On the Very Idea of the Making of Modern Jamaica

Abstract

This essay introduces the project of rethinking the cultural-political historiography of Jamaica of which “The Jamaican 1960s” is a contribution. It sets out the question in relation to the idea of a Jamaican intellectual tradition. Specifically, it inquires into the way the idea of the making of a “modern” Jamaica has been crucial to a nationalist historiography—a paradigm that might be less cogent in the contemporary period.