Book review : The Grenada revolution : Reflections and lessons

Abstract

Political factions, ideological, generational and gender divides, and geographical and national differences are among the categories across which varying insights develop on the Grenada Revolution. The socialist-inspired revolution began on March 13, 1979 when a cadre of young radicals, the New Jewel Movement (NJM), seized power from the nation’s first prime minister, Eric Gairy, and formed the People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG). Buoyed by early popular support, the PRG governed the island-nation of 100,000 people for four and a half years until an internal power struggle led to the assassination of prime minister Maurice Bishop by members of his own military. A US military invasion of Grenada followed within days. The revolution and the US invasion were firsts in the Anglophone Caribbean, and changed the face of politics in the region. The Grenada revolution offers readers a multidisciplinary range of accounts reflecting on the place of the revolution in national and regional contexts. (The collection appeared in 2015; and almost all chapters were drafted in 2013: the authors refer to reflecting on Grenada 30 years after the revolution’s October 1983 collapse.) [excerpt from the review]