Peripheral Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Antigua

Professor Henry provides the first modern systematic account of Antiguan society in a postcolonial period. Its importance is theoretical no less than empirical, providing a framework for understanding small-nation development as part of the peripheral area of the international capitalist system; it also clarifies the impact of that peripheralization on the nature and patterns of the growth of the Caribbean nation’s economic, political, and cultural institutions. He gives a sociohistorical analysis of the slavery and postslavery periods in which modern Antigua has its roots. Through his account of the peripheralization of Antigua to Europe and then to America, Henry provides a new theoretical framework for the treatment of postcolonial cultural systems, constructed within the categorical framework of dependency theory. By synthesizing in one systematic account the major social and historical forces that have been crucial in the making of a small Caribbean nation, he makes a major contribution to Third World studies.