribbean traces the people and events that have marked this constantly shifting region, encompassing everything from economic booms and busts to epidemics, wars, and revolutions, and bringing to life such important figures as Sir Francis Drake, Blackbeard, Toussaint Louverture, Fidel Castro, the Duvaliers, and Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

This superbly written history, revised and updated, with new chapters that reflect the islands' most recent social, economic, and political developments, is a work of impeccable scholarship. Featuring maps, charts, tables, and photographs, it remains the ideal guide to the region and its people.

"A veritable sourcebook of information . . . analysis, description, interpretation . . . interesting and useful."--Library Journal

Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...

1 out of 5 stars

Don't buy this book August 12, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

Although some of the early chapters on the Caribs and colonialism are okay once Mr Rogozonski gets on to Cuba he lets his imagination run free.
Yes Castro has setup a dictatorship in Cuba, yes political freedoms are extremly limited, and yes the island has attempted that most evil crimes of COMMUNISM. But that is no reason for this book to make historically incorrect and factually unsupported claims about the state of Cuban healthcare and education.
I quote "the regime supplied free public services, but these were of poor quality...Although doctors and dentists no longer charged, their services were far inferior to those prior to the revolution...the government drastically lowered education standards. Infectous dieseases increased, general death rates rose, and infant mortality increased".
Now these statements by Mr Rogozonski are all completely fictional. Facts from far superior books on Cuba show these lies to be false:
-Investment in social services rapidly increased from just 25.80 pesos spent per person in 1960 to 423 in 1983, helping the decline of malnutrition from 40% to below 4% in the early 80s
-a 1997 estimate showed 1,800 HIV carriers and just 666 with aids.
--From Cuba in Focus by Hatchwell and Calder
-by 1992 infant mortality had dropped to 10.2 per 1,000 births and maternal mortality stood at 3 per 10,000 births.--from Gerald Lievesly book
-In the 1982-3 school year Cuba had approximately 250,000 teachers and professors, and by 1984 the teaching population was around eleven times higher than in 1959.--from Sandor Halebsky and John Kirk book
-and rect World Health Organisation stats show that a baby born in Havana is more likely to live than one born in Cuba.

In the same chapter Rogozinski Makes more claims such as 'Henry Kissinger adopted a conciliatory approach towards Cuba government'...---that would be whilst the CIA continued to attempt to assisinate Castro, destroy crops, and support terrorist attacks on Cuba then??!!

Advice for Mr Rogozinski WRITE BOOKS USING ACTUAL HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE AND FACTS RATHER THAN BASING IT ON FLAGRANT ANTI-CUBAN BIAS.

5 out of 5 stars

Caribbean history March 9, 2007
1 out of 3 found this review helpful

I found this a very readable, workmanlike and surprisingly comprehensive book for one with so wide a compass.

5 out of 5 stars

Excellent, but Rogonzinki's conservatism is obvious September 30, 2006
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

This is an excellent book for the lay student of the Caribbean. The author provides a wonderful array and facts and stories giving the book just the right feel between textbook and a readable work. All of the necessary details pour out to give the reader an amazing look into the heritage of the Caribbean. A special admiration goes to the author for his work in explaining the role of pirates (or privateers, depending on the day) in the power politics of the imperial rivalries in the Caribbean. A slight criticism comes in Rogonzinki's descriptions of the Native Americans, which seems to agree with the paternalistic descriptions of them put forth by the colonizers. But aside from that and similar conservative slants, this is an excellent book.

2 out of 5 stars

Very dry history April 28, 2006
6 out of 8 found this review helpful

I was very excited when i bought this book since i am from the Caribbean.However i was disappointed with it. The authors way of telling the story is very dry and sometimes hard to follow.On several parts of the book i found myself trying to read fast so i can get to the real interesting parts. I believe that the author relies too much on the economics of the region while avoiding telling us important events and information on the region.For example he never tells us why the islands were named with the names that they have today.Why Cuba? Where doest it come from? Why Antigua? Why Martinique? Sometimes this book reads like an economics report which makes it very dull and boring at times.I guess the author assumes you know most of the story.Again, very dull and dry history on a region that is full of history and action.

1 out of 5 stars

Larry Z is right September 4, 2004
10 out of 17 found this review helpful

I have to agree with Larry Z, this book is horrible. Due to the scarcity of books on Caribbean history I thought this book would be a great addition to my library, I was wrong. Rogozinski's perspective on the history of the caribbean is definitely from a conservative american view, and at times seems racially biased and eurocentric.

I would love to read a history of the Caribbean that includes some Caribbean influenced nations like Guyana, Belize, and Panama, that are definitely extensions of West Indian culture and share the same history. If you are a West Indian or interested in the history of the West Indies this book is not for you. If you are a eurocentric thinker and looking for another skewed history of a people then this book is for you.

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