You are welcome to use a seminar question for your title (compiled here). When looking for readings, remember that there are two lists for most weeks - one linked to the seminar and one for the associated lecture. Do use both. The various texts on the Core Reading List are another good place to start.

• ‘[I]t is inaccurate to refer to the Caribbean as a “cultural area”, if by “culture” is meant a common body of historical tradition…It probably would be accurate…to refer to the Caribbean as a “societal area”, since its components societies probably share more social-structural features than they do cultural features’ (Mintz, 1966). Critically assess this statement.
• ‘Abolitionism itself, no matter how well intended, was not the same as the victory over racism’ (Pieterse, 1992). Critically evaluate this statement in relation to the Caribbean.
• ‘Historically, the Caribbean is perhaps the most globalised world region’ (Potter, et al., 2004). Discuss.
• ‘Social groups that did not fit within the broader pattern of white free/black enslaved posed a problem for Caribbean plantation societies’. Discuss.
• ‘The arrival and proliferation of the plantations is the most important historical phenomenon to have come about in the Caribbean’ (Benítez-Rojo, 1992). Critically assess this statement.
• According to Edward Long, why were people of African descent well-suited to be used as enslaved workers in the Caribbean?
• As described by Richard Ligon, what are the main elements that went into the production of sugar?
• Commenting on his book, The Black Jacobins (1938; 1963; 1980) and its treatment of the Haitian Revolution, C. L. R. James said that he wanted to “write a book in which…people of African descent instead of constantly being the object of other peoples’ exploitation…would themselves be…shaping other people to their own needs”. Critically assess James’s approach.
• Compare and contrast the pre- and post-Columbian colonizations of the Caribbean?
• Critically evaluate the statement that the Caribbean plantations of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were ‘landmark experiments in modernity’ (Mintz, 1996).
• David Howard has suggested that resistance is “one of the most enduring legacies of colonialism” (Howard, 2004) in the Caribbean. Assess this claim with reference to specific Caribbean examples.
• Did Columbus find what he was looking for in the Caribbean? Explain your answer.
• Explain Eric Williams' thesis about the relationship between Caribbean slavery and Western industrial capitalism. What are the key criticisms of Eric Williams' thesis about capitalism and slavery?
• Explain the “Creole-society model” (Allen, 2002) with reference to specific Caribbean examples.
• Explain the origin of the idea that parts of the Caribbean were inhabited by cannibals. What were the consequences of this understanding?
• Explain the racial theory evident in Edward Long’s History of Jamaica.
• How did planters seek to establish and maintain their power in seventeenth-century Barbados? What challenges and threats did they face?
• How did planters seek to maintain their power in seventeenth-century Barbados? What challenges did they face?
• In A small place, Jamaica Kincaid describes the Western tourist in the Caribbean as ‘an ugly human being’ (Kincaid, 1988). Critically assess her assertion.
• In his letter announcing his discovery, how did Columbus seek to ‘imaginatively’ colonise the region?
• In the 1963 edition of The Black Jacobins, C. L. R. James argued that the Haitian and Cuban Revolutions were products of a common Caribbean context. Assess this claim.
• In what ways can the Caribbean be considered to be a coherent region?
• In what ways did the Maroons pose a threat to Jamaica’s plantation system? How did the authorities attempt to deal with this?
• Joseph Roach has argued that ‘a New World was not discovered in the Caribbean, but one was truly invented there’ (Roach, 1996). Assess this statement.
• Sidney Mintz has described the plantations created by colonial empires across the Caribbean from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries as “landmark experiments in modernity” (Mintz, 1996). Discuss.
• The abolition of slavery in the Caribbean changed the terms of, but did not end, the struggle between former masters and former slaves. Discuss.
• To what extent do you agree that without the development of plantations, the countries of the Caribbean might today be “miniature replicas” of the European nations that colonized them (Benítez-Rojo, 1992)? Explain your answer.
• Was 1898 a ‘watershed year in the history of the Americas’ or the ‘culmination of long-standing trends’ (Winston James in Palmié and Scarano (eds), The Caribbean, 2011, p. 449)?
• What are the main elements in the production of sugar as described by Richard Ligon?
• What characteristics, processes and/or institutions define the Caribbean?
• What does Richard Ligon’s History of Barbados reveal about the attitudes of white people to enslaved people of African descent?
• What is Columbus’s assessment of the indigenous population? How does he distinguish between different groups of indigenous people?
• What is the most significant year in the modern history of the Caribbean? Explain your answer.
• What were the main similarities and differences between colonialism in the Caribbean and that in either North America or Latin America? What were the consequences of the differences?
• What were the origins of Jamaica’s Maroons? What happened to them?
• Why did Caribbean planters use African enslaved labour?
• Why does Sidney Mintz argue that the Caribbean should not be thought of as a 'cultural area'?Why was the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) ‘unthinkable’ (Trouillot, 1991)?
• Why was the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) ‘unthinkable’ (Trouillot, 1991)?
• What were the causes of the Haitian Revolution?
• Was the Haitian Revolution a success? Explain your answer.
• In what ways is the thesis of Eric Williams about the abolition of Caribbean slavery an example of economic determinism?
• What is 'econocide' and how does this idea challenge Eric Williams' explanation for the abolition of slavery in the British West Indies?
• Outline the 'decline thesis' and explain its significance for understanding the abolition of slavery.
• What were the similarities and differences between resistance to the status quo before and after emancipation?
• Answer with reference to specific Caribbean examples.
• What were the causes of the Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica in 1865?
• How did the authorities react to the Morant Bay Rebellion?