Eric Eustace Williams

Eric E. Williams was the first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago.

Williams’ controversial book on the abolition and emancipation of British West Indian slavery, Capitalism and Slavery (1944), reframed the historiography of the British trans-Atlantic slave trade, and established the contribution of Caribbean slavery to the development of Britain.

Published in nine languages – including Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Turkish and Korean, a tenth, Dutch, is in process. Editions of the Portuguese, French and Spanish translations are once again available.

Major publications include: The Negro in the Caribbean, History of the People of Trinidad and Tobago, British Historians and the West Indies, From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean, 1492-1969. Several of these have been translated into Chinese and Japanese.