Main Currents in Caribbean Thought: The Historical Evolution of Caribbean Society in Its Ideological Aspects, 1492-1900

Main Currents in Caribbean Thought probes deeply into the multicultural origins of Caribbean society, defining and tracing the evolution of the distinctive ideology that has arisen from the region's unique historical mixture of peoples and beliefs. Among the topics that noted scholar Gordon K. Lewis covers are the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century beginnings of Caribbean thought, pro- and antislavery ideologies, the growth of Antillean nationalist and anticolonialist thought during the nineteenth century, and the development of the region's characteristic secret religious cults from imported religions and European thought.

Since its original publication in 1983, Main Currents in Caribbean Thought has remained one of the most ambitious works to date by a leader in modern Caribbean scholarship. By looking into the “Caribbean mind,” Lewis shows how European, African, and Asian ideas became creolized and Americanized, creating an entirely new ideology that continues to shape Caribbean thought and society today.

Gordon K. Lewis was a professor of political science at the University of Puerto Rico and an author of several books, including Puerto Rico: Freedom and Power in the Caribbean and Growth of the Modern West Indies. Anthony P. Maingot is a professor of sociology at Florida International University and was a member of the Constitutional Reform Commission of Trinidad, 1971–74. He is the author of The United States and the Caribbean: Challenges of an Asymmetrical Relationship.