This volume is the first comprehensive treatment of modern British Guiana by a social scientist, and it is a very satisfying one. Having spent over two years in Guiana covering four separate visits between 1951 and 1958, Professor Smith reflects his experience through his writing in such a way that the reader, or at least this reader, is willing to place a large measure of confidence in the accuracy of his judgments.
Unlike many of the books that have been written on British Guiana, this one is concerned not with the primitive interior and the spectacles that nature presents but rather with the coastal people (93% of the total), their social structure, their economy, their history, and their present problems. Since the Guianese people include East Indians (both Hindu and Moslem), whites (both Catholic and Protestant), Chinese, and Africans, it is appropriate that a sociologist should undertake the task of assessing British Guiana; and the best sections of Smith’s book deal with matters of race and class and the nuances of social attitudes.
Another of the strengths of the book is that the author employs his historical sense to orient the reader not merely through the chapters on political history but also through the evolution of changing status and changing behavior of the people over the last 100 years.
Although Professor Smith makes two critical references to the only other comprehensive book of recent years on British Guiana (British Guiana. By Michael Swan. London, 1957. H.M.S.O. The Corona Library), yet I think there is certain advantage in deriving one’s understanding and picture of the country from reading both. The latter, which is also a good book of its kind, is journalistic, less analytical, directed more toward presenting to the reader a visual image of the country, and comes close to presenting the official British view of Guianese affairs. For the reader who has already read Swan’s book, Smith offers the correctives of more depth, surer analysis, the weighing of data, and a critical attitude toward the official colonial and sugar policies.
The problems of a country even as small as British Guiana are very complex. I have the feeling after laying the book down that Professor Smith, after disposing of some commonly held misconceptions, finds that he himself is not at all confident in diagnosing the present or prognosticating the future. He believes that British Guiana has the cultural basis for a single, dedicated effort to economic self-realization, but he underlines the possibility of a clash based on race. He minimizes the importance of Jagan’s leanings toward communism, but he hopes that the new regime will not blame all of its mistakes on “imperialism” and “neo-colonialism” nor resort to propaganda and imprisonment as an antidote for its own shortcomings.
The author’s style is exceedingly readable, compact, and sensibly free from technical sociological terms. A select bibliography contains valuable items of periodical literature as well as broader references.
A book like this necessarily becomes rapidly dated—more so in our fast moving times than in those of a generation ago. In both his preface and postscript, Smith brings his volume up to date as of the time of printing by commenting on the August, 1961, elections and Jagan’s diplomatic mission to the United States. He could not, however, include the riots of early 1962 against the tax program of the PPP. Dated as this book must inevitably become, it gives a broad and intelligent basis for understanding British Guiana for many years to come.
