Freedom, power and sovereignty: the thought of Gordon K. Lewis

In: Caribbean reasonings

Abstract

Homage to Gordon K. Lewis (1919-1991), Gordon K. Lewis (1919-1991) was a leading expert on the Caribbean. Lewis published many important books and articles on the Caribbean including Puerto Rico: freedom and power in the Caribbean (1962), The growth of the modern West Indies (1968), Main currents in Caribbean thought (1983) and Grenada: the jewel despoiled (1987), among others. "From his arrival in Puerto Rico in the 1950s, until his death in the early 1990s, Lewis, through his numerous publications, established himself as a Caribbean thinker. The breadth of Lewis's scholarship is revealed in these ten chapters covering his work on the Caribbean. From concepts of sovereignty and regional integration, to the nature of democracy in the contemporary Caribbean, the influence of African thought and the African Diaspora on the development of a Caribbean intellectual tradition, the influence of theology and the pursuit of a democratic socialism for the Caribbean, G.K. Lewis's work is analysed, admired and critiqued by the contributors