W. Bradford Wiley Professor of Economics Emeritus Jay Mandle published his latest book, Essays on the Political Economy of the Anglophone Caribbean (University of Guyana Press), on Oct. 6.
In his newest work, Mandle, who is a member of the advisory board of the University of Guyana Green Institute, critically examines the region’s failure to fully realize the ideals articulated by intellectuals, scholars, and political thinkers such as Walter Rodney, Lloyd Best, and Arthur Lewis. He follows the lead of Best, who maintained that “we have to make sense of our own reality in terms of what we learn from what is on the ground.”
In making sense of the national, regional, and geopolitical issues that have shaped the political economies of Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago, Mandle emphasises that there is still hope, as these nations possess the potential to identify opportunities for economic and political advancement within the global economy.
From his examination of economic diversification, using Trinidad and Tobago as a case study, to his discussion of the growing threat of climate change to the coastal city of Georgetown, Guyana, Mandle addresses issues that warrant the attention of political leaders, policymakers, and academic researchers. In this regard, Essays on the Political Economy of the Anglophone Caribbean offers an engaging, accessible, and thought-provoking examination of key events and debates that have underpinned the development discourse of these countries.
Through his body of work and ongoing research on the region, Mandle continues to interrogate prevailing hypotheses that have emerged from thoughtful theoretical work on the Caribbean. According to Mandle, this process of critical inquiry is essential to learning, a pursuit in which everyone should have the opportunity to engage, and one that should be accessible to the wider population as the region seeks to advance its development and economic diversification.